The Three-way Mirror: Photography as Record, Mirror and Model of Greek National Identity

"From its earliest appearance, photography in Greece participated, perhaps to a greater extent and certainly more directly than any medium other than the written word, in the never-ending enterprise of nation building. This was a far from clearly defined, complex and manifold endeavour: the idea of the nation had to be simultaneously identified, defined, fabricated and promoted. Photography was in many ways ideally suited to the latter three at least of these tasks. At one and the same time, photography provided society with a record, a mirror and a model."

Essay included in the volume Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities, eds Philip Carabott, Yannis Hamilakis and Eleni Papargyriou (Ashgate Publishing, 2015).