Yorgos Yatromanolakis – The Splitting of the Chrysalis & the Slow Unfolding of the Wings

Yorgos Yatromanolakis' 'The Splitting of the Chrysalis & the Slow Unfolding of the Wings' is inspired by the anthropological rites of passage that mark the transitions from one phase of life to another.

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The Splitting of the Chrysalis & the Slow Unfolding of the Wings is inspired by the anthropological rites of passage that mark the transitions from one phase of life to another. Through this work, Yorgos Yatromanolakis attempts to capture in a poetic way the cycle of an internal process of metamorphosis. Due to an unforeseen return to his homeland, he finds himself isolated into a dystopian reality, confronting his traumatic past and memories. Gradually distancing himself from anything intimate and familiar and through his photographic practice, he creates a new world, a mysterious and borderline place. Within this liminal place, metaphorically seen as a chrysalis cocoon, everything is in flux. Being is in a state of becoming in betwixt and between of what had happened and what is about to happen. Within the narrative of the book, this experience is intertwined with the biological processes of transformation in nature, which are taking place in parallel and with which the photographer coexists and identifies. The images are enclosed in the book as notes of an experience embarking from deconstruction and “splitting” to reach out to fulfilment and “flying” and as a whole they set the points of a course towards a new existential reality.

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, Not provided, and The splitting of the chrysalis & the slow unfolding of the wings’. He is co-founder of artist-run space Zoetrope, in Athens and contributor editor of Phases Magazine.