
The Fumes of Mars
- Publisher
- GOST Books
- Year
- 2025
- ISBN
- 978-1-915423-88-7
- Specifications
- Hardback
195 x 255 mm
232 pages
101 images
Essays by Michael Herzfeld and Yiannis Gabriel
One of the deadliest wildfires ever recorded took place on 23 July 2018 just 30km from the historical centre of Athens in Greece. Artist Katerina Angelopoulou survived the fire and her book combines her photographs with personal testimonies from other survivors, timelines, maps and reports. With these materials Angelopoulou attempts to weave together a collective narrative of the events to better understand the violent disconnect between her own experience and the 'official' account of the disaster in which facts were concealed and victims held culpable. The book opens with black and white photographs showing the aftermath of the fire alongside the testimonies of survivors. It acts as a counter-archive—a forensic and deeply personal investigation into how official narratives of catastrophe are constructed and enforced, bringing together aerial maps marking where each victim died, weather reports, CCTV footage and personal artefacts recovered from the ruins. Its structure is non-linear, mirroring how trauma fractures narrative.