When artist Sergis Hadjiadamos first gained access to the photographic archive of his uncle in 2006, he had high expectations. The uncle, Spyros Haritou, was one of the first photographers in early twentieth century Pafos, having opened a studio in 1925. Haritou made portraits of well-known residents and recorded the religious, cultural, and political life of the city. The size of the archive is indeed impressive: 1653 cartons, each containing 10 glass negative plates. Having been stored in the basement of the photographer’s house for decades, though, the archive was badly damaged by humidity. Hadjiadamos made numerous, unsuccessful attempts to detach the negatives from each other and make prints from them. After receiving permission from his relatives to use the archive in any way he saw fit, Hadjiadamos decided to make images from the damaged negatives using high-resolution scanners. What emerged are portraits distorted by the passage of time, with limbs and facial characteristics faded or dissolved and individuals layered upon one another. Hadjiadamos transferred selected images onto aluminium composite sheets, fixing the remaining traces into a new medium—and then he further embellished them with rough brushstrokes and interpolated details. These new works are featured in the exhibition ‘Metamorphosis’, which opens on 8 June 2019 at 19:30 on the Mezzanine of Annabelle. The opening features remarks by Charalambos Mbakirtzis, Director of the Anastasios G. Leventis Foundation, and curator Kostas Prapoglou. Viewers are invited to contemplate the process of preserving and reconstructing memory through the artist’s interpretation of the traces from the archive. The exhibition continues through 30 June.
