Stefanos Paikos (Greece/Germany)
REACHING FOR DUSK – 2023–2024 ITALY | TUNISIA
In 2020, I initiated the project "Reaching for Dusk" to explore the experiences of displaced individuals. I decided to trace some refugee routes back to their origin and document the various stages along the way. The long-term project encompasses the journey from Greece through Turkey and Iran to Afghanistan, as well as from Italy through Tunisia across the Sahel Zone countries to Central Africa.
In 2021, Lesbos was the first stop, emphasizing the conditions of the Kara Tepe camp. As a Greek citizen, I gained access for photography. The 2022 focus expanded to Turkey, covering Van, Assos, Edirne, and Istanbul. 2023 centered on Lampedusa, facing a state of emergency due to an influx of boats, prompting a tightening of European external border policies.
By 2024, Tunisia became the destination, with notable stops in Sfax, a departure point for Italy, where I accompanied Sudanese unaccompanied minors. Planned further stops included the Libyan and Algerian border regions.
The project not only captures refugees' realities but also documents the local population's behavior amid challenges and crises, including climate change impacts on the refugee crisis.
"Reaching for Dusk" will continue, focusing on Iran, Afghanistan, and the Sahel Zone regions.
The initiative was motivated not only by the desire to document the experiences of refugees but also by my own experience as a border-crosser between cultures. Born in Greece and moved to Germany at the age of three, I grew up within German society. Despite my adaptation and integration, many Germans still viewed me as an „outsider,“ someone who never fully belonged.
The irony became apparent when I visited my relatives in Greece and was considered „the German“ – someone who was not part of their society, despite speaking their language and being raised with their customs. My life always revolved around borders, in a vacuum of non-belonging. This feeling of never truly arriving motivated the initiation of „Reaching for Dusk.“
The people I report on not only cross metaphorical but also very real borders in their flight or displacement. On their way here, they rarely encounter unconditional acceptance. This personal experience of non-belonging is the driving force behind my commitment to this project. It is less an emotional portrayal than an attempt to understand and share the human side of migration and its multifaceted challenges.
Stefanos Paikos (b. 1985, Larissa, Greece) is a documentary photographer based in Berlin. He grew up between Greece and Germany – Greek in Germany, German in Greece – never quite claimed by either. That experience, more than any training, shaped the way he works. With a strong background in long-form storytelling, he addresses underreported humanitarian issues shaped by political and ecological crises.
Since 2021, he has been working on Reaching for Dusk, a long-term project on the stage of displacement that rarely reaches the news – the years before the border, spent in camps, in cities of transit, on the edges of routes that Europe has pushed far beyond its own territory. He has photographed in Tunisia, Italy, and Senegal, among other places. Assignments from the project have been commissioned and published by The Guardian and Die Zeit, with further work appearing in other international publications.
In 2025, he received the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. His work has also been shown at Rotterdam Photo Festival and Encontros da Imagem, and he is a recipient of the Lucie Scholarship Program, among other international festivals and awards.
