Ioanna Kokkona

Urban Forest Place lab

Eye 0.1_Memorial: Prescribed Fire-Ritual

E(ye) scape, Designing with memory /+ fire, a Living Memorial

Fire was, is and will keep being a natural part of the Mediterranean and specifically Greek landscape. Still, human actions are responsible for the most destructive, unnatural fires in the current times that, along with global climate change, lead to even more devastating consequences.

One of the most severe wildfires happened in Greece, with the tragedy of Mati (2018), where 102 people were confirmed dead, thousands of homes were destroyed and thousands of acres of forest were burned.

The project focuses on the two traumas this fire caused - the human and the landscape trauma - and intends to create a public, didactic, non-static, living memorial that will express and imprint memories, contribute to healing processes, integrate fire-resilient landscape design tools and achieve a better relationship with nature and its phenomena. It is important to bounce back every time, recover and heal, continue the cyclical journey of life, forgiving and learning from, but not forgetting, the past.