The island beyond the coast

THE ISLAND BEYOND THE COAST

Photography

2021-ongoing

Piraeus is Greece’s largest port and one of the most strategically significant maritime hubs in the Mediterranean. Historically shaped by shipping, migration, and labor, the port has become a site where local lives intersect with global economic and political forces. This long-term project explores the transformation of Piraeus and its surrounding working-class communities amid ongoing redevelopment, geopolitical competition, and shifts in global trade. Since the acquisition of a majority stake in the port by the Chinese state-owned company COSCO, the area has become increasingly central to broader debates around infrastructure, investment, labor, and sovereignty. The work focuses on the people who inhabit and sustain this landscape: shipyard workers, union members, sailors, migrants, bar workers, and people's whose lives remain tied to the port. Moving between different zones the work explores labor, belonging, and power, asking how global systems and decisions made far beyond the port are experienced by the people who live and work within it.