The Greek island of Nisyros, just off the coast of Anatolia, has been a node of maritime empires for millennia. For the Myceneans to the Venetians, it has played a significant strategic role. Today, it is best known for its picturesque villages lacing its active volcano, which culminates in a sulfur filled crater that rises above the Aegean Sea. That crater also gave birth to the Islet of Gyali, a landscape almost entirely made of fine pumice, a stone that is lighter than water. Given the chance, Gyali could float away. As it is, Gyali is in fact vanishing: it is being actively mined for its stone by the international concrete conglomerate Holcim. A trading site since neolithic times, Gyali is, shipload by shipload, disappearing over the sea. Yet its very disappearance is Nisyros’ economic lifeline, allowing the small volcanic island to survive, and to imagine a future for itself beyond mass tourism.

This exhibition is a showcase of seven short films made by HKU students during the summer of 2023 at a Field Studies Workshop in Nisyros, Greece. This interdisciplinary teaching experiment combined ethnographic methods of knowledge gathering with architectural surveying and observation, and ‘paying sustained attention’ to the immediate environment. This attentional practice resulted in the displayed films which reveal the historic, geological, political, social and economic issues shaping the islands of the Dodecanese in their global dimensions.

Know more about HKU Architecture Gallery – “Islands Lighter Than Water”: Field Studies of Nisyros and Gyali
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