Mayflies – Scientific name: Ephemeroptera The name Ephemeroptera is derived from the Greek “ephemera” meaning short-lived, and “ptera” meaning wings. This is a reference to the short lifespan of adult mayflies. Most adults are delicate insects with a very short lifespan. They emerge, reproduce, and die in a single day.

The treatment of the images has been done by using chemicals, wax, fire or by painting on negatives or prints. The artist experiencing her own slow fading from the world, wants to add herself in the mourning matter, bringing the universal issue to her own small cosmos. Her interference in the images makes them contain “her” into each piece.

Opposed to how photographic prints are usually handled with care, caution, touched only with gloves, in a museological-archival-ish way, that makes the photo print something “solemn”, the techniques the artist uses to produce her ninal pieces of work are violent ones, that give the impression that she leaves on them the imprint of her own body as a proof of her existence. Dimitra’s violence turns the photo object into a vulnerable and somehow ill-varnished object.

All images ©Dimitra Dede