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Postcards from Athens

PHOTOGRAPHY, PUBLIC INTERVENTION, 2010-2017

Postcards from Athens takes its title from the popular hashtag #postcardsfrom_x, commonly used on social media to accompany idealized, colorful images shared by travelers and tourists. The project reverses that gesture, replacing polished leisure imagery with an unembellished record of a city under strain.

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Composed of black-and-white photographs shot in Athens between 2010 and 2016, the work documents the visible traces of the economic and social collapse that reshaped both the urban landscape and the lives within it. The photographs were taken on a mobile phone using an application that mimics the framing and tonal qualities of medium-format film. At the time, I was working extensively with medium-format cameras and shooting exclusively in black and white - a way of seeing that had become instinctive. The app offered a practical continuity: precise exposure, quick operation, and the ability to maintain the same visual discipline under limited means.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The work did not begin with a defined intention. It started as a visual diary, a daily recording of my surroundings as the city gradually deteriorated. Only six years later did this dispersed archive assume a concrete form. From hundreds of photographs, forty-five were selected and printed as postcards - modest, reproducible objects that could circulate freely. A crowdfunded open-edition booklet supported the ongoing production and guerrilla-style placement of the postcards in gallery and museum card holders in London (TATE, The Barbican, Whitechapel Gallery) and Athens (Benaki Museum, Acropolis Museum), where they were offered for anyone to take, send, or keep. After installing them, I documented their presence whenever possible, recording their temporary insertion into institutional spaces.

The work was shortlisted for OPEN16 Solo (Brighton Photo Fringe 2016) and received the Danny Wilson Memorial Prize (People’s Choice Award, Brighton Photo Fringe). It has been exhibited in multiple book fairs and events across the UK, including the Photo Publishers’ Market (Photo Fringe & Photo Biennial 2016, Brighton), Photobook Fair 2016 (Impressions Gallery, Bradford), Encountering Pain Conference (UCL, London), The Small Press Project at the North Lodge (UCL, London). In March 2018, the publication was featured in Spectacular Atrophy 01803, an independent publishing exhibition in Taipei, organized by Batonic Projects, and in March 2019, again by the Batonic Project, at the Barrak Art Book Fair, in Okinawa. 

         

Postcards from Athens questions how cities in crisis are represented and circulated. By appropriating the format of the postcard - a tool traditionally used to export simplified images of place - the project redirects attention to what is usually excluded from those narratives. The choice of a mobile phone collapses hierarchies between “serious” and “improper” tools, insisting that what matters is not the device but the act of looking. The postcards do not monumentalize the crisis; they register it at human scale.

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