The natural environment, because of the climatic changes that threaten the planet, is in the center of the debates worldwide. In the field of art, the beauty of nature has always been one of the artists’ favourite subjects. The abuse of nature – in the name of «better living» – has resulted to its irreversible transformation and of course to its representation. Taking into account that the photographic image, loyal to its inherited attributes, represents reality as we see it, in the past few years there have been various trends in modern photography in which the artists either record these changes or denounce the human-nature relationship or even rediscover it through their imagination and personal utopias.

Ephie Tsakraklidou focuses on the «resistance» of nature towards the sweeping alterations of modern time. Despite the photographer’s anthropocentric approach in her work, the human presence is absent for the first time. Methodically, with sensitivity and contemplation, she explores the rare and endangered plants of Crete, with the cooperation of the scientific group of the Botanical Museum of Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (M.A.I.Ch.). She attempts to transfer with sincere concern, without photographic affectation, a hope for life as if an artist’s brush stroke it, the battle for survival that takes place on the rocky porous external reality.

With this work, Tsakralidou offers us a valuable lesson towards a more reflective and contemplative way of life in our conventionally carefree, melancholic and restrained urban reality.

AGGELIKI GRAMMATIKOPOULOU