Collection: Yustini Drakoulakou

Turquoise

Photography, the body and matter: between science and superstition

Trained in geology and photography, Ioustini Drakoulakou develops work at the intersection of scientific research and sensory experience. Her series Losing Turquoise originated in her Master's thesis in Earth Sciences, conducted at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. It was there, in 2019, that she observed, under a polarizing microscope, thin sections of the only known occurrence of turquoise in Greece, in the Vathi region of Kilkis.

A mythical and unstable stone, turquoise—a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminum—constantly varies in its composition, color, weight, and hardness. Throughout the centuries, it has inspired as many rituals, superstitions, and beliefs as it has scientific analyses. Drakoulakou uses it as the central thread of a broader reflection on the contemporary tension between science and belief, rationality and magical thinking.

At a time when technology is advancing at breakneck speed, there is a resurgence of neo-apocalyptic narratives, mystical discourses, and even conspiracy theories. These two worlds—one based on analysis, the other on intuition or faith—intersect, ignore each other, or clash. The Losing Turquoise series embodies this tension: microscopic views become abstract landscapes, while the photographed bodies become receptacles, living filters of these contradictory forces.

Through a play of slippages between the infinitely small and the cosmic immensity, between raw matter and vulnerable flesh, Ioustini Drakoulakou weaves a poetic and plastic language that questions our relationship to knowledge, to myth, and to what escapes us.