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Olga Stefatou, Relative Dating

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Relative Dating is an attempt to awaken certain memories and free myself from the chains of a system of values dominated by tradition. It is a glimpse into my intimate feelings for the abandoned village of Vlahata on the island of Cephalonia in Greece, where I’m from and where I’ve spent long periods of my childhood. In this process, I am experimenting with self-portraits, improvisations, and installations, all while documenting people close to me.

I started to photograph the old village and the mountainous region surrounding it during the summer of 2006, drawn by the need to rediscover my childhood. In 2013, after a year of living abroad, I came back to Greece. Overwhelmed by the consequences of the crisis, I felt the need to explore my inner being in depth and define my identity. Since then, I often visit the village where the majority of my ancestors were born and lived in order to analyze beliefs stemming from the past, either to embrace them or liberate myself from them.

Cephalonia belongs to one of Greece’s most active seismic zones. Life changed completely on the island on August 12, 1953 when an earthquake of great magnitude (7.2 on the Richter scale) hit Greece. All the cities and villages suffered from irreversible damage, and most were destroyed. The trauma of the earthquake and the new era that it started are still alive with a persistence in peoples’ minds some sixty years later.

The older villages remain in ruins and abandoned in forests of ancient olive trees. This stoppage of time is a living connection to the past and to my ancestors.

With this familiar territory and through my work, I want to experiment with the way creation has the power to redefine personal and collective consciousness. Here, time loses absolute dimension. It expands and becomes relative. Over the stones, questions arise about identity, home, family, the world of adults, and our evolution.

Olga Stefatou

Olga Stefatou, Relative dating
From February 4 through March 14
Negpos Fotoloft
1, cours Némausus B301
30000 Nîmes
France

www.negpos.fr

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