Book Discussion with Katerina Angelopoulou, "The Fumes of Mars"
Sat 3/28 • 10AM - 11:30AM PDT
One of the deadliest wildfires ever recorded took place on July 23, 2018 just 30 km from the historical center of Athens in Greece. Artist Katerina Angelopoulou survived the fire and her book, "The Fumes of Mars," combines her photographs with personal testimonies from other survivors, timelines, maps, and reports. With these materials Angelopoulou attempts to weave together a collective narrative of the events to better understand the violent disconnect between her own experience and the “official” account of the disaster in which facts were concealed and victims held culpable
The book opens with black and white photographs showing the aftermath of the fire alongside with testimonies of the survivors. These are followed by Angelopoulou’s photographs taken as the disaster unfolded overlayed with her timeline of events. Collected evidence on the events follow, including aerial maps, topographical information, lists of the victims with location and cause of death, weather and aircraft reports, CCTV and news coverage images, information from the State Investigator report and information on the ongoing trial. The final images of the book are of Angelopoulou’s personal artifacts after the fire, such as remnants of jewelry, books and glasses. This assembled evidence is embedded with importance because after the fire, the truth of the victims and their families was questioned multiple times—in the public narrative, facts were concealed and re-produced with false arguments blaming residents and victims.
Katerina Angelopoulou is an artist based in Athens. The Fumes of Athens won the Format Festival’s Reviewers Choice Award 2022, was selected for and featured in the COCA Project 2021, shortlisted for the Belfast Dummy Award and Photo Festival in 2022, and exhibited at LCC in London as part of the Common Ground Exhibition. Angelopoulou holds a BSc in Mathematics & Theoretical Physics from Imperial College London, a BA in Design for Performance from Central Saint Martin’s, and an MA with Distinction in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography from LCC.
This program is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
For more details, please visit:
https://hellenic.ucla.edu/event/the-fumes-of-mars/