A Palamas Reframed is a photographic series by London-based photographer Violetta Lorentzou, developed in response to the flood-damaged homes of Palamas following Storm Daniel in September 2023. Working with documentary material and photographic collage, Lorentzou explores domestic space and architecture as sites shaped by crisis, exposure, and collective experience.
When the floodwaters receded, fragments of everyday life, furniture, clothing, photographs, and personal objects, were displaced from private interiors into public streets. These exposed remnants became the foundation of the project. Photographed on site, they were later reassembled into carefully constructed composite images.
The series consists entirely of fabricated domestic architectures built from real, documented elements. Bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, and courtyards from different households are reconstructed through a controlled, dollhouse-like spatial logic. Rooms are opened, stacked, and connected, collapsing distinctions between inside and outside, private and public. While the structures remain architecturally plausible, fractures, misalignments, and traces of water damage are deliberately preserved, resisting any illusion of seamless repair or completion.
Rather than presenting disaster as spectacle, Palamas Reframed reflects on the prolonged condition that follows catastrophe. The work considers how domestic space is reorganised, how care and social life adapt, and how perceptions of safety shift when architectural boundaries fail. Here, the home appears not as a sealed unit, but as a porous and collective structure shaped by vulnerability and interdependence.
Through photographic construction, Lorentzou questions how images of recovery are produced and normalised. Using the visual language of architecture and domestic space, the series makes visible the uneven realities of reconstruction while foregrounding continuity, shared experience, and the persistence of everyday life within altered environments.
Living Room, 2025 – Furniture and architectural fragments from multiple homes are assembled into a single interior marked by visible rupture. The living room, often associated with representation and social gathering, is presented as structurally unstable. The work examines how communal identity is reorganised after crisis. It positions the domestic interior as a site where political and environmental forces become materially visible.
Kitchen Space, 2025 – Kitchen cabinets, appliances, chairs, and water marked surfaces are compressed into a reconstructed interior. The kitchen is addressed as a space of labour, care, and daily production. By exposing its disruption, the work draws attention to the social systems embedded within domestic routine. It suggests that reconstruction is not only physical but collective, shaped by shared resilience and material negotiation.
Courtyard, 2025 – This work reconstructs a shared courtyard from flood affected homes in Palamas. Laundry, personal belongings, and damaged surfaces remain visible and unresolved. The courtyard is presented as a political space. When interiors were opened by the disaster, private life entered the public sphere. The image examines how crisis temporarily dissolves architectural boundaries and reveals the social interdependence embedded within domestic structures.
Green Wall, 2025 – Interior walls, family photographs, balconies, and vegetation are assembled into a single architectural surface. The work addresses the wall as a site of ideological and emotional construction. Decoration, belief, and memory coexist with structural damage. By layering these elements, the image examines how identity is shaped collectively through space and how domestic architecture carries social history.
Bedroom, 2025 – Several bedrooms are merged into one unstable structure. Beds and personal objects appear displaced and exposed. The bedroom is typically associated with privacy and individual identity. Here, that privacy is disrupted. The work questions the assumption that intimacy is separate from social conditions. It presents vulnerability as structurally linked to environmental and political realities.
Terrace, 2025 – Terraces, staircases, and exterior corridors are combined into a dense vertical formation. Clothing and household objects remain visible across levels. The terrace operates as a shared threshold between private dwelling and public life. The image highlights social layering within close architectural proximity. It reflects how community is formed not through abstraction, but through spatial adjacency and mutual exposure.
