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POSTCARDS FROM ATHENS

PHOTOGRAPHY, PUBLICATION, INTERVENTION

2010-2016

Postcards from Athens is a project, whose title derives from the popular hashtag #postcardsfrom_x, that often accompanies colourfull and fancy posts of travelers on Instagram and other web platforms. The work is based on a big archive of black and white photos, shot in the Greek capital between 2010 and 2016. They depict the marks of the economic and social turmoil that the crisis has inflicted on the broken body of the city and its citizens. The photographs have been shot with a mobile phone and the use of an application that resembles the medium format aesthetic. The form is chosen to highlight the unmediated, sharp and indicative instances of a city in decay, its deteriorating public spaces and its people surrendered to the passivity of an all-encompassing crisis.

 

45 instances among hundreds were selected and printed as postcards. These dystopian souvenirs have been (and are) individually dispersed with a guerrilla-distribution tactic across various galleries and museum shops in London and Athens, for people to acquire and use for free in whatever way they wish.

 

An open edition of a handmade publication is sold to financially support the ongoing production and free distribution of the postcards.

 

The work was shortlisted in OPEN16 Solo (Brighton Photofringe 2016) and received the Danny Wilson Memorial Prize (People’s Choice - Brighton Photofringe). It has been selected and included in several book fairs across the UK (Photo Publishers’ Market by Photo Fringe & Photo Biennial 2016/ Brighton, Photobook Fair 2016 @ Impressions Gallery/ Bradford,  Encountering Pain live event and International Conference @ UCL/ London, The Small Press Project @ IAS & North Lodge, UCL/ London). In March 2018 the publication was part of Spectacular Atrophy 01803, an Independent Publishing Exhibition in Taipei (Taiwan), run by Batonic Projects.

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