Still Here – Portraits of/in a blue city

Still Here is a documentary photographic work that examines the urban landscape of Kavala, Greece, focusing on how space shapes and reflects social experience and local identity during a period of prolonged economic and social crisis. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’ theory of collective memory, the project approaches the city as a lived archive, in which memory inhabits space not as a static imprint, but as an active presence that persists and transforms.

Kavala, a coastal city in northern Greece, has historically functioned as a place of transition and reception. From the refugee influx of 1923 to the contemporary migration crisis, the city carries a lasting identity as a place of refuge. Today, Kavala is being reshaped through the language of place branding and the touristic narrative of the “blue city,” which presents the sea, tranquility, and landscape as a marketable identity.

Still Here turns its gaze toward the city behind its image, as an act of memory and observation. It seeks to construct a space of retrieval, attentive to gaps, discontinuities, or even zones of invisibility. It also traces the ties that bind us to a place, entrap us, or sometimes make us complacent, leaving small illusory crevices of optimism and hope.