In July 2021 the island of Evia endured record-breaking temperatures and a firestorm that incinerated swathes of forest and many homes. Amidst this environmental destruction there was a tragic blow to the cultural legacy of Greece.

Countless olive trees that have been growing for generations were destroyed and amongst them was an ancient tree, known as The Nymph, that was more than 2,500 years old. For millennia this tree had been an enduring symbol of the Evia landscape. According to locals, in antiquity it was described in the writings of the ancient Greek geographer and philosopher Strabo. It was so large that ten people could hold hands around its circumference and it had been consistently fertile, producing olives up until its ruin.

I visited the Olive Grove of Rovia where it is located and documented the remnants of this ancient tree shortly after the fire. It looked like an ecological crime scene, where the distinctive and almost agonised sculptural forms of the burnt olive wood felt like a metaphor for the damage done by climate change to this landscape, embodying the profound sadness that this loss means for the local community. I set about photographing what was left of The Nymph and other burnt trees across the island, choosing to work in black and white to enhance the abstract qualities of these distorted formations.