Maria Christidi

Her project Prometheus is an installation video that depicts the Titan’s suffering and the Sea Nymphs that visited him. In this project she explores the human body and nature through Greek mythological characters. In Greek mythology, Prometheus was one of the supreme Titans and was associated with fire and the creation of mortals. Zeus punished Prometheus for stealing the fire and giving it to the humans. He had the Titan chained to a rock in the Caucasus Mountain and sent an eagle to prey on him. While he was chained to the cliff the Sea Nymphs visited the Titan and were mourning his suffering. Prometheus is linked with nature as the creator of humans and the reason she named her photography series as 'Physis'. By photographing subjects of nature in various public parks and presenting them in edited formats rather than their raw forms, she explores our current-day relationship with nature. We view it at the periphery of our everyday life, maybe walking through parks or natural reserves when the toll of our modern hyper-urbanized lifestyle is too much. As a result, nature tends to be viewed as a foreign object that acts to us as a form of escapism. By taking close-up shots which emphasize the unruly characteristics of the natural subjects, the viewer can question their relationship with nature more closely and view it in its true fragility rather than it solely being a source of entertainment.