Extraction in the Cyclades: Digital Traces

Since Roman antiquity, the marble quarries of Tinos have provided raw material for the island’s most significant extractive activity, linked with its renowned tradition of marble craftsmanship. Industrial scale exploitation of Tinian marble began in the 19th century, when urban expansion and the adoption of neoclassical architecture in Greece increased demand for marble and proficient craftsmen. In 1955, the Preparatory and Vocational School of Fine Arts of Panormos Tinos was established to train future generations of marble craftspeople, while the Tinos Museum of Marble Crafts, founded in 2008, presents the history of Tinian marble from antiquity to present. Today, marble continues to be quarried in the north of the island. The history and intricate processes of quarrying, transporting and crafting this material throughout the twentieth century is illustrated in photographic archival materials depicting the Vathy quarry and Achinous green marble quarry. More recent photographs, captured in 1984 by Alekos Florakis, illustrate technical and geological elements of the Vathy, Achinous and other quarries on the island’s northern side.

Alekos E. Florakis (b. 1948) is a Doctor of Ethnology and Folklore, who studied in Athens and Paris, and a poet of the Generation of the 70s. He has published many studies in independent books, scientific journals and conference proceedings, as well as poetry collections and other literary books. In 2018 he was awarded the Bronze Medal of the Academy of Athens for all his work.

A contemporary view of these same sites is provided in the audiovisual documentation of Yorgos Alexopoulos, a Tinian marble technician and filmmaker. Along with Kostas Danousis, Yorgos Vidos and others, he traverses the quarries of Achinous, the loading docks of Chousla, and other notable sites of marble quarrying infrastructure.

Yorgos Alexopoulos (b. 1946) in Marlas, Tinos, began working as a marble technician at the age of 12. After moving to Athens and working as a technician on urban construction projects, he pursued film studies in the late 1960s. Beginning in 1980, he chronicled current events and local culture of his native Tinos, producing an archive of over 700 videos ranging from basketweavers to footpaths, and from local happenings to marble quarries.

Antiparos, one of the smallest inhabited islands of the Cyclades, was the site of intensive mining activity in modern times. Systematic exploitation took place from 1869 to 1917, when its mines closed, only to briefly reopen between 1950-55. Mining exerted a total influence on the island in these years, when it constituted a vehicle for significant foreign investment and one of the few means by which local inhabitants could make a living wage. The southern half of the island, in a region stretching from Monastiria to Agios Ilias, Hatzovounia and Vlachovounalo, contains deposits of iron, manganese, lead and zinc. The archival materials and contemporary photographs presented here draw from Aggelos Sinanis’s 2019 book titled Mines of Antiparos 19th-20th Century.

Aggelos Sinanis (b. 1960) is a researcher and writer. His series “Travels in Another Greece,” combining on-site research, the travelers experience, relevant literature and the testimonies of everyday people, covered over 100 travel destinations around Greece, while he has published monographs on the culture, architecture and history of regions throughout island and mainland Greece. Mines of Antiparos, his latest book, is the result of 4 years of local research.

Naxos’s rich subsoil produces one of the most prized mined materials in the region: emery. These deposits have been located on the mountainsides by the northern regions of Stravolagkada and Kakoriaka, near the villages of Apeiranthos, Koronos and Skado. Used since antiquity for its abrasive qualities, Naxian emery was systematically mined since 1824 by exclusive right of the Greek government. In 1925, an aerial cableway was constructed for transport of emery from collection points to the port of Moutsouna. Selected photographs, audio recordings and videos from Manolis Manolas’s archive provide a rich overview of this history, spanning from images of Moutsouna’s loading docks in the early 1900s to recent videotaped spelunking of emery mines.

Manolis D. Manolas (1947-2021) grew up in Koronos, Naxos and Athens, where he completed his studies in engineering. Active in Naxos politics and government, he was a lifelong researcher and chronicler of the local history and lore of his hometown. His personal archive contains photographs, videos, oral histories and other documents providing a wealth of information about Koronos. Among other achievements he established the village’s folklore museum in the 1990s, restored landmarks, and organized the “Koronos Ecomusuem,” a community center which now bears his name.

Milos, a volcanic island whose mineral-rich subsoil has attracted mining activities from antiquity to the present, is one of the few Cyclades islands with significant current-day extraction, including bentonite and perlite mines administered by the multinational company Imerys. Historically, sulphur, trachyte, kaolin, pumice, manganese ore and alunite have all been extracted, serving for various commercial applications. Images and interviews from key sites of extraction in the 20th century, including the sulphur mines of Paliorema, the industrial facilities at Aggeria bay, and the manganese mines of Vani, provide testimony of the interlinked histories of labor, landscape and extraction on the island.

The Milos Mining Museum, located in Adamantas, the island’s main port, was established in 1998. Today, it aims to promote the rich geological and mining history of Milos and to pay homage to all those who have toiled in order to develop the island’s mineral wealth. Its photographic and audiovisual holdings, digitized in collaboration with Archipelago Network, include oral histories and extensive photographic collections from historic sulphur mines, as well as more recent bentonite and perlite extraction.

The Milos Labor Center, established in the 1960s, represents labor associations and members from Milos and neighboring islands including Serifos, Kimolos and Sifnos, all islands with notable mining histories. The Milos Labor Center’s photographic archive is a space of remembrance for workers’ gatherings and protests in the forty years since its establishment, including demands for safer working conditions in the island’s mines.

Serifos’s main extractive activity has concerned iron deposits, with notable activity between 1870 and 1964, mainly in the southwestern region of the island with a focus on two villages located in protected bays: Koutalas and Megalo Livadi. The labor history of mining in Serifos is notable for claims brought by workers, including strikes and labor organizing activity such as the historic and deadly strike of 1916. Today, local community groups such as the Association of Mega Livadi and the Institute for Serifian Studies seek to provide a current-day platform for celebrating and remembering the island’s rich geological, industrial and social history.

Selected images and diagrams from the collection of Stefanos Exadactylos depicting mining activity and galleries in the 1950s are presented in collaboration with the Historical Archive of Syros – GAK. Stefanos Exadactylos was a mining engineer at Serifos’s Mega Livadi mines in the 1950s, during which significant improvements were made in methods of extraction, transport and loading, including a mechanical conveyor belt in Koutalas bay.

What role have women played in the labor histories of mineral extraction? How does a community’s memory shift over time? Discover the untold story of womens’ pivotal involvement in the 1916 Serifos miners’ strike through Sofia Dona’s multimedia essay film. During her residency on the island in winter 2025—held in partnership with Kotoki Art Space—the artist explored local archives and narratives, uncovering traces of Aikaterini Valsamaki, a central figure in the iron mine rebellion of Mega Livadi. The resulting film combines archival research, oral testimonies, and visual reconstructions of key sites and figures from the 1916 strike, weaving mining traditions and local mythologies into a speculative, novel narrative. See the film’s trailer in advance of its full release in spring 2026.

Sofia Dona is a visual artist based in Munich and Athens, whose work explores social, economic, and political issues through site-specific practices. She creates installations and video works that challenge perceptions of everyday life, reveal untold stories, preserve memories, and raise awareness. Often producing a defamiliarizing effect, her work is both revealing and poetic. Dona was a fellow at the Onassis AiR program in 2023 and received a Fulbright scholarship in 2016. She is also a member of the Errands art collective and the Nionia Films queer-feminist film collective.

Navigating sites of social, historical and geological significance, this photographic series traces a multiplicity of mineral memories across the islands of Tinos, Naxos, Antiparos, Serifos and Milos. Interweaving earthen and archival materialities, the series moves across scales and geographies, linking derelict infrastructures and mineral samples with active open-pit mines and labor struggles. As an excavation of the present and collective remembering of the past, the series evidences the mutable processes by which history is consolidated, communicated and transformed. Images from each of the islands are arranged in five chapters as an interconnected web of relations, encouraging readings between sites and temporalities.

Ignacio Acosta (he/him) is an artist and researcher working in territories made vulnerable through ecological exploitation, colonial intervention and intensive capitalisation. He is devoted to the understanding of sites and landscapes that, although often neglected, are of global significance. His multi-layered collaborative practice and spatial installations seek to connect audiences with these complex yet critical concerns. He is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism (CEMFOR) Uppsala University, Sweden. and part Traces of Nitrate, a UK AHRC funded collaborative visual research based between the Royal College of Arts and the University of Brighton.

Principal investigators
Jacob Moe, Eleni Zaras

Scientific committee
Charles Stewart, Konstantinos Mavrogonatos, Leda Papastefanaki

Digitization technician
Christos Gartaganis

Communication
Maria Paktiti

Editor
Kostas Konstantinou

Collections
Manolis Manolas, Alekos Florakis, Yorgos Alexopoulos, Aggelos Sinanis, Stefanos Exadactylos Milos Mining Museum, Milos Labor Center

Invited artists
Ignacio Acosta, Sofia Dona

Partners
Kotoki Art Space Serifos, Association of Mega Livadi, Milos Mining Museum, Milos Labor Center, Koronos Ecomusuem, Imerys Industrial Minerals Greece SA, General State Archives – GAK (Syros)

Equipment sponsor
Rentphotovideo

Thanks
Petros Anamateros, Kostas Danousis, Geli Dougiekou, Martin Engi, Leonidas Halepas, Yannis Havakis, Manousos Kantzos, Pavlos Kotronakis, Andreas Lapourtas, Thodoris Livanios, Yorgos Magoulas, Yorgos Manolas, Katerina Manolas, Manolis Mikelis, Michalis Moraitis, Matthias Neumann, Periklis Ninos, Kostas Revynthis, Natalia Roumelioti, Ioannis Sanoudos, Giorgos Sideris, Ioannis Spilanis, Spyros Souvlakis, Irini Toliou, Stratos Tsialikis, Anna Tavoulari, Giannis Vasiliopoulos, Anna Vogli, Efi Xyrou

Realized under the auspices and with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture, and with the support of the J. F. Costopoulos Foundation