The Fumes of Mars

W.G. Sebald wrote: “We, the survivors, see everything from above, see everything at once, and still we do not know how it was.” ‍The Fumes of Mars is a photography & research project developed in the aftermath of the Mati (Attica, Greece) wildfire on the 23rd of July 2018, one of the deadliest ever recorded. It questions the official narrative by bringing together Photographs of the event and its aftermath, testimonies of numerous survivors, information from the State Investigator Report and the ongoing trial including wildfire specialists and topographical information of the area. A collection of clues, instead, weave together a collective narrative of the story. ‍ Mati was the area I had spent my summers as a child, the home of my parents, and ultimately the only place I could identify as ‘Home’ in my ever-transient existence. The fire rushed from the hilltop, jumping over the pine trees, and to the edge of the sea in a little more than two hours – swallowing everything in its passage. The Civil Protection agencies failed to respond to the situation or its immediate aftermath. An evacuation plan was never executed. State officials never took any responsibility. ‍ This work holds ongoing timeliness and relevance not because it is about my story, or my experience. Although this is the origin of the work. But because it is about lifting the lid on how a Disaster leaves traces and scars that challenge our ethics, the mechanisms of our sources of truth and our society’s relationship to the wellbeing of its members.