Overview

The Greek public sector has long been seen as both essential and frustrating, yet it has rarely been captured on film. Michalis Patsouras’s series 7 a.m. – 3 p.m. (1993–2000) changes that, offering a behind-the-scenes look at everyday life inside the Ministry of Commerce, where, as a young man, he worked as a technician. His evocative black-and-white photos show crowded offices filled with papers, worn-out furniture, and employees caught between routine, fatigue, and small moments of joy — sharing sweets, dancing, or taking quiet breaks. Patsouras resigned in 2000 to pursue photography full-time, leaving behind the stability of civil service. His work preserves a fading world of paper files and typewriters, but also reveals something deeper: the contradictions of a system that is often resented yet relied upon, and the quiet humanity of the people who keep it running. The series remained unseen and unpublished for over two decades before being presented at the Photometria Festival (Ioannina, 2022) and at the Thessaloniki Photobiennale 2023. Now, Hyper Hypo publications brings Patsouras’s images to the world with the release of a richly printed, hardcover photo book whose beautifully rendered images capture all the grittiness and atmosphere of the original prints; serving as a visual document of an era that feels both recent and distant. The photos are accompanied by an essay from professor and curator of photography Hercules Papaioannou, which seeks to contextualize Patsouras’s photographic series, and his experience in general, into the infamous world of the Greek public sector.

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