The Mark of a Terrible Sun

PHOTOGRAPHY

Apr 7

Photographer Ioanna Sakellaraki presents a poetic exploration of disaster and resilience in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Through haunting imagery of Melanesia, the project blurs the line between history and myth, destruction and survival. The Mark of a Terrible Sun will be on view at Hillvale Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, from April 10 to May 11.

Photography Ioanna Sakellaraki

Disasters are the absolute event of history and any knowledge we have of them is built around, with and against the marks left behind them. The Mark of a Terrible Sun is an intimate portrait of the lands and people of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the most seismically and volcanically active zone in the world.

Stretching around the edges of the Pacific Ocean, this circular ring of disasters is a 40,000- kilometer zone that includes roughly 90 percent of all earthquakes and 75 percent of all active volcanoes across the globe. The first part of the project focuses on the lands and people under the shadow of the volcanoes situated on the southwest trench of the ring and more specifically on the part of the region of Melanesia including Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, seeking to investigate how these ongoing disasters, as witnessed through archives and re-lived today, can shape a culture of resilience shared amongst the Melanesian communities impacted.

Photographed under the lava and ashes of past and ongoing volcanic activity and the historical remnants of the Pacific war in the region, the work is primarily concerned with the obscure traces of the disaster as an interspace dealing with ideas of destruction and survival and the exploration of heterotopias that might creatively synthesize new composites and assemblages of interpretation. In this sense, the images blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction reflecting upon the possibilities an expanded photographic practice can offer in relation to the disaster as the prompt for future scenarios positioned in the gap between historical knowledge, presentation, the image and narration.

“Disasters are the absolute event of history and any knowledge we have of them is built around, with and against the marks left behind them.”

About Ioanna

Ioanna Sakellaraki (b.1989) is a Greek visual artist and researcher. Her work investigates the relationship between collective cultural memory and fiction. Drawing emphasis on the photographic object, process and encounter, she explores the boundaries of a primitive, yet futuristic vision of places and people.

To see more of her work, please visit her website or follow her on Instagram

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The Mark of a Terrible Sun

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The Mark of a Terrible Sun

“Disasters are the absolute event of history and any knowledge we have of them is built around, with and against the marks left behind them.”

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