Atelier Photo / Mai 2017 avec 9 élèves du collège Jean-Moulin / Montceau-les-Mines / Saône-et-Loire.
Projet: Former les élèves dans le but de documenter les activités et spectacles du festival artistique qui ont eu lieu à la fin de l’année scolaire.
Clicker sur l’image pour visualiser le livre créé avec les photos des élèves
Athens. March 2009. Overlooking the Acropolis, on a parcel of land just five minutes from the city center, Albanian Roma families living since 2006 in filthy conditions, have made their houses out of planks and pieces of wood. There is no water, no electricity, no sewage network. The smell of plastic from burning wires covers the air.
This is the Votanikos settlement at Orfeos street. Forgotten for years, but yet remembered, as this piece of land the Albanian Roma families are sitting on, is private. Promoters and residents put pressure on the government to urge their removal from the area, as importants constructions plans are on the way. The law though is pretty clear: a removal without any suitable relocation is illegal.
A suitable relocation was never to be found and three years later, on the evening of the 14th of August 2012, day of the year when 99.9% of the athenian population is out of town, an intense smell of burning garbage together with toxic pollutants spread throughout the city of Athens.
According to the police, the fire broke out around 8pm within the Roma settlement and spread very quickly, completely destroying 80% of the hand-made houses. The fire department said that the fire was caused by the Roma themselves while trying to burn caoutchouc tires and cables. No-one bothered to investigate any further.
The images below are a glimpse of the settlement before it burnt to the ground.
M55 is a non-profit organization, whose mission is to develop Greek photography and expand it beyond local geographical artistic boundaries. Operating as an independent art space since 2005, M55’s primary goal is to highlight modern societal issues, create awareness, and stimulate cultural exchange.
The gallery is based in the centre of Athens/Greece in the Exarhia neighbourhood, which is regarded as the main intellectual and alternative area of the city. It is run by the photojournalist, Stefania Mizara. The building that hosts M55 is a renovated neoclassical building that has some of its old elements preserved, including its wooden ceiling, ceramic tiles, and stone walls, which give you a sense of 19th-century Athens.
In 2015, M55 started a photo residency programme – M55Reports – to preserve peer support and the valuable photographic exchange with London College of Communication (LCC) photojournalist graduates. Representing M55Reports, Stefania Mizara, Christina Vazou, and Maria Moschou invited LCC MA documentary photography graduates to Athens, offering the space at M55 as for a place for facilitating artistic dialogue and developing creative ideas.
Those offered the residency were asked to visit Athens and make a portrait of Greek society inside the long depression. From this cycle of residencies, 12 documentary photographers from LCC stayed and worked on the different aspects of Greece’s crisis.
The programme has been creatively exhilarating and has also brought about interesting debates and opportunities that may propel future research and exchange.
It is our plan to combine these projects and include them in a multicultural view of what happened in Greece in the last four, starting with a proposed exhibition in 2016. We are also considering placing the projects on tour and looking for research bodies to expand our debates and reach out to new audiences. We see this as the beginning of engaging photojournalism that can embrace other European countries. We are, in fact, hoping this model of collaboration will be repeated with other partners within Europe and beyond.
Photographers: Cinzia d’Ambrosi, Sophie Knittel, Graham Miller, Linka A Odom, Anna Johansson, Hanna-Katrina Herdosz, Rosa Verde, Omur Black, Silva Ferretti, Stefania Mizara & Maria Moschou. Christina Vazou & Katerina Tzigotzidou conducted the interviews of all participants and Nelly Ollivault edited the video.
Atelier photo 2013-2014 avec les élèves de 4ème du collège Jules Ferry / Génelard / Saône-et-Loire.
20 élèves, 5 sorties par groupe de 4 pour documenter le Patrimoine de cinq villages dans les environs du collège:
Oudry, Palinges, Perrecy-les-Forges, Ciry-le-Noble et Génelard.
Cet atelier a donné lieu à une exposition à la galerie “la Vignothèque” / Montceau-les-Mines et un livre réalisé avec les photos des élèves.
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