Enri Canaj (AL)

Photographer Enri Canaj records an Athens in its most realistic, pedestrian, tough.
They are the margins of the city, both socially and spatially. Leftovers which escape
development or the shopping mania of the northern suburbs.
People unwanted by the system, refugees, workers’ neighbourhoods, dirt, garbages,
graffi ti on the walls, signs, underdeveloped districts. A television plays an
islamic soap opera. It is the centre of Athens. And it has changed very much from
what most Athenians would like to remember as such.
In other parts, the city seems deserted, abandoned by its inhabitants, like London
in the movie 28 Days Later. In yet other parts, the street culture has an authenticity
unseen in an age when the media adore street culture but change it to fi t their
own measures. Canaj is photographing all over Athens, in a way that we’ ve
probably never seen before.
This Athens looks like the Bronx but, what’s certain is that it is much more real than
all the pages of every lifestyle magazine.

Thanassis Moutsopoulos