Didn't Mean to Keep You Waiting

A Greek educator’s 1901 suicide note becomes the starting point for a photographic exploration of illness, isolation and mortality. Through archival fragments and staged scenes, the work reflects on what remains unanswered across time.

“Didn’t Mean to Keep You Waiting” is an ongoing photographic project that explores the intersections of illness, isolation, and suicide through the story of a Greek educator who ended his life in 1901 due to his suffering from tuberculosis. The work traces the lingering silence left behind by his suicide note, using archival research and visual abstraction to reflect on the deeper human condition when faced with mortality. Drawing from a research gathering 200 letters of suicides spanning two centuries, I discovered Balmetakis’ note in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic—a time of heightened isolation and fear of spreading illness. The illness itself, the sense of exclusion and grief, and the weight of responsibility—both for ourselves and for others—create a connection between two eras, giving Balmetakis’ story a haunting resonance. The project ventures into a heterochronic visual approach to a man’s last response to the world, one that takes place through delivering a message that inevitably remains unanswered, as its author has now passed away. I use symbols, traces, and staged scenes to explore the broader moral and social conflicts of decay and death. It is not a reconstruction but rather an imaginative narrative on the educator’s mental state that remains reflective and unresolved. The work aims to create a space for contemplation around difficult subjects related to universal human experiences like suicide and mortality, questioning how we engage with the absurdity of existence while embracing both its beauty and brutality.