Pavlos Kozalidis is a 19th photo documentarian, colleague, like-minded traveller and friend of our team…
Meet a new NCU member and a great traveller seeking and finding the meaning of life in photography.
“Visually, I have 35 years of the past world; some 750,000 photographs, ” he explains. Kozalidis estimates that by the end of his career, a word that would most likely raise his eyebrow, he will have shot nearly 1 million images.
As the sheer volume of his output suggests, photography is an obsession for Kozalidis. Besides China, he has photographed in nearly 80 countries, including in South and Central America, Africa, India and Greece. In one of his most ambitious and still not quite complete projects, he has followed the trail of Alexander the Great through the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, the Middle East and parts of Asia, “looking for ghosts.” Very little of that work has seen the public light. (From an article by Harry Van Versendaal)
China: The House of Butterflies
From 1989 to 2012, Pavlos Kozalidis took frequent trips to China, in search of its culture, its people and everyday life, as well as remnants of the Cultural Revolution. The title of the first series on the NCU China: The House of Butterflies, is owed to a visit Kozalidis paid to the home of a Chinese classmate in Vancouver, Canada, where he had just moved with his family. There, thousands of boxes of butterflies adorned every room in the house, and a portrait of Mao dominated from high above, creating the impression that he is watching everything that takes place within. That was the beginning of Kozalidis’ relationship of love and respect with the culture and people of China, which lasted for more than thirty years. The photographs that have been carefully selected from a huge volume of work provide an opportunity to meander through the fascinating and full of contrasts world of China.
