Following the success of last year’s Travelogue: Greek everyday solutions to common problems, Hyper Hypo and Papairlines have teamed up once more for the publication of a second stimulating and hilarious volume. 88 all-new photographs from across the country capture spontaneous Greek ingenuity, where imaginative hacks offer clever solutions to simple, everyday problems. An ancient column used as an ashtray, a standing fan used to cool down a car engine, an old phone booth converted into a religious shrine, a spoon playing the role of a doorstop. All of these DIY delights and more will tickle the inner inventor of even the most jaded reader.
A few words about the new edition from the curators:
The first volume of Travelogue: Greek everyday solutions to common problems came with a great surprise: what we initially thought was a personal design project turned out to have a wider reach, an ethnographic and cultural angle that made it relatable to a non-design oriented audience. It has been a great pleasure to observe people’s reactions, to receive messages and images from our peers, but also from complete strangers who obtained a copy. (…) Furthermore, our publishers kept sharing stories of the reactions from clients of their bookshop in Athens, and we followed the book travelling to a number of bookshops from the US to Korea. With all this positive feedback, it was only natural for us to move forward with this follow-up volume, presenting even more images of ingenious solutions found across Greece.
(…) In a world that is becoming more controlled by algorithms and less by personal human curiosity, the objects in Travelogue Vol. 2: Greek everyday solutions to common problems occupy the liminal space between uniformity and uniqueness, timelessness and trend, planet and production, access and availability, need and materials. In the end, these objects may hold the key to understanding what luxury, craftsmanship, knowledge and ingenuity can mean at the dawning of a new world.