Athens' Centre

A Center of a Crisis

Extra lines are added to Athena's calendar in recent years.
The town became station for multiple nations and in a very short period two million new citizens were added. All these people consider Athens more as a gate to other European countries, but the truth is that most of them are trapped downtown.
The proportion to the local population is high and the change in everyday city life is very evident.
On the other hand, the green has almost been vanished. Cars multiply like insects. The air and noise pollution are high, slatternly buildings, cover every inch, and only for the sake of ancient ruins some free space is left.
Who hates Αthens, who likes her?
Things are in a weird balance while city has reached its limits.
The people's behaviour looks nervous and photography in the streets is seen as a suspicious occupation.
It seems that something has been lost, probably in the name of an undefined growth, but only a crisis is present now.
The poor and the rich are rapidly growing and the city can hardly hide its ugly face.
I do not hate Athina; I do not love her either. Probably she doesn't like us.
But the climate remains good even all recent fires and the landscape still has something to offer.
I walk in the centre of this city without any specific intention, neither with the ambition of objectivity.
Whatever my thoughts are, are associated very little with the photos I take.
I leave things to occur when they want to. Then I release the shutter.
This is not a relaxing activity but an intense effort to focus and mostly to avoid a natural tendency to the familiar codes.
Photographs feel better in books, where they find a home there. New technological capabilities provide the opportunity for this to happen in low cost, and this is almost revolutionary.
Back to 1974, when Turks invaded Cyprus and a military regime collapsed here, I bought my first record in high school: Doors' "Strange days”.
I catch a similar feeling of worry ness today. Days are not the same, but they are strange enough.
Problems, which are not associated only with this place but cover many more areas behind the seen, make a hard complex situation.
There are no obvious solutions, and things are Multiplexed.