(In) People’s footsteps

temporary exhibition in Ano Poli, Thessaloniki

What do you look at and what do you look past when you walk through the city?

How many people have arrived in or left from Thessaloniki over the past century?

For a few days, on the steps at the corner of Vlatadon and Fotiou Street in Ano Poli, our footsteps will meet the imaginary footprints left behind by the people who have walked through these same streets, these same neighbourhoods, over the past century: the Muslims who left and the Christians who arrived during the population exchange, the Jews who were persecuted, the migrants who arrived from the countryside and those who left for Germany, the people who came from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, as well as the people who are still arriving today from places in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Through personal stories and historical evidence, we follow in their footsteps and examine how their paths cross in the small, often makeshift, dwellings of the city, in the informal and invisible labour that newcomers are commonly forced to do, and in their struggles for survival, both individual and collective.

Through this temporary exhibition, we attempt to shed light on a ‘different’ history of Thessaloniki; a history that is extraordinary and unique not only because it stretches back through the ages, but also because it is characterised by constant mobility and successive intersections of different histories in the same space. In the streets of Ano Poli, amidst its houses and its slopes, unfurls a rich tapestry of footsteps, experiences, labour, care, encounters and farewells. For a few days, a temporary exhibition and a digital walk will highlight Thessaloniki as a city in never-ending flux that changes constantly along with the histories of the people who inhabit it.