Jannis Geronymakis

documentair - fotografie - internationaal - publicatie


Oost Turkije - 2022 - Project is momenteel in ontwikkeling.
Kars - 2022
Kars - 2022
Fatih, Istanbul - 2019-2022 "Als multi-etnische gemeenschappen sneuvelen, dan worden het bastions van het nationalisme van de groep die overblijft - het lijkt een wetmatigheid van de twintigste eeuw." Olaf Tempelman - Omweg naar Istanbul - De kusten van de Zwarte Zee In this project on which I started working at the end of 2019, while living in Istanbul, I focus on the Fatih district in Istanbul, the oldest and longest inhabited area in the city. Once an area with a very ethnically mixed population, nowadays the district is mainly inhabited by Turks, with just very small groups of ethnic minorities left. Next to Turks, Armenians, Greeks and Jews used to live in this district, all of them leaving their own cultural traces. Because of the changing political climate and incidents that happened in the past, the minority groups slowly disappeared. Almost none of them still resides in the Fatih district. The only thing that is left are the buildings, dwellings, and foreign inscriptions on buildings that remind us of their presence. It being one of the area’s under pressure and rapidly changing and gentrification is looming, I felt the urge and necessity to observe and document the last traces of a historic and culturally rich district that is on the verge of disappearing completely.
Fatih, Istanbul - 2019-2022
Teos - 2022 Teos was a Greek ancient city in western Turkey. This project is my venture into the ancient history of the Middle East and beyond. A research to forgotten places, specifically in border regions. It was once a flourishing port town where many notable people lived like the great philosopher Epicurus, and the poet Anacreon. The area where Teos is situated has known many tragic events, from the big population exchange in the early 1920’s between Greek and Turkish citizens, to modern day tragedies of refugees coming mainly from the Middle East, often swimming the Mediterranean, trying to reach the European Union. The monumental and humble olive trees, witnessing the tragedies of hundreds of years, are under great risk of being taken down, because of planned mining in the area. It’s this kind of places that somehow get sort of lost in this world, that interest me. They seem to be forgotten, but are actually full of stories when you dig deeper into the background of such place. The project is not merely about an excavation site of an ancient city, but rather digging into time space and the change of an area, and revealing the repeating of events. The ruins stand as a symbol for shifting borders in a fragmented world. The olive trees , not just trees, but monuments of the Mediterranean which can grow hundreds of years old, stand as a symbol of time, between then and now.
Teos - 2022
Zonder titel - Uit de serie Lapidarium I 2015 - 2020 With Lapidarium, an ongoing project, I take photographs of my surroundings which are explicitly related to my every day life. The name comes from Ryszard Kapuscinski's book Lapidarium, meaning a place where stone (Latin: lapis), monuments and fragments of archaeological interest are exhibited. His book consists of journalistic and observational writings from different countries and places. Like his Lapidarium of writings, I use mine as a collection of photographs, witnesses of time and space. They form a poetic embodiment where I translate my visual encounters to a tangible object.
Zonder titel - Uit de serie Lapidarium I 2015 - 2020
Zonder titel - Uit de serie Caucasian Encounters 2014 - 2016 In May 2014 I made a trip to Georgia. Later that year, I would make another trip for many to follow. I traveled to Armenia and eastern Turkey too. My interest in the Caucasus started while I was observing maps, fascinated by the geography and natural borders that marks this region. Its turbulent past has left its marks in so many ways in the Caucasus. There are certain similarities that I remember from my youth, memories of spending time in Greece, visiting family there. The memories I have from my youth of Greece, the place where I went to see my family, corresponded in many ways with my encounters in the Caucasus.