You will only see a flash of light

My research is rooted in fragmented memories, silence, and the black hole of secrecy that defined my childhood. Very few memories from that time remain intact – perhaps a defense mechanism in response to living in a traumatic household. What does remain, however, has guided over a decade of my artistic practice. Through moving image, I try to explore, reclaim, and sometimes simply sit with the mess of memory, trauma and place.

Raised in 1990s Northern Greece, I lived with my mother’s volatile love and my grandmother’s quiet descent into Alzheimer’s. We were taught silence, building our lives around that which we could not name. During that silence, on the 23rd of September 1998, the hostage crisis involving Sorin Matei unfolded live on television.

My exploration takes the form of a feature-length hybrid documentary, blending together elements of observation, memory, reconstruction and fiction. Through this hybrid approach, I seek not only to revisit the physical and emotional landscapes of my past, but also to question the very possibility of returning ‘home’ – when home itself was, and perhaps remains, a contested, unstable terrain.

Jaar

2025