"The area that surrounds Athens is composed by a certain antithesis, as the vast urban surface meets with the countryside.
Surrounded by the silence of centenarian olive groves, meadows, mountains and seas, the city today struggles to carry the weight of its own existence, facing a rather tough and tense present. This is a prolonged silence that seems to surround the loud and desperate cry that comes out of the capital city.
With more than 4 million people living today in Athens’ metropolitan area, the city itself is a controversial image on its own, sketched by the difficult palpable reality that everyday an increasing number of people have to face. It is a depression that gradually influences every aspect of life, economically and psychologically, in quite a dramatic and absolute way, as the consequences of this crisis are extending and the agony for tomorrow is constantly growing. Around the world, images of graphic violence, extensive riots and distressing poverty have been transmitted by the media, enhancing the depressed portrait of the city. The center of Athens has been the main scenery of the crisis that this country is going through and the drama in the streets of the city provided a visual narrative for the Greek Crisis chronicles.
The images of this project were made around the outskirts of Athens, less than 30 miles away from the heart of the capital. It is the area that surrounds the depressed city and all the millions of its citizens’ individual stories. Outside the invisible borders of the extended metropolitan area, in the land that lies behind the edge of the city, time seems to move parallel but in a different density. There is an inevitable contrast between the two states, a parable manifested by the discreet mystery that trees seem to hide among their branches and seas among their waves. This is an alternate state in parallel time, where silence seems to carry inside it a waiting, patiently whispering a long forgotten language.
There is no beauty that is timeless but the timelessness of nature can reflect a new direction, maybe even a hope.
It’s not a blissful silence but it’s an inspiring one."
texto que acompanha a exposição In Landscape de Petros Koublis e que interessa compara com a de Azade Köker, duas cidades em países contíguos, um dentro e outro fora da 'comunidade europeia', um abismo político entre eles, um abismo de situação. se o que é imposto pelo poder aos cidadãos de um estado fosse facilmente visível, esta seria a janela de observação. apesar das diferenças geográficas que moldaram ambos os países, um que se extende pela longa Anatólia com as suas culturas particulares, outro que se espraia em ilhas ou sobe pelos balcãs (verde escuro): mas ambos comunhando tantos lugares e, no entanto, hoje, poderiam estar em ilhas opostas.
sobre a Grécia gostei de ler a comparação de Tabucchi: a Ítaca de Homero, a Ítaca de Cavafy, a Ítaca de Sophia. com Tabucchi, diria que estes são os únicos lonely planet que interessam.
em termos sonoros seria o silêncio grego contra o clamor turco. o despojamento vs. exuberância.
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