Yiannis Hadjiaslanis is a photographer based in Athens, Greece and a member of “Depression Era”, a collective founded in 2011 in order to articulate a common discourse and take a stance against the extreme social, economic and political transformations of the past few years in Greece. Today it brings together 36 artists, photographers, writers, curators, designers and researchers – supported by the non-profit organization Kolektiv8. The Eye of Photography spoke with this image-maker who travels through his country looking for national narratives.
When and how did you get into photography?
I grew up in a home where there already was love for photography. My father and his father were keen amateur photographers. Still, I believe that the decisive factor for my immersion in the medium came in my late teens with my introduction to the darkroom, and the actual realization of the photographic process itself while making my first prints.
Each project of yours is dedicated to a specific location (Archipelago, Morocco, bedrooms…) How do you choose these places?
I feel that being Greek comes with connections and associations between what is called East and West. I have been traveling and working a lot in the southeast Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa, all understood as interrelated regions. The locations were part of the course of things, in succession, both in terms of my personal life and as a result of commissioned work. For example, right after a residency in Cairo, I was invited to do a residency and run a workshop in Bahrain. A few years later I was selected to make a series of photographs in Morocco by the Embassy of Morocco in Athens because of the work I had a produced during those residencies.
Ideally, where will be your next photo destination? Why?
For about a year and a half now, I have been working on a new photo series here in Athens. It has been a long time since I worked on a project in my home city and I am following it through at the moment. This series looks at interior spaces which hold various historical and national narratives associated with Greece’s past and present. I also soon plan to start shooting in other Greek cities for this project.
Athens seems to be part of your inspiration, what about the city and its people appeal to you?
Athens is the city I was born in and have spent most of my life. It is the place I am more acquainted with, but for the same reason, there are times when I find it difficult to initiate new projects as it can become too familiar. It took me three years to start the project I am working on now since my last Athens series. 2018 is the tenth year since the country has been deeply afflicted by the debt crisis. As a Greek photographer, I feel it is important to document and try to interpret present social conditions and transformations.
If you have to choose the photo you’re the proudest of, which one would you pick?
This is a difficult question. There are many images that I am very attached to, and in different ways. At this moment, one out of a few I would pick is from a series of night photographs I made in Athens in 2012 (‘After Dark’ series). It is a photograph of a reconstruction of an ancient Greek column and of a CCTV camera at the entrance of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. As a neoclassical building, with a design based on the ideal of ‘ a classical’ past which was based on the conception and generation of the modern Greek Republic and a product of Western European national imagination, it speaks of constructions of national, colonial and geopolitical identities, and of overseeing and control.
Interview by Joséphine Faisant
Joséphine Faisant is an author specialising in photography. She lives and works in Athens, from where she uncovers local talent..
http://depressionera.gr/yiannis-hadjiaslanis
