Photographer George Anastassakis presents his new work “Tartarus” (2015-2016) from December 23, 2016 to January 23, 2017 in “SOUTH” space for photography in Chania, Crete. The project was first exhibited in 2015 at Kythera Photographic Encounters as a work in progress.
Tartarus follows the Bank of Acheron in an informal parallelism of ancient Greek myths about the underworld with modern-day geopolitical happenings that affect Greece and essentially suggest that the mechanisms of power are timeless. The role of Acheron Bank was to tentatively examine the visible and hidden mechanisms of violence in human activity, maintaining a dispassionate critical distance. The project is trying to reach deeper, searching the key to the deepest hell in ancient myths.
If Susan Sontag claims that in human history war was always the norm and peace was just an “intermission”, we have no reason to assume that our present reality is different; even though war seems distant or disguised to the developed West, it is still existent. Despite all the achievements of mankind, the real foundation of our culture is blood and the real creator of miracles remains the slave. In the background of all this is space, warped, mythical and eternal, whereas in secular measures human presence remains negligible.
George Anastasakis was born in 1980 in Heraklion, Crete. He studied English Language and Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki focusing on cultural studies and image culture. He continued studying systematically photographic theory and practice and in 2008 he was awarded his MA in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster London, with a scholarship from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (I.K.Y.) Ever since joining the A.U.Th. Photography Club in 2000, he has been teaching photography essentials and, at a later stage, photographic project development. He has worked in exhibition production at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography for several years and he has also spent five years working for a professional photography lab. His work has been exhibited in Greece and abroad. He lives and works in Chania.