Still Neighborhood | Vaggelis Tatsis

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Still Neighborhood | Vaggelis Tatsis

Info

Artist

Vaggelis Tatsis

Curated by

Yorgos Prinos, Vaggelis Tatsis

Coproduction: MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections

Opening: Thursday, 19 October, 20:00

“Still Neighborhood” project started as a personal quest when I returned to the place where I grew up in order to initially photograph my family. I focused on the people I grew up with, familiar and accessible. Gradually, as the ideas and the experiences shaped into images, each of them determined the next step, the next shot, connected with the previous one but at the same time one step further from it. Portraits and places were originating from my own experiences, memories and nostalgia, then from the closest related people to me and gradually from a wider circle of people all of whom, closer and more distant, shared a connection at the same time introvert and extrovert with the area: from their family to their neighborhood, from their neighborhood to the suburb, from the suburb to the wider area of West Attica.

Neighborhood covers a necessity; a person’s need to be part of a community in which each one of them belongs keeping at the same time their identity. This need is similar to one’s need for faith or adoration.

Neighborhood is not only defined by geographical districts, but is also formed by the very same people who live there. Each person learns how to be part of the other’s life and share their daily routines.

Neighborhood change at a different pace than the greater city’s outlook. Here the pace changes with each generation, with a new puzzle of relationships to be created: neighbors become classmates, classmates become friends, friends become best friends and sometimes couples.

The place plays a significant role in people’s lives. It covers their basic needs. The place molds the people and they in turn transform the place with their dynamic and their life path. This relationship – almost as a dependency – between people and their area is of utmost importance, absolutely and determinant for both sides.
My photographic interest is not only centered around people and their place but also on their characters, their personalities and their interaction, a more complex relationship pattern that connects them. The mosaic that is gradually formed is concrete and at the same time fluid, creating a constantly enlarging circle without fading or becoming alienated from the quest itself. The quest for identity.

Resume

Vaggelis Tatsis

Vaggelis Tatsis was born in 1986 in Athens. He graduated from FOCUS School of Arts in 2012. He became a member of the Depression Era collective in 2011. He is a member of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece, of the Press Photo Union, of the Medphoto Festival team and he collaborates with the Athens Photo World curating exhibitions of their program at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.
He voluntarily taught photography at detoxication groups such as Atrapos-OKANA and 18 Ano and he works as a photographer for magazines and newspapers. His work has been presented at the Slought (Philadelphia), Bozar (Brussels), Benaki Museum, 5th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Paris Mois de la Photo and at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens.

Yorgos Prinos

Υorgos Prinos is a visual artist.His work explores issues of power and violence at the intersection of human psychology and politics. His photos often feature the human figure in urban space, while devising suggestive and elliptical narratives using found footage from media or the internet. He holds an MFA from the Yale University School of Art and his work has been presented in venues and publications across Europe, the United States and Asia. He has co-edited several books and catalogues and has co-curated exhibitions and projects in Greece and abroad.