Titled “Stories of Migration, Culture, and Humanity,” the talk brought together photographers Antonios Pasvantis, Christina Kalligianni, Dimitris Tosidis and Maro Kouri, alongside moderators Dr. Yannis Kontos and Dr. Ioannis Galanopoulos Papavasileiou.

The photographers presented award-winning projects, including Pasvantis’ work on life along Greece’s northern borders, Tosidis’ long-term documentary practice and Kouri’s exploration of cultural diversity on the streets of Athens.

Kouri, who grew up in the bustling Greek capital of more than three million people, captured the evolving multicultural identities of Athens through intimate scenes of migration, faith, and everyday life. “Athens is my home, but I have always felt close to Asia and Africa - thanks to communities from there who I grew up with,” Kouri said.

She took the audience through a selection of her works – a photo of Muslim immigrants from South Asia gathered over Friday prayers at Omonia Square; of Ethiopians, among the city’s oldest migrant populations; of a makeshift gospel church for African immigrants; of moments of devotion inside Catholic, Sikh and Islamic spaces; of a mufti seen praying in Greece’s northern border in Evros after the burial of unidentified migrants, underscoring the human cost behind migration statistics.

“I feel at home with these communities,” she remarked, adding, “years ago, a young girl in Ethiopia who had sold her kidney to support her family welcomed me into her home with generosity and warmth. Moments like that stay with you – they shape how you see people, and why you photograph them.”

Meanwhile, life in Greece’s northernmost regional unit of Evros that borders Turkey to the east, across the river Evros and Bulgaria to the north and the northwest, became the central theme of Pasvantis’ presentation.

“Twenty years ago, when I crossed into Turkey by train, I felt something strange and powerful at the border,” said Pasvantis, talking about his project that began as a personal journey – crossing into Turkey by train two decades ago and one that eventually evolved into a long-term photographic inquiry into one of Europe’s most historic landscapes.

“That feeling stayed with me. Between 2016–17, when I decided to create a black-and-white book, the idea of borders kept pulling me back to Evros. It’s a place that carries deep historical and cultural weight and one that is constantly present in public consciousness.”

Presenting his black and white photos, Pasvantis added: “In Evros, you see the effects of poverty after the Greek economic crisis, the reality of migration as the region becomes a gateway into Europe, and at the same time a quiet, peaceful coexistence between Greek Christians and Greek Muslims. All of these layers live side by side, shaping the stories I try to observe rather than explain.”

Meanwhile, Tosidis who spent two years documenting the lives of the Vlachs, a traditionally nomadic pastoralist community in Greece, predominantly residing in the mountains and known for their historic role as skilled shepherds, said:  “I wasn’t photographing nostalgia – I was witnessing a way of life at its very edge.”

“Through them, I saw a Greece that exists far from postcards: shepherds reading the weather in the clouds, families moving on foot as they always have and rituals carried out for the last time. When a woman lights a candle on her mountain after her husband’s death, you realise you’re not just documenting people, but the fading of an entire cultural memory,” he said, explaining how he spent months with five different families of the tribe during his landmark project in a bid to capture the ‘purity’ of a rare story the world hadn’t heard of.

For the first time this year, Xposure has introduced a Guest of Honour, with Athens leading the 2026 programme through five curated exhibitions and a series of talks examining heritage, contemporary society, and visual interpretation.