Orthographs
Portfolio created: 2007-2016
This photographic essay traces the development of Renzo Piano’s new Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, a multifunctional complex for arts, education, and entertainment in Athens. Intrigue and beauty was sought after in the grit of the construction site, where for nearly a decade the ephemeral forms that underlie and foretell the shape of the future landmark were meticulously recorded from the height provided by the site’s construction tower cranes. Deriving its title from architectural orthographic drawings, Orthographs tracks the progress of the building’s construction site against Piano’s visionary projections and plans. In the photographs of the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center, the effects of perspective are recorded with precision, and human scale is accounted for with consistency.
A hope is expressed that—just as the architectural drawing has its own life, separate and free from the bricks-and-mortar structure—the photographs may hold their own meaning, as documents of this extraordinary building project, and perhaps something more. The Orthographs volume distributed by Yale University Press, offers rare, behind-the-scenes access to the work performed and the land and materials moved in the service of turning vision into reality. The large format invites readers to immerse themselves in the photographs and texts by Renzo Piano and Robert and Katharine Storr hail the importance of the Centre and its role in transforming the physical and cultural topography of Athens.
Industrial Eleusina
Portfolio created: 2016
The industrial landscape of Eleusis was addressed on the basis of photographic interpretation of the buildings under the same lighting conditions. The industrial compounds were photographed shortly after sundown avoiding shadowing. This approach enriched industrial buildings with features of timeless sculptural qualities as the undermining of time recording rendered their architectural quality as the key figure of photographic composition downplaying their function: the viewer is not aware which factory ended shift and called it a night a while ago and which one closed years ago, remaining an empty shell ever since.
The invitation to produce art photography for the needs of exhibition Industrial Eleusis: people and factories extended quite a demanding invitation. The industrial infrastructure photographed were met in different moments of their life circle: among them one can find industries that are fully operational, some in painful anticipation of their eminent future and others that are for ever lost; their only trace of existence is their remaining abandoned shell.
As a result, the photographic interpretation attempted to approach the emblematic buildings of heavy industry firms of great historical importance as monuments of Eleusis city which recall the important labor and entrepreneurship past while signaling the great future potential of the place. The photographs of Eleusis factories, which were considered home for thousand of the workers for their entire lives and propelled the city into becoming a key industrial center of the country, avoid the temptation of first level nostalgic approach of a glorious past, nor do they try to beautify its flaws.
Instead, they propose a rational assessment of an industrial landscape that despite difficult working conditions produced goods and wealth that shaped the life each and every one of us experienced, offering jobs and a hope of a better future to come. It remains to be seen whether the photographs exhibited will carry the basic potential qualities of the country to invent new solutions and stands up to the expectations when faced with dire conditions. They are the latest photographic record of Eleusis’ industrial heritage just a few days before the city was anointed the European Capital of Culture for 2021 under the title Eleusis2021-Go to euphoria.
Athens NowHere
Portfolio created: 2016
The African dust arriving from the South covers the city of Athens, once again. Every few years, the phenomenon reoccurs hiding the city from the face of the earth leaving behind a sence of uneasiness, as if we have lost our way, our sense of direction.
It so happens that for long time now this is exactly how we feel. Lost.
For many years anger has been alternating with grief, shame with fear, while the horror of imminent disaster leaves us empty, staring into a void. It has been quite some time that our lives are regulated by sophisticated financial terms: recession, inflation, IMF, sustainable economic growth, spreads… Each and every one of us watches events unfold, silently, in front of the TV screen, or loudly, in the streets outside.
Yet, there comes a moment when one wonders how did we come to this? How were we so mistaken in thinking that our future could be better, our children would have the same opportunities we had and live a better life than their parents? It appears that this is not the case anymore. Obvious as it may seem now, we were caught off guard, and life changed on us while we were not paying any attention.
Located between East and West, literally as well as metaphorically, we permitted our cities to expand in order to accommodate people coming from all over the country to seek a better future in the capital. Nearly half the population gradually gathered in Athens forcing the city to spread towards all directions. We created a private home with little regard for public space. We silently accepted illicit construction only because it was deemed “democratic”. We bent the rules, took certain liberties and once the final outcome was out there for us to grasp, we remained in awe of how chaotic it really looked.
Athens Nowhere looks at the face of this ancient and at the same time contemporary city, in an attempt neither to beautify nor to cover any of its shortcomings but to narrate its story as it unfolds. It takes a critical distance and looks the cityscape for what it really is: the cause of actions and its effect.
The cityscapes under heavy dust presented in the portfolio are portraits of a country under constant stress, faced with both financial and moral collapse. At the same time, they represent a return to the basic qualities that make this country what it is, a land that extends hospitality and solidarity to all those in need of a helping hand and a safe refuge. They are my day and night, the reality I experience and the dream I hope for.
They are the country I, too, helped to bring to its knees – and the country I too need to rebuild from the beginning.
This is my country. I intend to stay.
