Switzerland (“Helvetia” in Greek) is one of the richest countries in the world. New Switzerland, Nea Helvetia in Attica, Greece is, on the contrary, swept by pollution, poverty and neglect. Not long ago in Eleusina, Mandra, Aspropyrgos, and all of the Thriasio Plateau there were factories employing the working class and producing capital for the rich. This area now experiences the violent disintegration of a once prosperous world. People used to emigrate here to find a job; now, in great crisis, massive unemployment, and deindustrialization, people are searching for the means to survive. A place of major archaelogical importance has become infected, collecting - literally and metaphorically – a country’s waste and debris.
The violent disconnection of New Helvetia’s community from the global production machine automatically sends it to the fringe, leads it to inevitable transgression and places it in a limbo state right before disaster. Its people are silently suffering the reverberations of a big fall. They try to hold onto to each other, united in their common fate, victimized by their unfair exclusion from the world. The images depict their environment: the roofscape of their homes in distant, relative, historical perspective: the interiors with framed family pictures and posters –dreams on a wall– the empty backyards, the covered cars, useless and out of gas: the public places where they meet each other. The images document the unequal confrontation between humans and history.
