Inside an old canava in Oia, Santorini

One day before its restoration.

When Christos e-mailed me these photos of an old canava in Oia, Santorini that was about to be restored, I couldn’t help smiling.

All those spontaneous decorations, full of colors and messages, they bring an aura of distant days and ways that are over.  8 Track tapes, diaries, and advertising posters that fade from the sun, are the souvenirs of a time that promised fulfillment and joy. Yet, now they lay there like children’s toys, carefree in their innocence and ready to give their place to elegant grey, i pods and less is more decorations.

And I feel completely disoriented about it; I mean, I do love elegant grey, i pods and less is more. But finding the perfect neutral palette for my new floor doesn’t make me smile like these retro pluralistic images do…  Maybe because the old canava decorations express something familiar.  And it is worth to discover what this familiarity is about, because if we incorporate it to contemporary thinking, we could develop a stronger identity, in a visual, culinary, or personal level.

What do you think about this? How do these pictures make you feel?

words by  m. alipranti

photos by c. drazos