In the year 2021, during my research phase on ancient rituals and the power of sound on Greece’s ancient mount Parnassus, a whisper of the divine intervened. Following the guidance of lighting and the wisdom of an owl, my companion and I were led from the known path to a chasm, a raw seam in the flesh of the earth. There, at the precipice, stood a long-haired sentinel, a photographer preparing to capture the dawn’s first breath. This was the beginning of my collaboration with Alan Macfeteridge. 

 

Our subsequent encounters were a tapestry woven from light and shadow: photography, rituals in the cavern’s deep heart and confronting the shadows of our inner selves. On the final day of our 2023 meeting, a profound and potent meditation before the first rays of light culminated in our bringing living fire into the mountain’s womb: a series of pyrograms were forged, their intricate designs born from artefacts from the land itself, carefully selected as part of a process of connecting to the land.

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A pyrogram is, literally, a "fire drawing" from the Greek *pyr*, meaning

fire, and *gram*, meaning writing or drawing. It is an image made on a

photographic paper or film using flame, materials and plants .

Working in the cave, we used fire to expose the film as part of a process

of a cave ritual, celebrating transformation and the alchemical power of

fire. Connecting first in the absolute darkness, meeting at point zero.

Then, a flame; the smoke, the heated fragments of plants and objects

above the film, a process of an active burning. The first ignition is the

start, and then what follows is a reaction to that first ignition.

Control is something elusive. Accidents happen.

Then, over time as we learn more about the nature of these reactions,

we start to foresee vaguely, like an oracle; we adjust, we recalibrate,

we hold the space in a different way. 

Each mark is both accident and intent: a direct collaboration with fire as material, agent and spirit. Unlike conventional photography, which fixes light through chemistry, pyrograms carry the immediacy of risk — the possibility of complete loss. 

Through this echo of light, we evaluate the fire’s ancient role in ceremony and its connection to the land: carving, shaping it, designing it. It also becomes our starting point to examine our connection to the spirits of the land today, as well as the contemporary forces reshaping modern landscapes.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​