Students Interviews-Alexandros Vekiaris-interview with Ypatia Kornarou-Moments Collective
- Ypatia Kornarou
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Author Ypatia Kornarou
What was the inspiration behind your photographic project?
The source of inspiration was my close friend almost like a brother when, in August 2024, he lost his father. This awakened my own memories, as 23 years ago I had also experienced the loss of my own father. Through our personal yet honest conversations, I was inspired by the way these stories could be approached, as well as by the visualization of the emotions behind them.
Initially, five experiential narratives were created in the form of audio recordings, within the context of conversation and inner confession.
Moments where these people spoke, yet something always remained unspoken. I felt that we live in an era of overexposure and, at the same time, concealment. Everyone is visible, but few truly reveal themselves. Photography became the medium through which I could slow down time and allow vulnerability to exis without spectacle, without defence.
The project began as a need for understanding and ended as an act of encounter. An attempt to turn silence into shared ground, and the gaze into a bridge.
@Alexandros Vekiaris
Meet our Supporters Hellenic American Union https://www.hau.gr/el-gr/culture/events/2026/exhibition-kanoglou
Narrative stories containing universal confessions are at the heart of 21st-century art. What happened to your own stories within this project? Tell us about them.
In my work, the stories were not born out of biography—they were born out of listening. I collect confessions: broken sentences, fears spoken in whispers, desires that have not yet found a body. I didn’t correct them. I didn’t beautify them. I let them stand naked, because that is where they become universal. In the 21st century, art no longer shouts “look at me.” It whispers “I understand you.” And that is what I tried to do: we met in spaces and places where memories are reshaped, where vulnerability is not weakness but common ground.
If anything happened to my stories, it is that they stopped belonging to me. They belong to anyone who recognises them within themselves. And in the end, that is the most honest kind of work.
@Alexandros Vekiaris
Meet our Supporter Athens Voice https://www.athensvoice.gr/politismos/fotografia/942628/street-life-pos-moiazei-o-kosmos-otan-fotografizetai/
Do you believe photography is an art form that succeeds in expressing emotional states?
Yes, I do and perhaps precisely because it doesn’t “speak.”Photography captures the moment before emotion becomes a word: the small crack in a gaze, the weight in a body, the light that writes like a brush. It doesn’t explain, it suggests. And within that suggestion, truth is born.Unlike other art forms, it doesn’t ask for time. It hits you instantly. Whatever you feel, you feel now, before you even have the chance to think. That’s why it can become dangerously honest. It does not forgive pretence.
Photography doesn’t simply depict emotional state it mirrors them back to the viewer. The emotion doesn’t belong only inside the frame, but in the encounter between image and gaze. That is where the essential thing happens.
And perhaps the most beautiful part is this: every photograph changes emotionally as you change. It is an art that matures alongside us silent, persistent, true.
@Alexandros Vekiaris
Why photography? Is it connected to the dreams of your childhood? Tell us about it.
Great question. For me, the greatest influence was my father. He deeply loved the art he loved photography himself and painted beautifully. To me, he was the first artist I ever knew. He is one of those roots you cannot see, yet they carry all the weight.What he gave me from a young age wasn’t inspiration. It was permission.
Permission to feel, to observe, to express myself without having to justify it. Through him, I understood that art doesn’t begin with technique, but with the human being. For me, being an artist first means being presen feeling, allowing emotion to pass through you. That was the most essential lesson he gave me early on: that sensitivity is not weakness, but a source of creation.
Photography came later, as a language for everything I didn’t yet know how to say. Everything I do today carries that principle: art as a human ac as a way to feel first, and then to speak.
@Alexandros Vekiaris
Do you have a specific artistic identity? Or are you still negotiating which direction moves you the most?
My artistic identity isn’t something stati it’s something that breathes along with me.
There is a core that remains unchanged: my interest in the human being, in emotion, in the silence hidden behind the image. That doesn’t change. What I’m still negotiating is the for the way I tell a story, how much space I leave to chance and how much to control.
I’m moved by transition, by the in-between state, where nothing has been fully decided yet. I’m not concerned with “arriving” quickly. What matters to me is being honest in every phase I go through. Direction is not a straight line, but a path that opens as I move forward.
Maybe, in the end, my identity exists precisely there: in the ongoing dialogue between what I already know and what I am only just beginning to feel.
@Alexandros Vekiaris
Meet our Grand Sponsor https://www.fujifilm.gr/
What are your artistic plans for the future? Are you preparing something important to you?
For me, the future isn’t a pla it’s a continuation. A continuation on my own terms.
I’m currently preparing two projects. One is slower, more inward. It consists of self-portraits, with greater emphasis on self-acceptance. I want to work with time not as a single moment, but as erosio how memory is written onto the body. A project in chapters, without a chronological line.
The second project is titled “Mirror.” It is a photographic work that searches for that inner dialogue—the true, silent moment of inward gaze: the moment we look at ourselves in the mirror and begin to speak to ourselves. A dialogue between light and darkness, between image and soul. A work about self-criticism, self-observation, and acceptance.
At the same time, I’m preparing together with my person a physical space, a creative refuge. Not simply a studio, but a place of encounter. A space where photography won’t be about producing images, but about process. I want it to open up to collaborations, to daily rituals. A place where the arts can intertwine without losing their silence.
But the most important thing is what is changing inside me: I’m moving away from the need to “prove” and closer to the ability to “allow.” To trust that truth doesn’t need intensity in order to be seen.
If I’m preparing something truly important, it is this: a way of working that is more honest than before. And for me, that is the only future worth pursuing.
@Alexandros Vekiaris
@Alexandros Vekiaris
Autor Ypatia Kornarou
The Moments Collective Team 2026
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