New Reality
The Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the global average and the Eastern Mediterranean is one of the hotspots of this temperature rise. This makes Greece, a country often depicted as a carefree summer destination, one of the countries that stand in the frontline of climate change. Prolonged periods of drought, heat waves and strong winds, conditions that favour the occurrence of fires, are what scientists call a “new reality”, to which the country will have to adapt and mitigate.
Despite repeated warnings by scientists, every summer we witness major catastrophes caused by wildfires that grow out of control, while prevention doesn’t seem to be a priority for the greek state. In its first issue, New Reality focuses on the aftermath of 3 different wildfires that took place in Greece between 2021 to 2024. In all three cases, citizens claim that the Fire Brigade did not take effective action or were unprepared to put down the fires, while forestry officers denounce a law established in 1998 that removed forest firefighting from the Forestry Service and assigned it to the Fire Brigade.
In this issue, pictures that were initially taken on assignment for foreign media are being recontextualised and intertwined with excerpts from political speeches, press articles and scientific information, in a way that highlights the fact that Greece can no longer be viewed only as the promised-holiday-land.
As Greece ranks last among EU countries year after year on the World Press Freedom Index of RSF, this work takes the form of a newsprint, aiming to serve as a platform where one can reflect on the critical ecology issues of our time, as well as to contribute in the understanding of the responsibility that lies behind representation in the media.
