Athênai, In Search of Home expands Niko J. Kallianiotis' first monograph America in a Trance, and the work produced in Pennsylvania, which for two decades became his second home. If America in a Trance was about his departure from Athens, Athênai, In Search of Home is about coming back to his roots, eager to assimilate within a place that over the years grew to be foreign but at the same time maintained its layers of familiarity.
The photographs navigate through the metro areas of Athens within an utterly diverse setting, all the way to the periphery and within a more rural and industrial stage that is vital to the character and condition of Athens. Throughout the years the city and the surrounding territories have experienced their share of socio-economic struggles and topographic transformations that have altered its identity. Despite these facts the city still stands, at times proudly and at others solemn, but always fervent to maintain its uniqueness and its yearning for a new identity, in search of new home, within one that already exists.
And the city of Athens in Kallianiotis' photographs is elliptically delineated as a vibrant environment that binds together luxury and social inequality, through which a colourful language of images and symbols makes itself all the more present, a city unpredictable and saturated with history. Kallianiotis eloquently depicts in this series of photographs a city in which the temporal and the spatial elements often clash with each other, while conducting his research for a home that has changed over the years as much as he did.
