In this stagnant space, in this gap between eras, Greek landscapes look bizarre, cut off the real world, pending for their unknown fate, as a visualization of the inner state of their inhabitants. The horizon is hidden, preventing us to see what’s yet to come. Could this blurry atmosphere be smoke from a violent riot, the Sahara desert’s dust cloud or maybe, is it just a morning fog?
Empty highways, solar panel fields, constructions left unfinished, rotten watermelons and torn flags seem stuck in an intermediate state, portraying the current situation, like distorted symbols of a bygone era of growth. In this serene rural scenery, far away from the city’s battlefield, there is a subtle feeling of uncannyness. The depicted structures stand as a kind of neo-ruins, all of them have a part of the story to tell, but we have to look closer to discover it. Although photographed as landscapes, it’s not nature, but the human presence through its absence, that is the subject of the photographs.
Found in this situation of not being able to look forward while the past seems already distant and out of reach, disorientation is what one feels. Relying on expectations is not a choice , neither memories can provide a shelter. There is nothing certain except the situation itself.
About the author:
Maria Mavropoulou was born in 1989 and she lives and works in Athens, Greece.
She is an Athens School of Fine Arts graduate (2014) having attended courses of painting, sculpture and photography. Currently she is getting her Master in Fine Arts. Her work has been presented in exhibitions in Greece and abroad. She is member of the collective of artists Depression Era that inhabit the urban and social landscapes of the crisis in Greece.
