MILOS (CYCLADES) 2011 - THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY
THE TRAVEL TO MILOS 2011 - An attempt of a revision and critical re-evaluation )
TRAVEL AS FORM OF LIFE (LEBENSFORM)
More than ten years have passed since this journey to Milos island in the middle of the Aegean Sea. On those days I have been employed as a freelance skipper and travel guide and to say the truth from the most beautiful periods of my life. At this time I was about to find out who I really am as a person and what is my purpose in life. Travel was a method to approach my truth and to explore reality. Travel was also a kind of escape and behavioral therapy from negative beliefs, false expectations, and various obsessions and delusions. In short travel as the Ulitmate Journey to Self-discovery.
Travel alone does not constitute knowledge of the world and self-knowledge. You have to combine movement in space and time with cognitive efforts such as observing, reading, thinking, writing, photographing, filming, sketching, painting, etc. You have to use a variety of tools and means in order to be able to extract some kind of knowledge from travels.
As our lives change and evolve those small journeys and escapes interconnect with each other, build groups and structures. After some years we begin to recognize the patterns and the big picture and start to understand gradually and to a certain degree who we really are. This was at least for me the purpose of my travels ...
SAILING IN THE AEGEAN
So back to 2011. I have been employed continuously for more than six weeks as a skipper, sailing in the Aegean Sea with various crews and destinations. I needed a break and I decided to spend some days on the island of Milos.
MILOS ISLAND 23.-25. JULI 2011
I rented a small apartment in Plaka, the chief town of the island, and a small car. I spend those days with various readings about the history and the culture of the island but mainly with making a lot of short excursions exploring the island with my photographic camera. Objects of time or how things around us and even ourselves are formed and transformed by temporality ... Forms, concepts and perceptions are the very boundaries or presuppositions of our world ... (I need to further develop my thoughts on this topic ... )
After those days on Milos, I spend three more days in Athens, and then I flew back to Hamburg (Germany) at home to rejoin my family and take to my hands my then seven-month-old newborn daughter.
Milos has a long and fascinating past, both geological and archaeological. The island is of volcanic origin. Milos is part of an area that comes under the Aegean Volcanic Arc. These volcanoes were formed by the subduction of the African plate that is under the Aegean Sea. This arc encompasses the Gulf of Korinthos and the west coast of Turkey. The main districts that have volcanic activity are Methana-Poros, Milos, Nysiros and Santorini. The Milos district includes the Greek islands of Milos, Kimolos, Antimolos and Poliegos.
Milos was one of the very few places in the Aegean Sea where the precious obsidian was exported. Obsidian is a dark stone that is considered as a natural glass, and because of its durability, it was already used since the end of the Paleolithic Period, to make knives and blades. Obsidian sources in the eastern Mediterranean are scarce and are found only on the Aegean islands, of Milos, Antiparos, and Nisyros, however, the quality of the obsidian of Milos is considered more special due to the unique hardness of this rock in the area of the island.
The island was inhabited from prehistoric times. Phylakopi, in the east of the island, was one of the very first cities in the Eastern Mediterranean. From the Early Cycladic times and then the Minoan and Mycenaean periods the city developed into an important center of trade. With the arrival of the Dorians about 1000 BC its existence came to an end.
THE OLD SULFUR MINES (Thiorichia)
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| Marina Alimos (Athens). The central base and starting point of most of my sailing trips to the Aegean Sea ... |
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