Antonis Pasvantis - Evros: Life on the Banks

Among the possible dichotomies that this album can compose, the photograph of the junkyard accompanied by the human remains of an anonymous refugee in the morgue, combined with the bloodless images from the slaughterhouses, the frantic running of the deer, or even the image of the plaster replica of the Winged Victory of Samothrace in front of its broken wings, stirs a sense of completed and simultaneously impending destruction that overwhelms the viewer with much greater intensity than the unfortunately expected current photographs of floods, the burned forest of Dadia, or the shattered pavement. There, I believe, lies the greatest achievement of the book: The artistic photographs of Antonis Yasvantis do not merely illustrate the harsh life of the border Evros, but capture the emotional imprint of an entire nation. (From the afterword by Spyros Giannaras).