HUMAN SIDE

Greece is a melting pot where the best and the worst of the human condition can take place in a single city, such as Athens. It is a diverse place, complex and difficult to understand, where a huge humanitarian crisis and political interests converge. Personally, I feel that I would need years of research, interviews and collaboration with different social groups and people in order to dare making a judgment about what is happening there. And even so, I know that I would be missing an important part of its reality.

The suffering of thousands of people – Greek, refugees and immigrants – and the unfair nature of a country that doesn’t seem capable of solving its own problems is the perfect context for the rapid expansion of the most radical sides of the different political movements. We live in a society where political and ideological propaganda imbues everything; a period in which everything is plagued by ulterior motives, lies and manipulations that force us to take parties; a time where we tend to leave behind our human side. We’ve made everything more complicated by hating those who don’t think like us and we forgot that, deep down, we are all the same: we are all moved by the same needs and the same problems, even if we look at them differently, even if we make mistakes.

The photographs of this book were taken, mostly, in the streets of Athens, but also in refugee camps near the Greek capital and the controversial island of Lesbos, a few kilometres from Turkey. With them, I would like you to witness what I saw, so that you can draw your own conclusions. And, whatever those are, I want to give you the freedom of thought: the wider the ideas sparked by this book are, the better. I only ask of you to observe and reflect. You will see through my eyes and my camera but under your own filter and your own way of thinking.

The journey that I have prepared for you will be divided into 5 parts: TOURISITIC GREECE, HUMAN TRAILS, HUMANS, REFUGEES and THEM. Through these sections, I would like you to open your mind to discover, step by step, the human side of this small corner of south-eastern Europe.