01.PORTRAIT OF A SPACE (kozani)

“The shape of civilization, beyond what it has to extract from the earth, is evolved in the shade of the cliff, the heat of the plain, its fiber and warp bent to the contour and sweep of the land around it. Even in the heart of the cities, brick is from clay, cement derived from the limy excesses of antediluvian seas. In moments of hesitation or despair, such knowledge can be a measure of sanity, a route to reality. The “natural” world is the world, and the productions of man extensions of it – always – even when seemingly obscene or tortuously remote. It helps to remember.”

(A Sense of the Earth, ‘The Innocence of Rock’ chapter, p.26. David Levenson) 

In Levenson’s prefix within A Sense of The Earth,  the city and built structure are dismantled in terms of natural materials, with origins that surpass the visible eye. He asks us to redeem extraction as a method of acknowledging the naturalness preserved around us, albeit in its haunting, imposing forms.

Portrait of a Space - Kozani harnesses the depths of Levenson’s lament and one meets the projections of memory onto place. Athens Design Forum invites photographer Yannis Drakoulidis to encounter the landscapes of his grandmother’s home in Kozani, Greece. In an exterior photograph, red geraniums in the shade of concrete columns are affixed by the speed of a passing car. Taken periodically from 2009 to 2019, the photographs share the interior and exterior gardens Anastasia formed alongside the memory of her husband, Charalampos. During the summer months, the ‘magazi’ (μαγαζί), a former ground floor warehouse, transformed into a modular space outfit with the daily necessities of the inhabitants.

In the winter of 2024, Drakoulidis revisits the space – encountering a new family and the silhouette of an interior garden that still remains, a circular trace of remembrance.

Grandma was a housewife. Unlike her two educated older brothers who made it to Thessaloniki – a lawyer and a gymnast – she only attended primary school and took some sewing classes in town. She would use the craft for the family’s needs and sparingly for some external work in the village. Married old (at 26) to my grandfather, they eloped before having an arranged marriage. They were born into families that arrived in Greece as children in the 20s and early 30s following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Originally from mountainous areas around the Black Sea, they docked in Thessaloniki and they settled a few kilometers outside of Kozani in a landscape that resembled home. Their families would make a living as farmers, keeping animals and growing potatoes, onions, and beetroots. The few square meters of the small stone house belonging to my grandpa’s family would eventually house their marriage, children, parents, and for some part, my grandpa's unmarried younger sisters – eight people all together. “Within the mud” as my grandma would sometimes bitterly say.

Slowly, standards gradually improved and my great–grandfather opened the first grocery store in the village, where the whole family would work, parallel to farming. With years passing and him growing older, my grandfather would eventually take over. A kind and outgoing man, he had a good business instinct (in the scale of both the place and time), and he acquired a truck and became the distributor of FIX beer in the area. This marked the end of the family’s occupation in agriculture and the time when the modern two-story concrete house was built, just a few meters away from the old one in place of an antiquated stable. My grandparents with their two kids (my mother was thirteen by then) would have a house of their own for the first time. A concrete house with petrol heating, pipes, and rooms. A ceramic roof would come years later to reduce the heat.

It was a simple and cared-for house, with various embroideries of my grandmother here and there, many flowers, and a small piece of land left unbuilt to grow vegetables during summer. Nothing out of scale, a life designed by necessity as for most people of this time and generation. Built exactly on the old national road leading to Thessaloniki, passing cars stopped at the sight of my grandma's flowers thinking it was a plant store. The ground floor with the large glass windows did indeed look like a store and we would often refer to it as ‘magazi’ (store) - although it was never one. It was simply the place to keep the beer stock. When this business was over and my grandpa had only the grocery to run till his retirement, the ‘magazi’ began to slowly, slowly accumulate other items…winter or summer car tires, grandchildren’s old beds, skis, and all kinds of displaced furniture and appliances. Later the remains of the grocery’s closure, and even later the shelves of the closed-down bookstore of my aunt, and books of my siblings as they left for foreign lands…things were constantly being shifted around or covered under old bedsheets, a place of storage with signs of lives lived. 

In summer months, a mini version of the household would move down to the ‘magazi’ to enjoy the cool air coming from the basement that was dug into the land. In time, a makeshift kitchen sink was built, using the discarded cupboards of my parents’ renovated home. A gas stove, a refrigerator, a table with odd chairs, and camp beds for napping would complete the temporary household. It was a semi-private space as you could always see and be seen through the large glass windows. My grandma’s friends and neighbors would often be there in the evenings to have coffee and passersby would stop to say hello. Quick meals would be cooked when one of us would arrive. There was an authentic and personable air that created a feeling of ease. A sense of continuity and warmth emanating from folk wisdom and the aesthetics of austerity. 

Taking pictures there came naturally, following the instinct that I was looking at something unique and precious in itself. As I revisit them, I’m driven by a curiosity to look inside the “magazi” again, to close a circle. My aunt, who now owns the place, arranged for me to visit the new tenants – a family of immigrants who in turn look for a better future in this land.

I park in front and notice the glass windows are now covered with fabrics, only the narrow strip of the door remains transparent. Walking towards the sight and as the sun hits me strongly, I’m reminded how I’d press against the glass on similar days, bring my hands around my face to eliminate the reflection, and look inside.

Pushing the door in, a peculiar garden appears as all sorts of pots have been moved inside for protection from the winter cold. They are spread around as if in a display, arranged on crates or stands, some of which I can still recognize. There are some geraniums that my grandma loved and there are still a few pieces of furniture from Grandpa’s grocery store. Another makeshift living room is sitting in the middle, this time two couches made of wooden palettes, a grill, and a stack of white plastic chairs. 

It is a pleasant surprise to recognize some kind of continuation – momentarily, I witness this familiar, new image of home. Aside from this view,  the place has been mostly emptied and the intimacy felt is also vague and faded. They are long gone now, perhaps the circle for these images had already closed. The sound of passing cars, a constant of this house, brings a few more memories to mind – imagining the shadows of my childhood home, where at night the blinking lights chased against the walls. 

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