Waiting to be a Flower Underneath the Fig Tree

Inspired by the ever-changing family histories and tales passed down through generations, Waiting to be a Flower Underneath the Fig Tree is a body of work that hinges between fact and fiction, lived history and told story. Set in a small Aegean village scented with fig trees and saline, this is where three of my grandparents were born and from where they have since moved away. Caressed by the waves and the gentle tides of the sea, it is a landscape dotted with abandoned villages whose histories are entangled with the expulsion and compulsory population exchange across the sea, the rebirth of Narcissus and the ultimate demise of Echo. Stepping into the territory as an outsider partially anchored to it through familial bonds and equipped with the camera as my recording device, the space becomes a stage for me to wander and (re)interpret, (re)tell and visually form these stories laced with magic, mythology, hyperbole and truth. Returning to my darkroom, new sediments of subjectivity are layered over these increasingly malleable and fragile narratives, allowing me construct a new visual family archive.