The Glasgow School of Art

Michail Mersinis, GSA

Michail Mersinis is an artist from Greece, whose work revolves around the utopian imaginary and the sense of place. By using photography’s elusive relationship with reality and its indexical qualities he makes work that superimpose the projected qualities of places with the real, working mainly through photography and sculpture.

Relying on notions of land art, where the work of art and landscape are inextricably linked, the additional layers of history, storytelling and hearsay form the basic material from which contemporary hybrid notions of place emerge. By utilising the methods of travelling, picture-making and combining them with notions of a primary material as indicated by Presocratic philosophers, he makes works that exist between the document and the projection, which rely on the inherently photographic notion of latency. After the picture is made, and before the chemical development is finalised, both the real and the imaginary are states of equal importance and possibility in a state of existence which fluctuates from the scientific to the alchemical.

Recent projects include the travelling to all the seven alleged locations of the Homeric Ithaca and making a series of photographic and sculptural works that deal with the identification and documentation of the homeland of Odysseus. From mainlands and islands in Greece and Denmark to Scotland Mersinis travels and makes pictures about potentiality rather than fact. History and conflict are important considerations in his work. The investigation of the residue in cultural memory on the battlefield of Culloden Moor led to a body of work that negotiates the idea of battle and loss. Currently he continues to work on ‘The Old World Cycle’, a project that seeks to consolidate the cultural and geographical significance of place of the Mediterranean and spans from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Black Sea. He is now travelling to remote islands in search of earthquakes and residues of presence and history.