PHOTOGRAPHY

IN AND AROUND PAPAMARKOU 1979-1990

The juxtaposition of the two moments in time, 1979 and 1990, complete with the full double series of photographs, was published in May 1990 in the periodical Ena , with an accompanying text by the journalist Tolis Veizade.

Neighbours of mine (this was the neighbourhood where I spent a large part of my teens and adulthood), craftsmen from Papamarkou Street and the little side-roads around Athos Square, were depicted in photographs that went on show in Thessaloniki and abroad. Several of them thereby acquired a picture of themselves, which they hung in their shops, and, needless to say, they remained good friends, whose morning greetings have always added much to the quality of our daily lives.

Furthermore, for one reason or another we have had occasion to do business together from time to time. In short, we kept in touch, and as the years went by the various signs of attrition were allowed to pass unnoticed.

Yet, remorseless as ever, the "photograph" persisted in asserting its role as custodian of the laws of nature. Itself subject to those same natural laws of time, it presented us with evidence that immediately suggested comparisons, try as we might to avoid them. It forced us to see the futility of earthly life and to search out the poetry in our daily round.

Anyway, I went back in April 1990, eleven years later, and photographed the same people or the same premises. The transcendence of black-and-white was replaced with the realism of colour, making it possible to read the parallel diptychs without hindrance. The "reader's", or viewer's, task is to detect, in one place, the barely discernible differences, in another, the obvious replacements or removations, and elsewhere, what has been irretrievably lost.

Alekos Kontos, Odos Dragoumi
Ap.Goudas, Odos Papamarkou
Apostolos Kokkalas kai yios, Odos Dragoumi
Eirini Mihailidou, Odos Dragoumi
Georgiadis, Odos Egnatia
Giorgos Abatzis, Odos Papamarkou
Giorgos Prokopiou, Odos Mpalanou
Giorgos Xouplidis, Odos Papamarkou
Dervisoglou, Odos Dragoumi
Kleanthis Psilos, Odos Papamarkou
Ap.Kavatzikis, Odos Mpalanou
Mihailidis kai Mihailidou, Odos Dragoumi
Ch.Prokopiou, Odos Mpalanou
Pan.Troupsis, Odos Papamarkou
Si.Mauridis kai An.Penintaraki, Odos Mpalanou
Tasioulis, Odos Papamarkou

 

 
 
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