In honour of the recent celebration of International Environment Day, local artist Ellen Weijers-Gigourtaki of Vrachokipos, exhibited a special work which was created specifically in connection with the natural environment of Crete.

The work, entitled Paradise Lost? and based on a photo which the artist took, and then turned into a three-dimensional artistic composition, tells its own story.  “On the south-western side of the island is the village of Krousta which neighbours the extremely ancient and rich forest of Selakanos,” Ellen said. “Twelve years ago a fire from Kalamafka and the east reached the heart of the forest south of Kroustas, to an altitude of about 700 meters where it stopped, and the damages were immense.

Often, after the destruction, we would visit the forest and we especially liked to view the area where the fire stopped, leaving the rest of the forest untouched,” she explained. “I guess we felt secure harbouring the false pretence that the destruction wasn’t really total or that there is still hope for human behaviour. In any case, we didn’t want to accept a pessimistic evolution.

“In the last years, nature rewarded us with a reassurance of our hopes. As you can see from the picture, new trees are born in such a way that it overrules man’s silly egotistical self delusion that he is the ruler on this planet.”

The work was exhibited for a period of ten days last month at the St. Mark’s Basilica, Iraklion.