2021 — During COVID-19
In 2021, during the restrictions of the COVID-19 period, Sergis Adamos used the enforced pause to revisit unresolved bodies of work and expand the research around the glass negative archive. Alongside archive-based experiments, he returned to earlier surreal works and began preparing material for future exhibitions.
This period also introduced him to NFTs and blockchain-based digital art. Rather than defining the direction of the project, this became one phase in the broader development of his digital practice and helped clarify how digital works, physical editions, and archive-based images could circulate in different formats.
In preparation for exhibitions planned for 2022, Adamos developed new experiments with fused and deteriorated glass negatives. Some of these works informed later directions, even when they were not shown publicly in the final exhibition selection.
During this period, the Metamorphosis project also expanded into new categories, including Extracted Details, The Archive’s Beauty, and Natural Deteriorated Patterns. These categories marked an important step toward the later development of a structured image bank built from details, surfaces, fragments, and photographic deterioration.
Turkish Cypriot Bridesmaid, early 1900s. Scanned from the glass negative archive.
Experiment with an oval composition and colour variations. The ocean-like background is an enlarged detail from a deteriorated glass plate.
2021 — During COVID-19
Extracted Details
Extracted details from single glass plates, developed into small, balanced compositions that can function as independent images.
The Archives Beauty
The first visual impact of the archive came from its condition as found: boxes of glass negatives stacked in a dark basement, many affected by humidity, dust, and long-term neglect. I documented the space repeatedly, not only as evidence of the archive’s condition, but also because the storage, decay, and arrangement of the boxes had their own visual force. Each box contained hidden images, but the archive as a physical environment had already become part of the work.
Natural Deteriorated Patterns
Natural Deteriorated Patterns focuses on the marks, stains, and surface formations created by humidity and chemical change over time. These details reveal how deterioration can produce its own visual structures, transforming damage into pattern, texture, and compositional material.
