Constantin Pittas Images of an Other Europe, 1985-1989

The exhibition is organized by Ellin, s.r.o. with support of the Embassy of the Greek Republic and the Deputy Mayor of the Prague City JUDr. Jiří Pospíšil.

In the last few years of the Cold War, from 1985 to 1989, an inspired young man decides to prove to the world that Europe, despite the political differences that kept it divided in two, was and remains one entity. With a small camera that he keeps close to his heart, he will scan the then divided Europe, capturing in countless hundreds of films the true face of the European citizen. It records raw emotions of everyday people in Western and Eastern countries, as they are reflected through their gaze, eventually managing to record history itself. The fall of the Berlin Wall will find him to be a witness in the city of Berlin and there, he will make the mindless decision to drop his project and leave the material of the photographs for a whole 25 years in a storage room. Today, in Prague, we have the unique opportunity to see history in its human form unfolding before our eyes, and during this troubled period we live, to ask ourselves again: Is Europe, after all, a unique entity?

THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Constantin Pittas was born in Athens, Greece. He studied engineering at the Technical University of Athens. In 1984 he started photographing in the streets of his native city and till the end of this year he made his first project
about Athens and the Athenians. In the next few years, he travelled extensively in Eastern and Western Europe, photographing Cold War Europe, people on both sides of the Wall. In 1989, he abandoned this project and photography as well, and "buried" his work for 25 years. In 2014, completely by chance, he discovers his old photos in his storeroom. In 2015 he publishes his book, the "Images of another Europe" and a year later, he had a large exhibition of his European photos at the Benaki Museum, in Athens.