“Athens under Pressure” at FokiaNou Art Space: Perspectives on a City at a Critical Crossroads

Athens is changing. The climate crisis, drought, wildfires, and tree diseases are transforming the city and its natural environment. Palm trees, plane trees, mulberries, pines, and cypresses are disappearing, while heat and dryness become the new everyday reality.

At the same time, overtourism and relentless urban development place additional pressure on an already burdened urban fabric. The city is suffocating under the weight of its visitors; neighbourhoods lose their character; residents are displaced; and new apartment blocks and hotel complexes sprout on every corner of the basin, covering every remaining trace of open land.

The group exhibition “Athens under Pressure” emerged from the recent open call issued by FokiaNou Art Space, inviting artists of all mediums to respond creatively to this theme. The call served as a catalyst for a collective artistic dialogue about the city and its shifting conditions-environmental, social, spatial, psychological.

The exhibition invites the public to consider: How do the climate crisis, overtourism, and construction boom affect our lives, our routines, our psychology, and our shared experience of Athens? Can art speak to what we are living through? Can it awaken us, mobilise us, help us breathe again alongside the city? Through works that document, comment, resist, or imagine, Athens under Pressure brings together multiple perspectives on a city at a critical crossroads-a city changing faster than we can grasp.

Konstantina Chalkia

Kyveli Zachariou

FokiaNou Art Space is a dynamic hub for contemporary art that fosters collaboration between Greek and international artists, actively contributing to the local art scene. In 2024, it celebrated ten years of creative activity, marking a decade of exhibitions, actions, and collaborations. Since 2016, under the curatorship of artists Panagiotis Voulgaris and Mary Cox, it has hosted more than 70 group, cross-disciplinary, and solo exhibitions, as well as creative workshops and talks, maintaining its role as a vibrant and accessible platform for artistic expression.

FokiaNou Art Space’s outward-looking character is further strengthened through its presence in major international events, such as its recent participation in the TRYST Art Fair at the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles; the exhibition Athena at ShowroomSchmitt in Karlsruhe, Germany (May 2025); and its involvement in the SuperMarket Independent Art Fair in Stockholm in 2023 and 2019-promoting the exchange between independent art spaces and the creation of a broader international network of collaborations.