George Marazakis

Greek photographer, George Marazakis, takes the Anthropocene as both concept and title for a series that looks at a new epoch engendered by the greed of mankind. George Marazakis born in 1976 in Crete Island Greece where he lives with his wife and their son. He studied Mechanical Engineering and works for the Greek Ministry of Justice. He produced his photographs behind he idea that after 12,000 years of stable climate, the current geological period—Holocene—is ending, humanity’s effect on Earth has been so catastrophic that it has caused a new epoch to begin.

“an external observer could describe it as an autoimmune disease attacking its own body.”

this quote symbolises the earth as our body, and that we are actively attacking our own chances of survival, ultimately ending in devastation.

This photograph of George’s really interests me for many different reasons. The main connotations that I perceive from this image is that the man made cross in this image represents that anything humankind touch or tamper with, will never be the same as it was before. George highlights the ideas that we are destroying our earth automatically without thinking about the consequences. The cross, dug out in a serene and beautiful landscape, is showing that we always have some impact on our earth. As well as this, the cloudy, stormy looking background shows the idea of global warming and pollution, again, caused by us human. The low saturation and dullness of this image is almost suggesting that the more we tamper with our planet it slowly ‘fades to grey’ and almost dies. It also provides us with an ominous feeling, the photography people usually see idolises landscapes, upping the saturation and making it look almost dreamlike. However this looks more like it comes out of a horror movie or nightmare. George is originally from Crete Greece, however his image challenge the stereotypes of sunny colourful Greece. I chose to study George because his landscapes are truly mesmerizing, but highlight the idea that change is coming faster than we think. the images he takes are almost surreal and tell a different story in each one.