Travelogue: A photo album dedicated to popular inventions

The book Travelogue: Greek everyday solutions to common problems it is the realization of an idea born several years ago. Derived from the papairlines project “DIY: who’s the designer?”, this publication takes readers on a journey through the spontaneous culture of DIY throughout Greece, exploring the connection between design as a practice and the ingenious applications and solutions implemented by “anonymous » designers.

papairlines is a group of designers with a special interest in how ideas are born, but also the first no-budget airline, founded in 2011 by Vasso Asfi, Kostas Bisha and Loukas Angelou, between Athens and London. From the beginning of the founding of the group, they began to photograph objects from unknown creators, mainly to satisfy their own curiosity about how “ordinary” people, who do not study design, act creatively, inventing solutions to problems and needs, while filling in design omissions not served by existing infrastructure and equipment.

We coexist with these objects, without necessarily realizing it. Over the years we have learned to look for them, but we think that many times you need a distance and a clear mind to “see” what is next to you.

“Before Travelogue there was ‘DIY: Who’s the Designer?’, which was presented at an exhibition in downtown Athens in May 2012,” they say. “It was a collection of our personal photos from different places in Greece and abroad, from our travels and our places of residence. It was renamed to “Travelogue” when we decided to focus on Greece and wanted to create a coherent concept – a souvenir from our place -, the notebook of a traveler who would be interested in popular inventions and would like to register them in a sketchbook. Due to temperament and perhaps studies, our research outlook is quite developed. Our photos are a manifestation of this attitude and have been found in our collection from various trips inside and outside Greece. One of our oldest photos is from before 2005. Travelogue contributors, apart from the three of us, are professional and amateur photographers.

Being observant depends on one’s temperament and investigative disposition. Where everyone focuses is inextricably linked to their interests. As designers, we have an innate tendency to try to understand how and what the objects around us are made of. Somehow each of us, unconsciously, began to capture DIY objects from unknown creators, mainly to satisfy our own curiosity about how non-designers intervene creatively, composing solutions to everyday problems and needs. In any case, we think it is very important to share what you discover in order to cultivate awareness and mobilize relevant creative dialogues.

The project “DIY: Who’s the Designer?” it has been presented over the years at exhibitions and conferences, in the context of which we discovered with great joy that the subject concerned a large and quite broad group of people, who were not necessarily related to design. At the same time, our personal collection was constantly growing, with new interests and strange “finds”. There we realized that we would like to enrich the existing archive and open it up, with a call to other observers and “collectors” of DIY constructions.

The response was much greater than we expected. Then we thought that this collection could be organized in the form of a publication. After the important contribution of Hyper Hypo, Stathis Mitropoulos and Andreas Kokkinos, the publication took the final form of a photo album. In the book one can discover a series of photos of DIY constructions by “anonymous” designers, from various parts of Greece. It’s a visual journey documenting these genius constructions.”

— Why is “invention”, DIY design, prototype, more interesting to you than the polished design that most people have in mind when they hear the word “design”?
Our material world has not always been polished. Its beginnings, like that of technology, were also primitive. We only need to glance at the history of all discoveries and inventions. Today, the more technology becomes a “black box”, the more we talk about it and disconnect from how and why it was created. It’s like we’re avoiding discussing its implications, and that can be dangerous. The book makes sure to remind us of just that. Let’s see what needs we all have, and we can cover them, not necessarily with ready-made or polished solutions. In addition, it brings back to the collective memory that things can be implemented in more than one way, as long as there is a disposition for creative and critical thinking. In this way, we can indirectly realize that there are always alternatives and we are not limited to only the polished ones out there. Instead, we too can self-act and, why not, end up innovating – whatever that means.

We coexist with these objects, without necessarily realizing it. Over the years we have learned to look for them, but we think that many times you need a distance and a clear mind to “see” what is next to you.

So many of our photos have been taken during travels and are connected to our experiences of these places. Many of the objects have very important cultural references and personal memories from a not-so-distant era. We are sure that the rest of the contributors to the publication will have a story to share. In some of the photographs in the book we have included short descriptions of the objects depicted, since it is important to consider these objects in their context. These objects have a spontaneity that results from the immediacy of a need and usually there is no time, budget or reason to question their aesthetics or materiality. And the truth is that this is their magic.

The presentation of the photo album “Travelogue: Greek everyday solutions to common problems” by papairlines is scheduled for Thursday 25/4 at 20:00 at Hyper Hypo, Voreou 10, Athens.