Since 2009, Greece has entered a state of transition that extends to present day. Any change in the social and economic situation of a region is reflected on its built environment.
From small shops, to entire neighbourhoods and even areas that were, until recently, bustling with life, the financial crisis has drastically affected every corner of the Greek society. Greece has become saturated with structures, spaces and landscapes which no longer hold any life, identity or soul. Locales that dangle between existence and the lack thereof; physically present but largely overlooked even by their own inhabitants.
According to the anthropological theory of Marc Augé, if a place can be identified as relational, historical and concerned place with identity, then a space which does not present any or all of the above traits, can be identified as a “Non-place”.
Taking into consideration the aforementioned theory, it becomes clear that ‘Non-places’, as entities, have been rapidly increasing in numbers throughout Greece, their spread undoubtedly accelerated by the effects of the financial crisis.
The main characteristic of those sceneries is the fact that while space and its properties exist within our everyday lives, we have made the compromise to live among them, thus proving the change in the urban environment, as well as in our own lives.
This photographic series aims to present typical cases of such landscapes of the Greek territory in an effort to depict this specific aspect of the crisis and also the awakening of society itself.
