As a result of commitment to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to the long-term vision of a climate-neutral EU by 2050, in the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2019 greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the termination of operation of all Greece’s lignite power plants by 2028. In fact most of them -representing 80% of today’s installed capacity- will close down by 2023.

Starting from this fact, along with journalist Elisa Perrigueur, we travelled to the northern districts of Kozani, Ptolemaida, Amindeo and Florina in Western Macedonia the energy transition equals to an economic and social transition, as the local economy depends on lignite mining. See the full series. 

Many thanks to Orama Photography Studies for the invitation to the online talk with greek photographer Eleni Mouzakiti. We spent 2 hours in conversation about the different ways to approach the development of a personal photo project, while sharing images and ideas with a big enthusiastic audience! Watch the talk on video in greek.

Honoured to receive a special mention for the portfolio of my ongoing project On Land and Water (working title) in this year’s Annual URBANAUTICA Institute Awards  2020.

Have a look at the winning, shortlisted and mentioned works here.

The International Photography Festival of Belo Horizonte opened today it’s 4th edition exploring the concept RESOLUTIVE IMAGES. Online during 7th-12th of December 2020, the programme includes an exhibition showing the work of 43 artists from 19 different countries, workshops, lectures, film screenings and a photo marathon.

Resolutive images, a concept brought to discussion by the farmer and quilombola leader Antônio Bispo dos Santos, Nego Bispo, from Piauí, Brazil, are those that feature ways of thinking, acting, and correlation to the world. They seek other routes of approach, solutions, and poetic solutions to address problems and conflicts in the domain of micro and macro politics, the understanding of images, the human action in the world and do not serve only as devices for offence, defense, denunciation or regret.

In this context, I am happy and honoured to contribute to the exhibition with the series A Zone to Defend.

A preview of my ongoing long-term project On Land and Water, has been published at Voxeurop, a multilingual online independent media informing about Europe. On Land and Water is a a visual research about the growing interest in fossil fuels, and the environmental issues that come with it, in Greece and Albania in times of climate emergency. See the full photo story at Voxeurop.

Thanks to Constance Decorde for curating this publication.

How much do we know about everyday life in the neighbouring Balkan countries? What do we have in common? What makes us stand apart? What unites us? What can we accomplish together?  With those questions in mind, we called on photographers of all ages and ethnicities, in order to find photographic series that could leave stereotypical representations behind and help us, instead, to better understand both our neighbours and our own selves. This is how we organised a pop-up photo exhibition in 17 different spots  (bookstores, records stores, cafes) of Exarchia, a central historical neighbourhood of Athens. 

26 photographers from 12 countries participated in this pop-up exhibition, which took place in the context of the 3rd Film Symposium Balkan Can Kino and was curated between Evi Stamou and me. The photographic series were distributed across the streets of Exarcheia according to the following themes: our relationship with the rest of the Balkans,  the younger generation’s perspective and its dilemma facing immigration, the recent past, the painful recollection of the war and, last, the fluidity and the fragility of the present state of things.

Taking the lack of funds in the cultural life of the Balkans as a given, but eager to stand on our own feet and willing to keep exploring all those factors that shape our daily life, we invited visitors to wander about the neighborhood of Exarcheia in Athens and to get reacquainted with our city and its inhabitants in a real Balkanic context.

Thanks to all the photographers who trusted us with their work.

Participating photographers: Kostis ARGYRIADIS (GR), Aggelos BARAI (AL), Petrut CALINESCU (RO), Laura CNOSSEN (NL), Nicholas CONSTANT (UK), Dan COURT (UK), Sylvan DAHLGRUN (SE), Vedad DIVOVIC (BIH), Jeanne FRANK (FR), Hannnes JUNG (DE),  Ilir TSOUKO (AL), Babis KOUGEMITROS (GR) & Vassilis KONSTANTINOU (GR), Jacopo LANDI (IT), Thodoris NIKOLAOU (GR), Madalin MARIANUT (RO), Antigoni PAPANTONI (GR), Kosmas PAVLIDIS (GR), Ioanna SAKELLARAKI (GR), Orestis SEFEROGLOU (GR), Nick StOEGGER (US), Louiza VRADI (GR), Patrick WACK (FR), Dominik WOJCIECHOWSKI (PL), Rafael YAGHOBZADEH (FR), Lila ZOTOU (GR)

Follow the exhibition’s Instagram account. More at: https://bit.ly/3jaqQC3

The Terrible Image

Snapshots from the protest against the new controversial environmental super-law proposed and approved by the greek government on the first day after the ease of the strict lockdown measures due to COVID-19. Environmental law has been drastically transformed with the purpose to attract investments. NGOs and over 80 civil society’s groups active on environmental issues oppose the new super-law worrying that it will put economy over the protection and preservation of the environment.

Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis refered to the the protest as “a terrible image”.

See the full article on LIFO.
Many thanks to amazing Spyros Staveris for hosting the pictures in his blog ΑΛΜΑΝΑΚ

Singing to save the waters, documents two different actions by Vrisoules, a women’s activist group who sing and dance in order to raise awareness and their opposition to oil and gas exploration and extractions projects currently taking place in Greece. 

See the full set of pictures and the related article in Greek on LIFO. 

Published on Greece Is / Words by Alex King, Pictures by Penelope Thomaidi

Creativity in the Countryside: How Art and Tech are Revitalizing Epirus

Three inspiring initiatives are drawing on art, tradition, and open-source technologies to shape a better future in the rugged mountains of Epirus.

In the wild and beautiful Tzoumerka mountains young people from the Balkans collaborate to repair an old stone path reviving traditional building techniques, an open-lab designs and fabricates open source farming tools and contemporary art is exhibited in the building of the old school of Elliniko village. 

What these three initiatives do is really inspiring! Read the full article.

Many thanks to Click Magazine team for including an interview and presenting a big part of my A Zone to Defend series in its No. 68 issue. Browse through the pages of Click Magazine #68, to discover the work of photographers Vicky Martin, Ivan Clemente, Claudio Rasano, Mauro Liggi, Paolo Manzo, Penelope Thomaidi.