Costas Ordolis, solo photography exhibition - Cities Made of Paper
Ikastikos Kiklos DL, in collaboration with Nina Kassianou, presents on Saturday 28 March 2026 the solo photography exhibition of Costas Ordolis titled « Cities Made of Paper ».
Costas Ordolis, ten years after his last presentation at Photagogos by Julia Tsakiri, returns to the contemporary exhibition scene with a new body of work entitled “Cities Made of Paper.”
Having long since moved away from human-centered photography, Ordolis seeks new modes of expression, attempting to disengage from the forms of black-and-white narrative that defined his earlier work. In this new project, the image no longer functions as a record of events but as a field of contemplation.
The photographs in the exhibition unfold a map of journeys that does not obey geography: it traces no routes, suggests no destinations, nor does it refer to the people encountered or to their relationship with the spaces they inhabit. His cities exist in an in-between realm, suspended between the diffusion of space and time. They appear to be made of paper—fragile, translucent, ready to dissolve at the first breath of wind. They are fleeting places, shaped by dreams and hallucinations, by traces of presence and silence.
“Cities Made of Paper” does not seek to construct a unified narrative of the city. On the contrary, it foregrounds fragmentation as a fundamental characteristic of urban experience. Through its visual remnants, the city is revealed as a collective portrait in constant transformation: a place where private memory meets the public image, and where every small fragment, no matter how insignificant it may seem, retains the pulse of the life that brought it into being.
Ultimately, “Cities Made of Paper” serves as a reminder that the beauty of the city lies not only in its architecture, but also in the images that pass through it and accompany it, images which, despite their continual changes, confer character and personality on its everyday appearance.
The public first came to know Ordolis as a street photographer through his books The Athenians (Kastaniotis Editions) and Attica – Angelic & Black Light (Indiktos Editions). A major milestone in his career was also the publication Figures & Shadows from the Theatre (Agra Editions), an idiosyncratic visual record of his twenty-five-year engagement with theatrical photography, a work that has been presented repeatedly in Italy as well.
In this new exhibition, the artist proposes a different approach to his practice, following a new expressive direction. As he himself confides:
“I used to photograph what was happening; now I photograph what exists—and what often endures.”
In the same space, a series of handmade books will also be presented, printed by the artist himself, featuring photographs from his travels in unique copies that function as autonomous, deeply personal works.
Exhibition opening: Saturday 28 March 2026 at 18:00 – 21:00
Duration: 28 March – 16 May 2026
Opening hours: Wednesday - Saturday 11:00 - 16:00
Tuesday - Thursday - Friday 11:00 – 14:30 / 17:30 - 20:30
Monday and Sunday closed
Admission to the exhibition is free.
The gallery will remain closed for the Easter holidays from 8 to 16 of April 2026.
