Windows in Crisis

The city of Athens as we experience it today is a city in state of emergency. The ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis that started in 2009 sets Athens a paradigmatic metropolis and a case study of today’s reality. ‘Windows in crisis’ explores the transformation of the Athenian urban landscape as a model of a topography of economical war where crisis and everyday life intertwine.

The focus is set on the city’s ground floor and the great amount of closed and unused shop windows seen as representative of the crisis. More particularly, the streetscape of Stadiou Street, in the very center of the city, through a continuous photographic view is taken as a case study. It functions as a field for research of both the economic conditions and the visual interpretation of its shift from a commercial spot to a place of decline. The template of Stadiou is presented through a film and works as a challenge for memory, activation and possibly both the tool and the material for what is about to happen.