Artist's Book
The Evros river separates Greece from Turkey. An old crossroads between East and West, the region has become a threshold once again: every year, thousands of people in exile attempt the border crossing here, in the hope of a better future.
How do you speak of a subject this vast, this tangled, rooted as much in harsh daily reality as in fantasy? EVROS grew out of that question. Not to understand everything, but to feel and to make felt: several stories, several objects, a few pieces of a larger puzzle. An aesthetic and emotional experience that reaches beyond the bare facts.
This artist's book brings together 177 photographs and texts from six months of documentary fieldwork in Greece and Turkey, including time spent sharing the daily life of a group of exiled people attempting to cross the river into Europe. Divided into eight objects inside a box, it offers a non-linear narrative, physical and tactile. Every fold, every texture is an invitation to explore.
The box and each of its objects are entirely handmade. The cover is a unique cyanotype print. Edition of 15 + 2 AP.
1. Stranded
Hardcover book, Japanese binding / 32 pages / 20 pigment inkjet prints.
They tried to reach Europe once, twice, sometimes ten times. Always pushed back by the Greek authorities. Ten portraits. Ten testimonies.
2. Shores
4 leporellos in an envelope / 16 pages / 8 pigment inkjet prints.
Saki is a Greek fisherman from the Evros delta. He also takes part in the unofficial watch over the border. Lusi is a Turkish farmer turned smuggler, offering his services to exiles trying to cross. They live less than ten kilometers apart, one on each bank of the river.
3. Ithaca
Ithaka, by the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy. Since Homer's Odyssey, Ithaka has stood for the destination of the long journey, the end each of us is trying to reach.
4. Almeria
The Almeria hotel stands in Edirne, Turkey, a few kilometers from the border. Until it closed at the end of 2020, it was where many exiles landed between attempts to cross into Europe.
5. Nameless
Folder / 66 images.
Every year, dozens of bodies are recovered from the Evros. Their condition usually makes visual identification impossible. Personal belongings are collected and catalogued, in the hope that a relative might one day recognize one of them. It rarely happens.
6. The Game
The Game is what exiles call each attempt to cross the border into Europe. A linocut map of the Evros region and of the Jungle, the Greek forests that have taken on a mythic aura for those who try to cross them on foot.
7. Reports
News, figures and reports from the border.
8. Fine Art Print
An archival pigment print on baryta paper, signed. Edition of 15.
