It is this lack of clarity about what precisely we are looking at, the disruption of the surface and introduction of texture to the photographic image that makes this series "Black Landscape" so enticing.

Aliki's work is a celebration of the photograph. Not for its traditionally acclaimed properties of reflecting reality or supporting memory. What is important to Aliki is the photograph as an object.

Using a hole puncher to puncture her negatives Aliki draws our attention to the photographic process. In creating the holes Aliki allows light to flood in during printing producing deep black circles. This process of destruction also produces white scratches on the surrounding film surface. It is clear to the viewer that the image has been interfered with, deliberately damaged and we begin to look at the surface marks and the materiality of the photographic paper and see the photograph as a constructed object.

The effect of this violation of the negative not only damages the film but also removes part of the photographic image. What was once recorded for posterity no longer exists except on the artist's floor. By choosing to shoot the original photographs at dusk, when the tonal range is reduced to just three shades of grey the composition is further simplified by the use of a hole puncher. Aliki's intention is to make a generic almost stereotypical image. The reduced landscape becomes a signifier of all our known landscapes. As we peer at the grey and black we begin to fill in the blanks, instilling the black voids with our memories of the countryside.

The destruction of a negative is often an unhappy event, a precious moment forever spoilt or lost. But this violent act of punching a hole in the film, while seemingly perverse, acts as a prompt to open up the image to new possibilities, allowing us to read the photograph in a different and exciting way.