Ioanna Sakellaraki and the Mark Left by Fire — Blind Journal

At first, there’s hearth. Not as an explosion, not as spectacle, however as a presence that lingers. A column of incandescent particles rises from the bottom, illuminating the evening like a wound that refuses to shut. Two figures run, their our bodies caught between concern and familiarity. Elsewhere, kids stand nonetheless, watching the earth burn as if it have been a part of the panorama, one thing recognized, inherited, virtually bizarre. In “The Mark of a Terrible Sun,” Ioanna Sakellaraki doesn’t {photograph} disaster as an occasion. She images what stays as soon as disaster has already handed via lives, our bodies, and reminiscence.

The challenge unfolds throughout volcanic areas, the place eruptions are a part of collective reminiscence and every day uncertainty. Sakellaraki’s photos transfer between individuals and landscapes, moments of ready and moments of aftermath. Children stand at a distance from glowing lava fountains. Adults cross scorched floor. Faces stay calm, generally resigned, generally unreadable. Nothing right here is spectacular within the conventional sense. The hazard is current, however contained — as if absorbed into the rhythm of life.

Sakellaraki didn’t arrive as a witness chasing disaster. Her method is slower, constructed on statement and proximity. “I was interested in how people live with the constant possibility of destruction,” she explains. “How memory, fear, and resilience coexist in places shaped by volcanic activity.” The images aren’t in regards to the eruption itself, however about what stays earlier than and after — the psychological imprint left behind.

She selected analogue medium format pictures intentionally. Working with movie allowed her to decelerate, to simply accept uncertainty, and to deal with the picture as a bodily object fairly than a hard and fast doc. Sakellaraki images on movie, then alters the pictures afterwards by layering traces of magma captured throughout volcanic eruptions onto the images. These glowing particles aren’t ornamental results however bodily residues, reintroduced into the picture as marks. They settle throughout our bodies and landscapes, remaining seen lengthy after the occasion itself — very like the reminiscence of catastrophe.

The course of is each easy and radical. By intervening straight on the photographic floor, Sakellaraki refuses the thought of the picture as impartial proof. The images grow to be altered objects, carrying scars. The magma doesn’t erase what’s beneath; it coexists with it. A baby’s silhouette stays seen via the glowing mud. A lady’s face emerges beneath darkened stains. The intervention doesn’t overpower the scene — it lingers.

This physicality echoes the best way volcanic disasters are remembered. They don’t disappear as soon as the lava cools. They stay embedded in tales, gestures, and landscapes. “The traces of the eruption stay with people,” Sakellaraki notes. “Even when life resumes, something has changed.” Her photos replicate this persistence. The marks can’t be cleaned away. They grow to be a part of the {photograph}’s floor, simply as catastrophe turns into a part of lived expertise.

Throughout the sequence, the connection between people and nature isn’t framed as heroic or tragic. Instead, it’s quiet and unresolved. People are proven adapting fairly than resisting. Children watch eruptions from afar, not in panic however in silence. Adults transfer cautiously throughout altered terrain. The volcano is neither enemy nor spectacle — it’s merely there.

Sakellaraki’s colour palette reinforces this stress. Deep reds, blacks, and glowing yellows dominate the pictures, contrasting with moments of blue gentle or shadowed vegetation. Fire and darkness coexist. The landscapes really feel unstable, but surprisingly acquainted. These aren’t distant, unique places; they’re inhabited areas.

These photos additionally query the bounds of pictures itself. Can a picture comprise an expertise that’s ongoing, unresolved, and cyclical? Sakellaraki doesn’t try to reply this straight. Instead, she permits the method to talk. By altering the images, she acknowledges that the picture alone is inadequate — that one thing else have to be added to convey the burden of what occurred.

“The photograph becomes a site of memory,” she writes. Not a report of a single second, however a layered floor the place time collapses. Past eruptions bleed into current photos. Fear and routine overlap. The seen and the invisible merge. “The Mark of a Terrible Sun” is neither documentary nor purely conceptual. It occupies a fragile house between testimony and transformation.

The hearth fades. The floor cools. Life continues. But the mark stays.

More information on Ioanna Sakellaraki here.