The Depression Era Project inhabits the urban and social landscapes of the crisis. It begins as a collective experiment, picturing the Greek city and its outer regions, the private lives of outcasts, the collapse of Public systems, the emergence of the Commons and snapshots of the everyday often under the radar, in order to understand the social, economical and historical transformation currently taking place in Greece. It seeks to do so with as clear a gaze as possible. It understands, in its double meaning, that entropy, disaster, uncertainty and insolvency are also states of mind, ushering us to an era where the notion of progress, the idea of growth and the reflex of looking forward to a future are no longer dominant modes of perceiving and creating in the world.
Depression Era seeks to stand outside the media montage and white noise of current public discourse by creating its own mosaic of images and texts.Its aims to actions, the design of spaces, digital platforms and interfaces, and publications that dynamically explore this mosaic. At the same time, it organizes educational inititatives and an open call to young artists looking to eventually create an artistic archive of the crisis and through it, a new digital and physical Commons, an ‘anti-screen’ and ‘sidewalk museum’ as gestures and intervations projecting an alternative, informal record of contemporary history to our republic and public space. This opening aims to nurture new projects and allow for the expression of a new identity, in time, beyond the Depression Era.
The Depression Era Project agrees that its images and texts are not Greek, but European, viewports to the shape of things to come, straddling and overcoming the red lines of the Crisis.
The Depression Era collective was founded in 2011 in order to articulate a common discourse and take a stance against the extreme social, economical and political transformations of the past few years. Today it brings together 36 artists, photographers, writers, curators, designers and researchers – supported by the NGO “KOLEKTIV8.”
Contact: depressioneragr@gmail.com