Could a collective photo album outline the identity of an entire city, such as Thessaloniki, in the 21st century? A contemporary generation of artists, seventy-eight in number, and nine writers collaborate to “narrate” the city, to make a loving scrapbook.

Through the authors’ words:

The aim is to escape from the cage of insignificance and ease, paying tribute to the detail of the sensible world, to the folds of things inside and outside the light (N. Sevastakis).

The photographic lens walks around the city, wanders around, steals moments (S. Nikolaidou).

What is detected is mainly the internal temperature of the city, its latent spirit in the new era, the deepening of the photographic culture… The narrative runs through its eastern and western districts, the centres and the outskirts (I. Papaioannou).

In the present time, in moments of anger and celebration, we see young people in the streets under the torturous sun and on ice, in vigilance and agitation, in alternative and patriotic rallies (I. Zourgos).

Thessaloniki maintains a vital relationship with its images, especially cinematic ones. It has been and remains a city incurably cinematic and charmingly filmed (L. Mylonaki).

It is the imaginary city of dreams, a starting and finishing point, a topography of my childhood full of dirt and peeled clay (K. Yalenios).

A perpetual city that contains us and constantly surpasses us, advancing triumphantly through time, opening new bright arches to the unthinkable (G. Skampadronis).

The photographs of the present project prove that, no matter how fast time runs like a deer, Thessaloniki is constantly welcoming new photographers (K. Bliatkas).

As a mother she stretches out her huge lean arms and embraces all her children with affection (S. Andreadis).

It is a bilingual volume co-published with the Cultural Society of Entrepreneurs of Northern Greece.

Evdoxia Radi is an artist.

Iraklis Papaioannou is curator of MOMus / Thessaloniki Museum of Photography