Open-air theater in the hollow of the green rock; it may be Lycabettus, but it is Turkovunia. The imposing entrance of an urban apartment building and yapi with pseudo-Hellenistic columns in the middle of nowhere. Capital ambitions and the deep Balkans are a few kilometers away. Academy of Athens, Golden Hall, Bazaar in Schistos. The anonymous protagonists of a city that attracts and repels almost simultaneously, attracts and repels us.

I was hooked by what Nikos Vatopoulos writes in his note, with which he concludes album by Nikos I. Kallianiotis “Athenaios, In search of a home” (Damiani Publications): “The Athens photographed by Nikos I. Kallianiotis is an Athens that neither mourns nor triumphs. It is a city of growing self-confidence and relative spaciousness. The footprint of the city, the taste we taste, the aura of urban concentration and the movement between harmony and conflict take us away from the photographic personification of the city of the last century.” The curator of the MOMus Museum of Photography in Thessaloniki, Iraklis Papaioannou, says otherwise in his opening remarks. “The Athens of Kallianiotis brings into her body all the successes and failures of modern Greek society, visible traces of the struggle between internal and external, the creeping brutality of the economic crisis, aspects of reality that seem to be forcibly soldered, lacking unity or coherence. ideology”.

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Nikos Kallianiotis’s relationship with Athens is one of constant change. As if personal experience follows the incessant rhythms of the city. “I grew up in Athens, but at about age 24 I left for the United States permanently for family reasons, as my father was already living and working in New York. Who wouldn’t want to stay in this global metropolis? However, certainly not me, who did not want to leave Athens at all. Now I can say that thanks to my migration, my relationship with Athens has become much stronger. Athens for me is a chaotic, anarchic yet inscrutable city with multiple levels, which I think is perfect for my own psyche. It’s a passionate romance with all the consequences.”

“Athens for me is a chaotic, anarchic, but apathetic city,” says photographer N. Kallianiotis.

Flipping through the album, the images explode with bright colors. Thematic pluralism and the slight contrasts that arise from geographical dispersal are clearly uneven material that would otherwise create problems. In the case of Athens, it’s like looking in a mirror. “As a basic principle, I wanted the city to speak to me, show me the way in such a way that I would allow myself to go. If there was a central axis, it is that I wanted to cover the entire topography of Athens, from the center to the most “provincial” part of it. I think this coexistence of the two sides shapes its character, but at the same time it was an “obstacle” in terms of the book’s binding,” Mr. Kallianiotis tells me. “It was a relationship that, one might say, started from scratch, without demands, but with understanding from both sides. Whether or not there are any photographic goals, they should create the social dialogue that I feel is essential.”

An important part of the photographic work has evolved along with successive quarantines due to the pandemic. “My experience during the pandemic has been that there has obviously been loneliness that is consistent with my personal experience as an immigrant. What I saw and felt the most was that there was finally a loneliness in the city and its people, which I think is not so much related to the pandemic, because before that I photographed in Athens. I think it has to do with the fact that most people want to escape from Athens. I also had this thought many times, but returning from photo trips and going to Kifissos at night, something starts to speak to me. There is a romantic tension that I feel both with and without the pandemic. And that feeling means something.”

The album is available in central bookstores and on the photographer’s website (www.nikokallianiotis.com) with free delivery within Greece.