Basement Prayers

• Photographer
  Gerasimos Koilakos, Greece
• Studio
  Gerasimos Koilakos
• Website
  http://www.gerasimoskoilakos.com
• Instagram
  https://www.instagram.com/geraskoil/

Around 200,000 Muslims live in the city of Athens. They worship
in makeshift mosques, housed in basements and warehouses.
According to the Muslim Association of Greece, there are more
than 100 unofficial mosques scattered throughout the Greek
capital, registered as libraries, cultural centres, shops or
apartments.
After a decade of negotiations, Greek authorities awarded a
contract to a consortium of construction companies to build a
state-funded mosque in Athens, the first since the end of Ottoman
rule. The planned mosque will in a former naval base in an
industrial, rundown part of the city, but the project faces heavy
opposition from conservative and right-wing groups.

Gerasimos Koilakos is a freelance photographer based in Athens, Greece. He studied photography at the Leica Academy and began his career in archaeological photography before turning to photojournalism. Through editorial assignments and personal projects, he documents social, political, and economic issues, with a particular focus on identity and culture in the global context. His work has been published internationally in Newsweek, Le Monde, Courrier International, Le Figaro, Le Point, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Handelsblatt, Internazionale, L’Espresso, D la Repubblica and Amnesty Journal.