PORTFOLIO:Yiannis Hadjiaslanis-Drive

Drive is a series of photographs of street views in Johannesburg, taken over several stays between 2014 and 2015. It was visualized in book form from its inception, and was subsequently self-published in Athens in 2018 in an edition of 200 copies. The book features 36 color photographs and a text-conversation which took place over an email exchange in collaboration with Oliver Barstow, South African artist and publisher. It is a portrait of the city made in transit, by way of commuting around Johannesburg’s streets and road network via car and bus. Johannesburg, reminiscent of sprawling American megacities such as Los Angeles, is experienced as an expanded cluster of small cities and many centers, where machine transport is vital to city life. Images are taken in-between and are short pauses while moving along a vast web of urban arteries and spaces which connect, but also disconnect and separate. Under the same sky, but across its different parts and areas, the vast suburbanized metropolis emits stillness and transmits a sense of disquietude, inviting you to look beyond the surface.-Yiannis Hadjiaslanis

CV Yiannis Hadjiaslanis was born in Athens, Greece. His personal work explores narratives of place. Documenting locations in Greece, across the Mediterranean and the African continent, he engages with questions of historical memory, the present conditions and speculated futures of lived environments, and their significance for those who live, create, interact and evolve with them. His work has been in exhibited in the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography (2010), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012), the Byzantine Museum (2014), the 5th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015), the Lishui Photography Festival (2015), Paris Photo (2016), Culturescapes Festival, Antikenmuseum, Basel (2017),the Slought Institute, PA, USA (2019), among others.
He is a member of the “Depression Era” collective.
Hadjiaslanis is represented by Kalfayan Galleries, Athens-Thessaloniki.