Stratis Vogiatzis – Inner World – Chios

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22 December 2011 – 14 Ocak 2012

The Museum of Photography, Thessaloniki and DEPO co-organize the exhibition “Inner World – Chios. Stratis Vogiatzis”.

The Inner World concerns inner spaces of the island of Chios that Stratis photographed for almost three years. The project culminated in a book with the title “Inner World, Mastic Villages.”

With this project Stratis has recorded and revealed the unaffected and transparent treasures of a genuine people’s culture which lost the battle of time and hides away from fear. He doesn’t enter the place for self-pleasure, neither does he have an ulterior motive. He goes in like a pilgrim entering a righteous and holy place of worship in order to be able to understand and feel. He strips himself of everything and puts himself into the other person’s place in order to see what the others would never see by themselves. In this way he leads us into the inner world of the homes where the decorations reflect pain and loss as well as the inspiration of life.

Thus he leads us, in a selective and mystical way, inside the houses where the decoration reflects the souls of the people who live or used to live in them. The rooms and their ornamentation are not a showy deception or a deliberate covering up of the truth, but a humble staging of the need for moderation, of the burden of deprivation, as well as a playful enthusiasm for life which, together with faith and hope, have nurtured the people’s culture for whole centuries. The simple and essential things of this culture, those which we would probably come across in the findings of an ancient settlement… There we recognize our true identity with a sense of awe and enthusiasm.

Dimos Avdeliodis

The exhibition is presented with the support of the Consulate General of Greece in Istanbul.

The exhibition was presented as part of the PhotoBiennale / 21st International Photography Meeting (organized by the Museum of Photography) in Thessaloniki, Chios, Turin (2010) and Trieste (2011).

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Stratis Vogiatzis

Born in Chios, Greece in 1978. He studied Economics and Political Sciences in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and in the University of Amsterdam. He has been working as a freelance photographer in several assignments in Greece and abroad. He has taken part in various solo and group exhibitions and his stories have been published in Greece and abroad. Four books with his work have been published.

www.stratisvogiatzis.com

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