In a Thessaloniki that is constantly evolving, the exhibition Υφαίνοντας τον αστικό χώρο (Weaving the Urban Space) at Mikrou Gallery, created by the duo 40roomors, offers a poetic and sensory exploration of urban space. Behind this name are two artists — one, an architecture graduate; the other, a graffiti artist — united by a shared desire to create at a time when everything had come to a halt: the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deprived of their usual means of expression, they discovered tufting on social media. This needle-punch weaving technique, still relatively unknown in Greece, became their new creative tool. Self-taught, they embraced and reinvented it, blending threads, fabrics, colors, and textures to create interior installation projects. For nearly five years now, they’ve been experimenting with this practice, mixing influences from graffiti, comics, and many other worlds.
Seeing what we no longer see
Their installation quite literally weaves a new perspective on the city. The works on display invite viewers to rediscover Thessaloniki through the often-overlooked details of daily life — details that shape its identity. The various textures of the tufting evoke the very fabric of urban space. The warm, vintage, nostalgic colors recall the old neighborhood shops, those family-run businesses now gone or transformed into Airbnbs.
The duo captures the poetry of the ordinary, the hidden beauty in the corners we pass every day without noticing. Their work evokes the strange feeling of coming home after a long time away — everything seems the same, and yet everything has changed. Suddenly, we rediscover the mundane beauty of a sidewalk, a faded storefront, a weathered sign. 40roomors offers us a fresh view of the everyday.
A disappearing aesthetic
The exhibition is also a silent outcry against gentrification. The neighborhoods they celebrate, the everyday aesthetics they showcase, are slowly disappearing in the name of mass tourism. Many of the small businesses are closing down. The older generations retire, and locals can no longer afford to stay. In their place: Airbnbs, “clean” renovations, smooth, standardized, and Instagram-friendly.
This phenomenon isn’t new. Since the 2008 economic crisis, large swathes of Thessaloniki have been sold to foreign investors — Russians, Israelis, Chinese — drawn by the golden visa. And with them, a new city has emerged: more profitable, more marketable, but less alive. The exhibition calls out this homogenization and the loss of Balkan identity.
Weaving to remember
These works do more than show — they tell stories. They speak of neighborhood life, of everyday fragments that build our connection to a place. They remind us that while we all walk the same streets, each of us projects different memories onto them. The corner bakery. The morning coffee spot. The tile pattern in your entryway.
The material itself carries meaning. While tufting is a highly contemporary technique in appearance, here it’s made using wool rooted in Greek and Balkan tradition. It becomes a bridge between past and present. Between ancestral technique and ultra-contemporary use. Between grandmother and post-graffiti artist.
At the crossroads of textile art, graffiti, photography, and architecture, this ode to Thessaloniki reminds us that a city is not just walls. It’s people, details, memories. And when all of that disappears, it’s not just ugliness that’s left — it’s a part of ourselves that is erased.
