This slide show follows the publication of the new book of Stratis Vogiatzis with the title 'Inner World- Mastihohoria'. Stratis photographed for two and half years the the abandoned and inhabited inner spaces of the mastic villages in Chios island.

“Stratis Vogiatzis, with his project on the MasticVillages, has achieved this by recording and revealing the unaffected and transparent treasures of a genuine people’s culture which lost the battle of time and hid away from fear. He doesn’t enter the place for self- pleasure, neither does he have an ulterior motive. He goes in like a pilgrim entering a righteous and holy place of worship in order to be able to understand and feel. He strips himself of everything and puts himself into the other person’s place in order to see what the others would never see by themselves. In this way he leads us into the inner world of the homes whose” decoration reflects the pain and loss as well as the inspiration of life. Thus he leads us, in a selective and mystical way, inside the houses whose decoration reflects the souls of the people who live or used to live in them” Dimos Avdeliodis, Director

“In these houses, which were abandoned and uninhabited for so long, Ι could still feel the people, their presence and their stories which were crammed into the corners of every room and even though the people were absent, they declared their presence in an intense and at the same time mystical way. In the hermetically closed spaces, I found my self face to face with a neglected nobility, with the dusty ornaments and neatly arranged photographs which were still on the sideboard, the sheets and the scarves folded in the trunks, the photographs on the walls, the embroidered cloths on the little tables. The objects matured with the passage of time, full of energy and vibrations from the past and you might think that after so many years side by side with the people and their stories, that they have acquired a soul. I was coming into contact with a perfect harmony, I was moving slowly and breathing quietly for fear of disturbing this erotic relationship between the objects and time. The charge I got was so great that sometimes I had to go outside to get some fresh air and carry on later”, Stratis Vogiatzis