Athens is a city in flux, and this perpetual change unfolds everyday in front of our eyes. One could easily say it is a city with multiple identities, but in a strange way it is also a city with a very singular identity that distinguishes it from other cities. It is simultaneously a city that suffers and a cityin regeneration. An ugly city and a beautiful city.

A difficult and yet hospitable city. A sunny city with abrupt storms. A city that chases money, but also loves art. A city smudged but also painted. A city noisy but also musical. A city sad but also in love. A city angry but also polite. A city that transforms and fights, in all times, to survive and revive itself in its own way. Our Athens.

The light and the otherworldly way in which it transforms the city is at the heart of "Athens thy light", a project by the Athens-born and based photographerand writer, Joanna Vasdeki. Vasdeki specifically explores the effects of the magnificent shadow play of Attic light over time creatingparallel realities in fragments of the city.

Vasdeki writes:

Light between the foliage of the bitter orange tree,

light through the corners of the gray apartment building,

light on shop windows,

light through the shutters of the old neighborhood,

light on the black-and-white stray cat,

light on our faces,

light and shadows in the ancient Kerameikos,

Light and shadow play everywhere, parallel realities

My Attic light,

without you, Athens would be another city.

In the distinctive photographic series “Sea of City” by Athens-born and based photographer Jeff Vanderpool, we have views of the city far above the street level.Here the photographer’s eye seeks refuge in the mountains and surrounding natural landscape of the city.From these vantage points the city is quiet and still, yet ever present in the landscape that forms and shapes it. Through these images we see clearly delineated what Greeks refer to as the “lekanopedio” or basin area.

Vanderpool was drawn to the natural landscape surrounding the city in an effort to better understand the city of his birth, one he was intimately familiar with at street level.In doing so his images expose both the beauty and history of the surrounding environment, yet also the inherent conflict when the natural environment meets the man-made.Like a vast sea which beats upon and erodes the coastline, so the city of Athens beats up against its physical barriers.

Through these two projects on their home city of Athens, Joanna Vasdeki and Jeff Vanderpool convey a city unfamiliar perhaps to the masses of tourists that flock to its ancient monuments each year, a more atypical city that silently reveals its possible secrets.

These images invite you to discover a few …