The Truth is in the Soil, a new photobook by our friend Ioanna Sakellaraki, charts a 5-year photographic exploration of grief as an elegy to her father and the dying tradition of mourning in Greece. Ioanna is currently running a Kickstarter campaign offering advanced signed copies of the book as well as a selection of limited edition prints and a special edition of the photobook which by pre-buying will support the overall production of the book.
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 civilizations, 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.
The support I receive through this campaign will be entirely dedicated to the production of the book. The book has been designed in collaboration with renowned book designer Stu Smith and will be published by GOST Books. It will be a hardback, clothbound book, 220 x 300mm in portrait format and printed both colour and duotone at EBS in Italy. The special editions will be presented in a handmade clothbound slipcase. Accompanying the images will be a series of fictocritical essays written as part my research and engagement with critical theory, philosophical poetics and aesthetics throughout this project.
Giving this work a permanent existence by realising it into a book has been one of the long-standing objectives of my practice and the wishful outcome of my personal and emotional investment into this project. However, publishing a photography book is increasingly challenging due to the high costs of design, printing and distribution. As a young, self-funded photographer, I will be putting part of my savings into the production but I am not able to cover all the costs. I therefore count on your support for bringing this project into the world. I am forever grateful for helping me make this real.
To help Ioanna fund her new book, you can visit her Kickstarter campaign page here.