UN_EARTH

In recent years, the phenomenon of uprooting centuries-old and over-century-old olive trees with the aim of later selling them for decorative use has been widespread. Maria Drakaki watches and photographs all the stages of this process. Beginning with the depiction of the violent removal of olive trees from the land in which they have been rooted for hundreds of years, she focuses on their depreciation through their transformation into a packaged commodity, and concludes by revealing the traumatic sense of loss evoked by the sight of toppled dry boulders and huge pits of the cut roots.