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Documentary photography series examines impact of financial crisis on Greece

In her documentary series, In Waiting, Eirini Vourloumis explores the question: how does identity manifest when tomorrow is entirely unpredictable?

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All images courtesy of Hatje Cantz

All images courtesy of Hatje Cantz

The financial crisis that shook Greece can be felt most prominently in its capital, and as such this forms the subject of the documentary photographer, who often works for such publications as The New York Times or Le Monde.

"It stands desolately in the entrance hall to the shipping association in Athens: a dried yucca with only two leaves. The space, which the plant was supposed to enhance, seems to have oppressed and overwhelmed it. Nobody feels responsible for its well-being. More dead than alive, the palm symbolises the state of public spaces in today’s Greece." Just one of forty images in Vouloumis’ new book, it serves as a poignant metaphor.

Motifs show traces of the past, but are always deserted. Whether it is the sticky-looking decorations and worn walls of a courtroom, bare tax offices, or abandoned funeral parlours, everything is united by the debilitating impression of an idle bureaucracy.

The pictures do not provide answers or interpretations; rather, they invite the viewer to sense—and critically question—Greece’s current situation. What will people in the future think about today’s Athens? What lasting influences will the present day have on the country’s development?

Vourloumis, the daughter of a Greek father and an Indonesian mother, was born and raised in Athens. Discover more at hatjecantz.de.

A bronze statue of a man draped in white fabric stands in front of classical neoclassical buildings in Athens, with bare tree branches hanging above
Mural depicting silhouettes of iconic world landmarks including the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben and the Brandenburg Gate against a golden sky, with a brown leather chair positioned in front on a concrete floor
Wall of an Athens office displaying a vintage map of Greece, a red starfish ornament and a small portrait, with papers stacked on a desk below
Cork board with papers pinned to weathered concrete wall with visible rust stains and deteriorating surface, documenting urban decay in Athens
Person wearing black cropped trousers and leather boots standing in a sparse interior with minimal furniture, photographed from the legs down on a polished floor
Shelves of uniformly bound archive volumes and documents in an institutional library or records storage room, with a few loose papers on a wooden desk in the foreground
Book cover for Eirini Vourloumis's In Waiting, featuring a small aquarium on a white pedestal against a beige wall with pink diagonal lines
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