Thessaloniki’s port isn’t just a place where spices were once unloaded, and dreams of distant voyages were packed away. Today, it stands at the intersection of two seemingly irreconcilable forces—art and war. Walk just a few dozen meters, and you’ll find yourself moving between the MOMus photography gallery and the Naval Museum.
Between light and shadow, beauty and destruction, abstract thought and cold steel.
I’m not exaggerating. The first visitor I met aboard the battleship Velos was a perfectly polished woman with a five-year-old boy, explaining to him in Russian that one day, when he grows up…
MOMus: Where Art Redefines Reality
At MOMus, I stumbled upon a fascinating photography exhibition dedicated to stereoscopy.
Stereoscopy is a technique that creates the illusion of depth by using two slightly different 2D images—one for each eye. You click once but capture twice. Since human eyes are spaced about 6.5 cm apart, each perceives an object from a slightly different angle. The brain processes these differences and creates a three-dimensional effect.
The history of stereoscopy goes way back—in 1838, British scientist Sir Charles Wheatstone introduced the first stereoscope, a device for viewing paired images in 3D. A decade later, Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster improved on it, making a portable stereoscope that launched a new era of photography.
I immediately wanted one.
The exhibition showcased stereoscopic photographs of urban life and scenic Greek landscapes, pulling me into a three-dimensional world of the country’s past for over an hour. It felt like I had stepped into a liminal space—somewhere between time and place, reality and memory.
The Naval Museum: Steel and History
Just a few steps from MOMus, aboard the Velos, lies Thessaloniki’s Naval Museum. It’s just as full of history, but art takes a backseat.
Instead of captivating photographs, here you’ll find old cannons, uniforms, and ship models that once defended Greece’s shores.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
While MOMus captures life’s depth and emotion, the Naval Museum tells stories of life and death struggles. One showcases abstraction, the other raw reality.
The Port as a Space for Dialogue
Both institutions are part of Thessaloniki’s evolving port district—once a purely industrial hub, now a vibrant cultural space filled with cafes, exhibitions, and festivals.
The docks, once bustling with workers and trade ships, have transformed into a waterfront promenade, where young people now stroll along the sea, sipping ouzo and debating philosophy.
And that contrast is what makes Thessaloniki’s port so compelling.
Just like the old slaughterhouse district in Prague, Thessaloniki’s harbor reclaims its gritty past and reshapes it into something modern and thought-provoking.
Here, art and war aren’t opposites—they’re two different ways humans respond to the world.
Thessaloniki’s Port: Even the past can be seen in a new dimension—
all it takes is a fresh perspective.
