To get to the first meeting with the activists and inhabitants of Levadia at Nerotrivi, we took the road along the Erkyna river. My attention was drawn to the empty houses with no front walls. They invited me inside without hiding anything.

From the other side of the road, they were perfect imitations of ordinary houses. With windows, doors, a balcony and a house number. No sign of their shameless denudation.

This is a reflection on "Sun in an Empty Room", the work of Iwona Zając in the abandoned home of Zoza and Loukas Papanikolaou.

In contrast to Edward Hopper’s homonymous painting, where the sun enters the room of an empty house as a ‘vanquisher’, in Iwona Zając's work, it enters the empty room of a ramshackle house and the light recomposes the shattered memory of the people who once lived there. The mural depicts the portraits of Zoza and her father, Loukas, with respect, love and discretion. They return the gaze of on-lookers across the River Erkyna. The bond created is one that crosses time to link people, river and place in a reification of memory.