The Mark of a Terrible Sun, a powerful photographic exhibition by Greek visual artist Ioanna Sakellaraki, will be showcased at Hillvale Gallery in Melbourne. The exhibition opens on Thursday, 10 April 2025, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm, and will run for a limited time.
This exhibition offers an intimate look at the lands and communities surrounding the Pacific Ring of Fire, the most seismically and volcanically active zone in the world. The Ring of Fire, which stretches 40,000 kilometers around the Pacific Ocean, is home to 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes and 75 percent of its active volcanoes.
Sakellaraki’s work focuses on the areas of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands, capturing the resilience of these communities living in the shadow of active volcanoes. Through her photography, she delves into the complex relationship between these communities and the ongoing natural disasters they face. The exhibition also addresses the historical remnants of the Pacific War, drawing connections between past trauma and present survival.
Sakellaraki’s photographic practice challenges traditional boundaries between documentary and fiction. She captures the traces of destruction and survival, exploring how disaster can be reimagined and reinterpreted through creative lenses. Her work seeks to understand how cultures of resilience are shaped and preserved through the marks left by natural disasters.
Reflecting on her involvement in the exhibition, Sakellaraki shares: “The series is an intimate portrait of the lands and people of the Pacific Ring of Fire, photographed under the lava and ashes of past and ongoing volcanic activity. The work is primarily concerned with exploring the obscure traces of disaster, blending destruction with the potential for survival and reinterpretation.”
Ioanna Sakellaraki (b.1989) is a Greek visual artist and researcher currently working between Greece and Australia. Her work investigates the relationship between collective cultural memory and fiction. Drawing emphasis on the photographic object, process and encounter, she explores the boundaries of a primitive, yet futuristic vision of places and people. She is a graduate of Journalism with an MA in Photography from The Royal College of Art and an MA in Cultural Studies. Following her interest in inter-disciplinary critical theory in relation to visual arts, she was awarded an International Scholarship for undertaking her PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) at RMIT University in Melbourne. She is the recipient of The Royal Photographic Society Bursary Award 2018 and was the winner of a Sony World Photography Award in 2020. In 2019, she was awarded with the Reminders Photography Stronghold Grant in Tokyo and the International Photography Grant Creative Prize and in 2021 received further funding from Arts Council England. Nominations include: the Inge Morath Award by Magnum Foundation in USA, the Prix HSBC, the Prix Levallois and the Prix Voies Off in France.
Her work has been exhibited internationally in art festivals and galleries with recent solo shows in Tokyo, Melbourne, Belfast, Braga, Greece and Berlin. Her projects have been featured in magazines such as The New Yorker, TIME, Aesthetica and Wallpaper and journals including The Guardian, Financial Times and Deutsche Welle. Her work has been acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Collection. Her monograph ‘The Truth is in the Soil’ is published by GOST Books.
Event Details:
- Exhibition: The Mark of a Terrible Sun
- Artist: Ioanna Sakellaraki
- Opening: Thursday, 10 April 2025, 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
- Dates: 10 April – 11 May 2025
- Location: Hillvale Gallery, Melbourne, 49 Edward St, Brunswick VIC 3056
