Experiences in a Changing City
I started this project to try to better understand Athens. Though I was raised in the city, I didn’t feel connected to it in the same way as many of my relatives and friends. This is partially because I’m only half Greek, and partially because the northern suburb I was raised in is more or less a self contained bubble, detached from the rest of the city. I felt the weight of the economic crisis, witnessed its effects, but never experienced them firsthand. In the fall of 2017, this detachment began to weigh heavy on my psyche, and when I would walk up the hill in Politia with my friends Pantelis and Spyros to see the whole city from a distance, I was overcome with feelings of guilt. I felt ashamed that although I saw the whole city I could only identify a few areas, and I felt awkward that I had lived in Athens for more than a decade, and couldn’t credibly call it my hometown.
I understood that it would take years of exploration and interactions to truly get to know Athens, but I hoped that this project would at least act as a first step. I needed to push myself to explore areas I had never seen before, and talk to strangers to better understand how different people experience the city. I decided that I should start this project by exploring neighborhoods I had never seen, or had barely come across, to learn something unique about them. The next step was to speak to various people who live in these different areas, so that they could tell me about their neighborhoods. This process took two years, starting in late 2017 and concluding in late 2019. After long discussions with people from ten neighborhoods, I collected impressions from each place, took photographs drew sketches, and then composed a piece of music inspired by each experience. The mood and instrumental, as well as the lyrics of each song, are based off the informal interviews I conducted, and the time I spent in each place.
