In Athens 42 Days. The Undisclosed City Demetris Koilalous documents a unique moment in the life of a metropolis: the six weeks of the lockdown in the Greek capital, at the height of the covid pandemic in the spring of 2020. The book is a collection of striking images, photographs of deserted streets, interwoven with portraits of individuals in enforced isolation in their homes.
These are the streets where in normal times crowds go about their everyday lives. These are the women and men next door. In '42 Days', though, Koilalous captures the city and its people, at an extraordinary time and reveals urban facets, both public and private, that usually remain undisclosed. His photographs succeed in depicting the starkness of the empty cityscape alongside the frailty of the city's solitary inhabitants and compose a lyrical elegy of images that are at the same time alien and intimate.