Met-esthisis (Μεταίσθηση) in greek means aftersensation. An image (usually a negative image) that persists after stimulation has ceased / a mental image of something previously experienced / an afterimage of a taste / of an experience.
This series depicts a nightmare. It is a sensational, thrilling bad dream of a missing girl. Sarah, 11 years old, has never returned back, from her dance school. Anxiety, stressful and horrible feelings dominate this nightmare. Mysterious images, smell of the humidity and the soil… Her parents are looking for her…. Time passes as images are unfolding… An old song from the early sixties is playing, unnoticed, on the car audio player.
Regarding the treatment, the style and the presentation of the pictures
In met-esthisis, Sarah’s parents, (protagonists of this nightmarish story) are not seen. Although they are the means of the subject, is not who they are that interests me nor how they react, but I tend only to the implication of their feelings. The fog and the night that make it difficult to find the young girl, along with the large landscapes in which she may have been lost, give to the story this extra scary mood. The frame and format are intentionally cinematic and common to all images except one, which is there to remind us, that it is not some snapshots from a movie. Neither the title of each photo nor the name of the series, mention Sarah’s name, because the dots could be completed by any other name … such as their parents. The grainy film (“argentique”) look of the pictures, although all of them shot with a digital sensor, is there to give us a nostalgic period style, feeling. The series is printed at Hahnemuhle German Etching paper. With this paper each photo gives the impression that it is more a painting than a photo. At the exposition the spectator is listening also to an audio that allows him to get involved with the images more intensively.
