Ten thousand suns

The tension between ‘super-powers’ on a global scale escalates. This tension could easily trigger a nuclear holocaust. The threat of a nuclear war stresses the lives of people in the conflicted zones and creates a psychological pressure on their daily life.

how did the sun fade out so fast?

this feeling

I remember

thunderous blast

black rain

need to escape

cold and darkness

thirst

black rain

have to find my way out

what time is it?

nothing changes around

black stains

saw a ten thousand suns’ light

felt a ten thousand suns’ warmth

a spec of dust dissolves in the universe

The ten thousand suns project operates as a potential narrative about the day after a massive disaster or, else, after an upcoming massive change, that is being promoted in the contemporary world. The starting point is an ongoing threat, resulting from the tense situation between global super- powers, which could possibly trigger a nuclear war. Getting focused on an extreme paradigm and being expressed through the necessary exaggeration of the interpretation, the photographers aim to picture the fear that lies beneath the undefined and fluid political and social situation and conditions.

Thus, the protagonist appears as a blanket man with a non specified identity- the unique and lonely wanderer in an uncanny scenery. He is the flâneur of a whole new era; awkward, dazzled and confused, he is searching for ways to adjust in the inhospitable, hostile environment. Wearing the protection uniform and isolated in his own “heavy” existence, he tries to decode and reconfigure a post apocalyptic surrounding space.

Eventually, a supreme catastrophe and its impact is being designated, through the presentation of a situation, where the undesirable hypothesis has turned into a fact. That is being articulated, not only in terms of possibility, but also as a wider metaphor on extended damage and on existing danger, highlighting various aspects of the contemporary life; the highly elaborated and processed “being” within the world, the struggles we give to fit in to unprecedented contexts, the aimless quests we are forced into, the concluding psychological pressure and instability. Last but not least, there is the parameter of the environment’ s depreciation and the increasingly severe and non- reversible consequences against it.

Text by Pavlina Kirkou