The photographic series “The City as an Installation” was born in 2015, through the observation of the constantly changing urban landscape of Thessaloniki. It wasn’t the change during the crisis period with closed shops and lowered roller shutters, but rather the more ephemeral and inventive one. This change served temporary needs, such as getting rid of an armchair, a mattress, a chair, or altering something in the public space simply because it served someone. As piles of objects accumulated or moved, a new kind of improvised work began to take shape, a work that engaged in daily, informal dialogue with the urban environment and in mental conversation with its inhabitants.
Considering that in the art world, the concept of installation is a large-scale construction with various materials, designed for a specific space or a short period, Thessaloniki acquired the role of a continuous, vibrant participatory installation, where every citizen could modify it by adding or removing objects. This installation had an unknown lifespan, as no one could predict when it would end or if anyone would take care of its removal.
There was, of course, another change in the landscape. The more poetic one. Of autumn leaves covering a windshield, of pomegranates broken by a group on the sidewalk on New Year’s Eve, of a newspaper left on a bench for someone else to find and read. Or one that served again a temporary purpose, such as setting up a bench to celebrate an event or a scaffold for a construction. And, of course, all those that through the “frame within the frame,” could transport the citizen from the gray reality of the city to bright, dreamy, magical worlds.
The photographic series “The City as an Installation” is a dynamic series, as its temporary elements transform daily into an evolving, collective work that highlights the authenticity, needs, and personal expression of the citizens. The complex but poetic changes in the landscape reflect the contemporary history of the city and invite the residents of Thessaloniki to immerse themselves with all their senses in a new world as it is shaped by their own actions many times.
