Skip to main content

Greek-Australian historical and contemporary presence in both Australia and Greece

specialises in all aspects of photography, exhibition research and production. Documentary photographer, Effy Alexakis, and historian, Leonard Janiszewski, have been researching the Greek-Australian historical and contemporary presence in both Australia and Greece since 1982.

Publications

The Heart of Giving, Father Nektarios’ Soup Kitchen

$50.00

This photographic book on Father Nektarios’ lifelong work is a personal insight by documentary photographer Effy Alexakis – a homage in photographs and words to the unselfish kindness expressed by a Greek Orthodox priest and his volunteers in Sydney’s inner-western suburb of Newtown.

Forty Photographs – A Year at a Time

$59.95

Documentary photographer Effy Alexakis accessed her vast archive on the Greek-Australian experience and selected one contemporary image to represent each year since 1982 in order to reveal the changing face of Greek-Australians.

Greek Cafés & Milk Bars of Australia

$49.95

They gave us more than milkshakes, lollies, ice cream and home style meals. With Modernist designs, American gadgetry and coloured light, cafés brought atmosphere, a touch of glamour, at times a hint of Hollywood—a little break from the mundane reality of local life...

In Their Own Image: Greek Australians

$49.95 (currently out of print)

This book captures the stories, the successes, the conflicts and the previous unrecognised diversity of Australia’s Greek migration and settlement. From the early 1800s through to the present day, Greek-Australians have played a vital part in national life.

Images of Home: Mavri Xenitia

$49.95 (currently out of print)

From trips around Australia, to the Greek mainland and to some of the islands of Greece, Alexakis and Janiszewski have started to piece together a giant jigsaw puzzle. Items left in homes abandoned in Greece provide small clues about the lives within those homes and villages. For generations now Greeks have left their country to come to Australia. Janiszewski has elicited warm, honest and sometimes very emotional responses...

What they say

14 of Australia’s premier photographers among those selected including Effy Alexakis ...

Doug Spowart, Better Photography... discussing the Olive Cotton Award for photographic portraiture

Always apparent in these pictures is a visual dialogue established through concise observation and a natural rapport, as an Australian of Greek heritage, with her subjects.

Robert McFarlane, Sydney Morning Herald

In this exhibition/book Effy and Leonard studiously illustrate the origins and development, the place, of the Greek café and milk bar in Australian life. They point to the heydays – and take us on a wonderful and nostalgic trip from the early oyster saloons to the country cafés to the later milk bars of the city and the bush.

Angelo Loukakis