Taking into consideration the environmental impact of mass tourism on the art and cultural world, Maria Mavropoulou focused on the deterioration of marble sculptures and monuments caused by the direct pollution linked to savage tourism. By combining data, statistics, 3D scanning, photo documentation, and Artificial Intelligence to highlight the unstoppable erosion of Greece’s archeological heritage, and the vicious circle that can be created between cultural heritage and over promotion.The Bi-cultural focus of Mavropoulou is linked to bringing awareness and highlighting in this sense the physical evolution and degradation of historical monuments and sculptures, that Greece has been living for years, and that Saudi Arabia now might also encounter. As we know, Saudi Arabia is entering a phase of Tourism and cultural promotion at an unprecedented pace, and comparing both countries’ strategies and what can be learned from past experiences through trial and error seems essential.
Maria Mavropoulou (b. 1989, Athens, Greece) is a visual artist using mainly photography while her work expands to new forms of photographic images, such as VR and screen-captured images, GAN, and AI-generated images. Her work and research focus on the new realities created by the connectible devices and the contradictions between the physical and the virtual spaces that we inhabit, addressing issues around technological mediation. By using the most novel technology available to her, she creates works that reflect on the new ways images are produced today. Her work explores digital identity and representation in the post-social media era, algorithmic bias, network culture, power politics between machines and humans, and the multidimensionality of our experiences in our always-online world.
Maria Mavropoulou lives and works in Athens, Greece. Past exhibitions include MAST Foundation (Bologna, It), Museum of Contemporary Art (Athens, Gr), Sharjah Art Foundation (Sharjah, UAE), Maison de la Photographie (Paris, Fr).