"I cannot remember a time when I felt bad walking around Athens' neighborhoods, at least not clearly; and I certainly cannot imagine a future time when I will feel better in my stomach and in my beloved old refuge."
"Δεν μπορώ να θυμηθώ μια φορά που αισθάνθηκα άσχημα περπατώντας στις γειτονιές της Αθήνας, τουλάχιστον όχι ξεκάθαρα- και σίγουρα δεν μπορώ να φανταστώ μια μελλοντική στιγμή που θα αισθάνομαι καλύτερα στο στομάχι μου και στο αγαπημένο μου παλιό καταφύγιο."
Cleaning up, during the Olympics in 2004, in front of the image of the Acropolis, wrapping partly the facade of some athenian buildings in ruins, the famous “Kountouriotika“: refugee housing compounds, built in 1934-40, after the great Catastrophe in 1922, Alexandras Avenue.
An icon that became five years later a premonition of a new era for Athens!
Spleen
I developed the photographic body of work Spleen between 2009 to 2017 and it is based on the notion of sedimentation. It is a personal documentation of Athens in the time of crisis. I explored the city through the eyes of an urban geologist. I walked it exhaustively and observed its surface.
Based on my experience of Athens, experienced over eight years in the ‘90s and ‘00s and captured in a photographic series titled «Αθήνα σ’ακούω – Athens I hear you», this time I wandered its streets as a self-exile. I revisited its multiple aspects, looking for clues and hints in simple human gestures, attempting to reconstruct their stories.
In both the shooting and the editing phase, I treated these images/scenes with alienation and humor; I reconsidered them to seek new narrative elements, through the latest social and political developments, the successive layers of history and the poetics of realism and light. The evolution of Athens is projected from these "geological formations" through my research expanding in time, but also as an insight into radical changes to come.
Το φωτογραφικό έργο Spleen το δούλεψα αποσπασματικά από το 2009 έως το 2017 και βασίζεται στην έννοια της καθίζησης. Είναι μια προσωπική τεκμηρίωση της πόλης των Αθηνών την εποχή της κρίσης. Περιηγήθηκα σε αυτήν μέσα από τα μάτια ενός αστικού γεωλόγου. Την περπάτησα εξαντλητικά και παρατήρησα την επιφάνειά της.
Με βάση τις εμπειρίες μου από την Αθήνα, την οποία εξερεύνησα επί οκτώ χρόνια στις δεκαετίες του '90 και του '00 και αποτυπώθηκαν στη φωτογραφική σειρά «Αθήνα σ'ακούω», αυτή τη φορά περιπλανήθηκα στους δρόμους της ως αυτοεξόριστος. Αναθεώρησα πολλαπλές πτυχές της, αναζητώντας συμβουλές και υπαινιγμούς σε απλές ανθρώπινες χειρονομίες, επιχειρώντας να ανασυνθέσω τις ιστορίες τους.
Τόσο στη φάση της λήψης όσο και στη φάση της επιμέλειας, αντιμετώπισα αυτές τις εικόνες/σκηνές με αποξένωση και χιούμορ- τις επανεξέτασα για να βρω νέα αφηγηματικά στοιχεία, μέσα από τις τελευταίες κοινωνικές και πολιτικές εξελίξεις, τα διαδοχικά στρώματα της ιστορίας και την ποιητική του ρεαλισμού και του φωτός. Η μετεξέλιξη της Αθήνας προβάλλεται από αυτούς τους «γεωλογικούς σχηματισμούς» μέσω της έρευνάς μου που επεκτείνεται στο χρόνο, αλλά και ως ενόραση για τις ριζικές αλλαγές που έρχονται.
* CLICK ON IMAGES TO SEE LARGER
smokestack statue
Pedion Areos, park of political wizardry…
speaker's platform
"Once you're up there, do not forget that there are people who will listen to you ...", said the marble.
How many stories has this olive tree listened to, in those last two millennia, without saying a word!
decomposed hope
Once upon a time, before the gates of paradise...
white house
If Athens' melancholy manifests in color, it would have been white.
In the old Athens cinematheque, waiting for its decapitation...
broken nose
One fly congratulating the poet Palamas for his new nose !
white kiosk
We all sometimes feel the need to set free from unnecessary surplus...
ΝΤΊΝΑ
Cruising through the storms of the recession era, but still afloat!
white wall
A wall separates the future of the Athens Olympic facilities, from the growth of these pines.
agaves
Agaves, always watching over Athens even in troubled times ...
Mutation of borders in post-Olympic Athens.
Painted by Yannis Tsarouchis, photographed by Henri Cartier Bresson, restored and abandoned property of the Ministry of Culture.
white & red balloons
Fatigue, and no resistance anymore...
Aiolou street – Monastiraki, Ιonic columns, ruins of the Hellenic identity, for future archaeologists, from the depression era.
In the wealthy neighborhood of insignificant changes.
They fled to Greece as foreigners, from Asia Minor, almost a century ago, and brought in their luggage what the country would embrace from their generosity and nobility. Today some of their grandchildren are migrating again with the same luggage...
mustache
When your behavior no longer makes sense because your gut hurts!
... And from the loud speaker, you can distinguish the sound of a porn movie, coming out from the semi basement of a sex shop!
Bandaged awkwardly and expecting their wounds heal one day.
Layout and stratification, alienation and humor, migration and travel, all play their part in this Athenian narrative.
During the fall of democracy, hands drop like dead leaves!
Sometimes vandalism creates a vacuum of meaning where was hardly any in the first place !
Head of a Cycladic figurine, from the 2004 Olympics' opening ceremony, "Mother Goddess" symbol of fertility and rejuvenation, is scattered in the parking lot of an abandoned stadium.
Crime elements are behind the wall, in the construction site of Mr. V!
Recycling is done silently in the streets, by invisible men.
'Punishment', a muted word, incessantly bouncing off the walls at Athens' law school !
Time can become a painter when erasing memory…
Truman show
At what cost came the "success story" of Plan Marshall back then? In Greece, some people still remember.
Can we really demand anything from our public buildings?
Paint, stains, graffiti, traces, signatures, slogans and a deep desire for a blank page ...
Pirated ship, before or after walking the plank !
dead deer
In front of a bankrupt shopping mall, in a suburban neighborhood.
A place under the sun, on the margins of homelessness.
ancient bench
Bench carved into the marble of the hill of Filopappou, ancient, as the Athenians' desire for justice, now desperately looking for a scapegoat.
What kind of cure to our existential crisis since 2009?
Too many people ‘playing’ Thieves & Police in the streets of Athens, these days …
empty reflection
Still unable to look at ourselves in the mirror for fear of discovering the beast...
St. Panteleimon square
“Foreigners out of Greece. Greece only for Greeks”, a strange carpet in front of stairs of St. Panteleimon church.
church skeleton
Work in progress, incomplete architecture, or un-cemented faith !
dry fountain
The tears have dried and the pain has gone underground.
blue sacks
Rubble upon rubble are still spitting the lungs of a tired city!
Silent and unaccounted for victims of the depression era...
Excursions and hundreds of kilometers driven, just resting on the sidewalk.
Rising satellite dishes, crumbling antennas: end of an era...
Faliro, closed park, destined to be swallowed by the sea.
George Canning
When a politician is commemorated outside his country of origin, over time a misunderstanding ruins his fame.
An unusual tree, in a tiny garden in Egaleo, lights up, for a split second, one gloomy Christmas 2013!
The more you squeeze the house, the higher the yucca grows ...
Δ.Ε.ΗI wonder if they sold the Greek Electricity Company, What will become of its gardener!
We learn that revenge and order can take many forms and expressions but not the beauty of a landscape.
How many greeks today, are migrating saying to their friends or family: "Coming back soon"? And most of them will spend the rest of their lives, longing for that return.
Under the vigilant eye of austerity...
"We the chosen few, will eat, drink, dance, break plates, at the biggest Bouzouki, and forget about the German owner, until the day he brings the check", said to me an economist friend when I asked him about the crisis in Greece, early 2010.
Disused factories, occupied by unemployed flora!
"When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid
Upon the spirit aching for the light,
And all the wide horizon's line is hid
By a black day sadder than any night;"
- Charles Baudelaire.
Always fear, shame and resignation to see you from behind.
We sail towards those Athenian islands whenever we fail to interpret this node in our stomach!
In the garden of the Currency Museum of Athens, for decades, turning away her back to the changing face of money...
Edification of shacks in some streets of Athens, meanwhile a country sunk into daydreaming!
Unspoilt faith, as if resurrection is postponed for a while...
I've always lived the city of Athens as another room in my apartment, but this one is most likely, my room in the near future.
An odd detail during protest in times of recession, Pentelikon white marble is thrown at riot police.
...and a stratification of sacred icons.
This is not a graffiti but a way to imagine a basement.
And this is not red spray but a refusal of the Other
temple contribution
Objections or hesitation in turbulent times
After a shipwreck some elements do not get swallowed by the sea, but float to shore ...
"I wonder if the depression era will make phone booths less lonely ? " she asked.
Who will remember in a few years all those forests that were embracing Attica?
Christmas tree
What remains today from Syntagma square famous Christmas tree, during the era of major spendings initiated by Mayor Avramopoulos, are miniature copies, scattered everywhere ...
brother trees
Natural selection is not only about nature...
What remains today from Syntagma square famous Christmas tree, during the era of major spendings initiated by Mayor Avramopoulos, are miniature copies, scattered everywhere ...
Natural selection is not only about nature...
In Athens, the depression era brought up a generation of ephebes relying on their senses, on aggression, stealth, and trickery to survive. Will they ever reincorporate society and use those skills in the future, as citizens, to protect it?
The heart eater says: "Listen to the cries of Athens to imagine a day after".
In art history, "mimesis", "realism" and "naturalism" are used, often interchangeably, as terms for the accurate, even "illusionistic", representation of the visual appearance of things.
In these times of recession when 'power' is covered with a thin 'coat' of hate, forms of expression on the margins of law tend to mime it.
When urban pruning becomes a vital source for heating...
So hastily build monument, perhaps rotting slowly memory cells…
Always there, between passers by, humbly, with somebody's flowers in her hand...
Charles Baudelaire wrote to his mother, Mrs. Aupick, December 30, 1859: "What I feel is a huge discouragement, an unbearable feeling of isolation, constant fear of a vague unhappiness, a complete distrust of my strengths, a total lack of desire, an inability to find any fun.
Please let me breathe, at least from the back window!
beheaded Lela
-You're not looking at my face!
- I do see in your fading eyes the spleen that I have observed for years, on the streets of Athens.
November 17th
Orange celestial teardrops for a slain body in the courtyard of the university...
red sphere
In the backyard of one out of many theaters that shut down, in Athens since 2009.
coins & ancient orifice
Did any Athenian throw a coin into the well of the Acropolis Museum? What wish would they make today?
3-2
Ripped lampshades or somewhere a lidless window!
Librairie Kaufmann
A safe haven burned to ashes!
KANTINA
First most of the workers left, then some of the warehouses shutdown and finally the area decayed, but you remained there. Now that migrants from the Middle East and Asia are parked in a militarised camp, close by you might have a second life.
Aphrodite's disappearance
A typical Athenian tradition in crisis: fewer open air cinemas.
blue line
"We must grab our old wishes and pin them on our mirrors."
eroded angel
Carrying the weight of our depression are small human gestures in the arena of commons, on the streets of Athens...
smiling stairs
A rudimentary architecture, a few kilometers from the Parthenon, to remind us of the fragility of our well being.
No Central
Often the architecture of the city of Athens from the fifties till today and of antiquity are separated by an invisible wall, formed by hundreds of years of oblivion…
hotel sign
City ghost? Incomplete dream? Lost opportunity? Or just my melancholic mood...
-You're not looking at my face!
- I do see in your fading eyes the spleen that I have observed for years, on the streets of Athens.
Orange celestial teardrops for a slain body in the courtyard of the university...
In the backyard of one out of many theaters that shut down, in Athens since 2009.
Did any Athenian throw a coin into the well of the Acropolis Museum? What wish would they make today?
Ripped lampshades or somewhere a lidless window!
A safe haven burned to ashes!
Eressou street
When a butterfly flutters its wings in Lesbos, Eressou street catches fire.
black stairs
New horizons are buried, down the black stairs, inward, urban, in an underground burnt land !
cell n°50
Sometimes, while strolling in Athens, you feel like in a prison courtyard!?!
New horizons are buried, down the black stairs, inward, urban, in an underground burnt land !
Sometimes, while strolling in Athens, you feel like in a prison courtyard!?!
First most of the workers left, then some of the warehouses shutdown and finally the area decayed, but you remained there. Now that migrants from the Middle East and Asia are parked in a militarised camp, close by you might have a second life.
A typical Athenian tradition in crisis: fewer open air cinemas.
"We must grab our old wishes and pin them on our mirrors."
Carrying the weight of our depression are small human gestures in the arena of commons, on the streets of Athens...
A rudimentary architecture, a few kilometers from the Parthenon, to remind us of the fragility of our well being.
Often the architecture of the city of Athens from the fifties till today and of antiquity are separated by an invisible wall, formed by hundreds of years of oblivion…
City ghost? Incomplete dream? Lost opportunity? Or just my melancholic mood...
bulb
In this gloomy era, a light bulb in a old Athenian apartment building reminds me that hope comes from little daily gestures.
construction on hold
Holy foundations and sedimentations of architectures.
Holy foundations and sedimentations of architectures.
partial view
"My beloved Athens do not despair, I can always see that you are not a city".
exhibitions
No Country For Young Men - Bozar (Bruxelles, Belgium, Mar 2014)
Depression Era - Central DUPON, Mois de la Photo (Paris, France, Oct 2014)
Depression Era - Benaki Museum (Greece, Nov 2014 - Jan 2015)
Origini - Dimora OZ (Palermo, Sicily, March 2015)
SPLEEN - CRITICAL ARCHIVES III: IDENTITIES - Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete (Rethymno, Greece, Jan-March 2018)
SPLEEN - Depression Era - SLOUGHT (Philadelphia, USA Jan-Feb. 2019)
featured
editions
Mouvement (France)
