Giannis Manolis and Alexei Siozov, whose work stood out in the open call competition of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, present their first solo exhibitions in the context of the Thessaloniki PhotoBiennale 2018. The two photographers were selected among 277 candidates by a three-member committee consisting of Yiorgos Depollas and Stratos Kalafatis, photographers, and Theodore Markoglou, art historian and curator of the ThMP.

Faded Needlecraft – Giannis Manolis

This series of images is a result of many road trips exploring the Greek landscape. The photographs reveal a personal documentation of the modern suburban society that aims to highlight a transitional situation between past, present and future. With a mix of portraits, landscapes and interiors, “Faded Needlecraſt” documents fragments of different ways of life sharing only one common link: the Greek landscape. People closer to the nature, a hunter, a hut, and elements like a Greek house entrance and a Macedonian palace for sale describe a situation between utopia and dystopia, unfolding the leading lines of a nostalgic narrative with which the viewer is encouraged to identify.

Bio

Giannis Manolis
He was born in Thessaloniki in 1995. In 2016 he graduated from the Metropolitan College of Thessaloniki School of Architecture (BA hons, RIBA I) and since then he has lived and worked in Thessaloniki, where he attends photography seminars at the STEREOSIS school of photography. He has been involved in film photography for the last three years, trying different photographic media and techniques. His work has been presented in many online magazines, such as Kaltblut, Float and Contributor. He has participated in several group exhibitions in Greece such as the Athens Photo Festival 2018 (Υoung Greek Photographers) in the Benaki Museum. His work has been selected to be exhibited in San Francisco, Vancouver and Seoul in 2019 as part of the Fotofilmic group Travelling Exhibition.

Faded Needlecraft
Duration: 20/09/2018-16/10/2018, Opening:20/09/2018, 20:00
Venue: Stereosis (3, Zefxidos str)
Opening hours: Monday-Friday 10:00-22:00, Saturday 10:00-18:00

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Arcana – Alexei Siozov

A series of photographs inspired by Tarot cards. Roles – Symbols firmly rooted in a society which has set in stone its ways of classifying people according to their qualities as well as their superficial, one-dimensional nature, thereby essentially ignoring their inner identification. The entirety of this venture is barely a simple photographic process; instead, it could be characterised as an overall performance. Alexei Siozov personally sew and work on the clothes and other objects used and presented. I do not work with professional models; rather I prefer working with everyday, ordinary people. In my attempt to depict the most suitable –based on their personality traits as well as their experiences– individual, I get to know them personally prior to the photo shooting. Their roles are not random. On the contrary, my models’ roles derive from their own expectations and feelings. The portraits created mean much more than what is perceived at a first glance, as is the case with tarot cards.
“Arcana” comprises Major, which consists of 22 photographs, and Minor, which consists of another 56 photographs.
My aesthetic approach, concerning cards, has been intimately connected with the aesthetics of the widespread since the middle of the 19th century albumen prints and Cabinet Cards.

Bio

Alexei Siozov
Alexei Siozov is a photographer and visual artist, whose work explores archetypal symbolisms, universal patterns of human nature, religions and mythological narratives from around the world. He holds a BSc in Mathematics from University of Patras and a BA in Photography from Middlesex University of London.

In 2016, he was widely presented to the public as one of the Young Greek Photographers during the European Month of Photography in Athens Photo Festival, while in 2018, he was selected to participate in the main program of the same festival as one of the principal photographers at the Benaki Museum and as a co-curator of its satellite exhibition Hiraeth.

Arcana
Duration: 19/09/2018-19/10/2018, Opening: 19/09/2018, 20:30
Venue: ESP Vocational Training Institute of Photography + design (3, Navmachias Ellis str. )
Opening hours: Monday-Friday 10:00-17:00

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*Photo: Giannis Manolis (left), Alexei Siozov (right)