The Truth is in the Soil
Following the death of her father in 2016, Ioanna Sakellaraki started to document ancient mourning rituals in her home country, Greece. After five years, she’s now turning her project into a book with the help of a Kickstarter campaign.
Photography Ioanna Sakellaraki
‘Dad is dead, come back home.’
This is how my sister announced the death of my father to me over the phone.
My return to my homeland Greece marked the departure on a journey of understanding death through family, religion, mythology and the self.
My own grieving process became the lens through which I investigated the collective mourning in Greek society, the intersection of ancestral rituals, private trauma and the passage of time. Further inspired by the last communities of mourners on the Mani Peninsula of Greece as the doyennes of a dying tradition, the work incorporates a new kind of subjectivity, intimacy, and criticism, exploring mortuary rituals as a way of humans adapting to death.
Five years later, The Truth is in the Soil, reflects on how my personal story has transformed into a collective narrative of loss aiming at contributing to the collection of tales of human struggle for meaning. To me, these images work as vehicles for mourning perished ideals of vitality, prosperity and belonging, attempting to tell something further than their subjects by creating a space where death can exist.
Death brings with it an inevitable rupture in beliefs, roles and identity for those who encounter it. How can one deal with loss?
In the wake of witnessing loss globally within our cultures and civilisations, I want to stimulate the viewer to rethink mortality through this imagined path of departure onto a new landscape.
“Publishing this book marks the end of a journey for me and the transition into a new phase. I can only hope for it to become a source of empathy, strength and inspiration for the ones who will acquire it.”
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.
If you are interested in purchasing the book, please support Ioanna’s Kickstarter campaign HERE
To see more of her work, please visit her website or follow her on Instagram
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