“They cleaned the beach before we arrived” is a body of work comprising a video piece, a photographic series and a text. This transmedial work was exhibited as a video installation and published as a photographic essay.
The research reflects on a journey undertaken in 2018, to the island of Amorgos, in Greece, where the local environment has been dramatically transformed by human agency. Between the mountainous hinterland and the sandy shores, I looked for the metamorphosis that underlay the present landscape. Behind a ‘polished’ nature I seeked to reveal the tribulations of materials and men that conduce to the present shaping of a land at the crossroads of maritime currents, emblematically captured by the driftwood that is brought back to the land by the sea.
Landing at the port of Aegiali, on the Eastern side of Amorgos, Theodoro, the hotel manager, greeted me with: ‘You are lucky, they just cleaned the beach.’ It was the very start of the tourist season, and as in many seaside cities, the coastal sand had been covered by dead seaweed during the winter, which made the shore very unappealing for tourists. Walking down to the beach, I mechanically collected a few bits of the seaweed that remained here and there. Looking at them, I started to wonder which botanical, but also symbolic, qualities they might be holding. p151
In botanical terms, seaweed, which can be found on many Mediterranean beaches, is the dead leaves of posidonia oceanica, which is commonly known as ‘Neptune grass’. This endemic seagrass, considered unaesthetic on beaches, actually helps reduce the erosion of coastlines. Greek municipalities haul away many tonnes every year. Most of it gets buried, while the rest is used as compost or incinerated. Entrepreneurs of the green economy are now looking at seaweed as ‘untapped nature’, which could be recycled and transformed into an asset, at least for humans. p152
Vangelis Vassalos, a respected neurophysiologist and local plant expert, harvests, dries, distils, and distributes products made of wild herbs. He often drives around the island offering treatments and prescriptions to his local and foreign customers. During the course of a car ride, we discussed deforestation, limestone and seaweed. I was especially curious about the stories about Melania and the current absence of trees on the island. p153
(video work: interview of Vangelis Vassalos)
“The cleaned the beach before we arrived”, Maritime Poetics, Transcript Verlag, G. Gee & C. Wiedmer (eds.)
