Nikos Economopoulos

Nikos Economopoulos was born in Kalamata, Greece, in 1953, and grew up moving between different towns and islands across the country. He moved to Parma, Italy, to study law, but his interests soon shifted towards journalism and, ultimately, photography. He began photographing in Greece and Turkey, eventually leaving journalism to pursue photography full-time.

He joined Magnum Photos in 1990, and his work soon began appearing in newspapers and magazines internationally. During this period, he travelled extensively throughout the Balkans, documenting a region undergoing profound political and social change. This body of work earned him the Mother Jones Award for work in progress and, upon its completion in 1994, he became a full member of Magnum. His book In the Balkans was published in New York and Athens in 1995.

Throughout the 1990s, his photography explored borders, displacement and the lives of communities at the margins. He documented the inhabitants of the Green Line in Cyprus, migrants crossing the Greek–Albanian border, ethnic Albanians fleeing Kosovo, and Roma communities and other minorities across the region. In 2000, he completed a book on the storytellers of the Aegean islands, followed in 2002 by a major retrospective, Economopoulos, Photographer, at the Benaki Museum in Athens.

His enduring relationship with Turkey developed into a long-term personal project, for which he received the Abdi İpekçi Award in recognition of his contribution to peace and friendship between the Greek and Turkish peoples.

In more recent years, colour has become an increasingly important part of his photographic language, as his work has expanded beyond the geographical boundaries of his earlier projects. Today, he spends much of his time travelling, photographing and teaching around the world through On the Road, his long-running series of photography workshops.