I returned back to the same place. I felt lost. 

Within a strange tranquillity, something destructive arose inside me. 

I had sunk into a quiet desperation. I denied my past. 

I tried a hundred times to erase my memory. I was craving change. 

Flowing into the night, I became a wild animal. 

I confronted nature and death. I wanted to live. Feel every moment. 

Walk against the whistling wind. Breathe and dive into the cold sea. 

Harvest moon. Everything caught in the fire. 

I walked with her in the blue dusk. Following my heartbeat. 

I lapsed into a transformation, an unexpected alignment with the stars. 

“The Splitting of the Chrysalis & the Slow Unfolding of the Wings” arose from my unforeseen return to my homeland and my residence there for four years.

Isolated in the countryside of the island, Ι was constantly confronted with my traumatic past, my memories and myself. Gradually, through wandering in nature, a conceivable field of action was created within me, an intermediate space full of transformative dynamics, a place of becoming. I surrendered to the fluidity of this space, to a paradoxical and cosmogenic ceremony. I was faced with the most enigmatic aspects of myself; I was searching for a new reality in which I would be able to exist. These photographs are part of a notebook, constructed through this experience, attempting to capture the cycle of an internal process of metamorphosis. 

About Yorgos Yatromanolakis

Yorgos Yatromanolakis lives and works between Athens and Crete. He works on long-term photography projects and turns them into books, experimenting with storytelling, materials and design. He has published three books, ‘Roadblock to Normality’ (2016), ‘Not provided’ (2016) and ‘The Splitting of the Chrysalis & the Slow Unfolding of the Wings’ (2018). He is co-founder of artist- run space ‘Zoetrope’, in Athens. [Official Website]