Homes of Hades - by Cleopatra Haritou (Hardcover)

About the Book

At once philosophical and visceral, Homes of Hades is Kleopatra Haritou's haunting dialogue between the living and the dead--between Athens above and Athens below.

Book Synopsis

"Death is insignificantly divergent from life."
-- Thales of Miletus

At once philosophical and visceral, Homes of Hades is Kleopatra Haritou's haunting dialogue between the living and the dead--between Athens above and Athens below. Through her subversive lens, the marble thresholds of post-war apartment buildings become twin gates to the city's cemeteries; the entrances of the living echo the exits of the departed. In their mirrored geometry and ornamental detail, Haritou discovers a startling democracy between both worlds: the tangible here and the imagined there cohabit, reflect, and illuminate one another.

The book presents 190 color photographs, each laid out in diptych spreads where one image depicts an Athenian apartment entrance, and its facing pair a tombstone, shrine, or grave. This mirrored structure creates a rhythm of passage and return, drawing the viewer into a continuous conversation between domestic and funerary space, between entry and exodus.

What begins as an existential exploration unfolds as an unexpected portrait of modern Greece--from the ruins of antiquity to the neon glow of the Western present. The façades of Athenian buildings, each uniquely patterned like a human fingerprint, rise as rebirths from the gray concrete of the city, while the necropolises mimic urban life with their portraits, palaces, and plastic flowers--death's own architecture of display.

Haritou transforms the marble steps of Athens into philosophical statements and its everlasting cemetery flames into existential neon. Through humor and melancholy, she brings death out of the confines of religious ritual and into the familiar realm of the everyday, mapping a dreamlike passage between entrance and exodus, presence and absence.

In Homes of Hades (co-published with the Onassis Foundation), every ending is the next beginning.

About the Author

Kleopatra Haritou is an Athens-born visual artist and photographer whose work investigates the boundaries between life and death, architecture and memory. Educated in New York, Athens, and London--where she earned an MA in Photography & Communication from Goldsmiths College--she has exhibited widely in Greece and abroad, including the landmark solo show Prosfygika at the Benaki Museum and the public installation series Acrobats. Recipient of awards from Pentax, Leica, and Kodak, Haritou brings a distinct philosophical and narrative sensibility to her practice, transforming everyday urban environments into metaphysical meditations on time, loss, and the human condition.