FOKION ZISSIADIS
PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS

An active man with a passion for the natural world and a love of adventure.

Fokion Zissiadis, born in 1956 in Thessaloniki, Greece, has built a rich and diverse career blending architecture, hospitality, and the fine art of photography. Educated at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and later at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his Master’s degree in Architecture, Fokion initially dedicated himself to his family's business. He took on a leadership role in the family-owned Sani S.A., a company pivotal in transforming the Sani area in Halkidiki into a world-renowned luxury resort. As Vice President, he helped grow Sani Resort into a symbol of high-end tourism in Northern Greece, combining natural beauty with hospitality.

In 2015, after concluding his business commitments, Fokion redirected his energy and creativity toward his true passion — photography. With an eye for geometry and a deep respect for the beauty of nature, he embarked on photographic journeys to some of the world’s most remote landscapes, including Iceland, Greenland, Vietnam and Morocco, most countries of Africa and Central Asia, including China. His work captures the  genius “loci”, the grandeur and untouched essence of these regions, often portraying the insignificance of human presence in contrast to the scale and power of natural landscapes.

His photographic work covers a wide range of geological phenomena and diverse terrains: deserts, glaciers, savannahs, jungles, volcanoes, rivers, seas, mountain ranges and highlands.

Fokion’s photographic style is distinct, characterized by a fascination with structure, form, and the interaction of light with land and ice.

His acclaimed series, such as “Icebergs from Genesis to Extinction,” which was showcased in a solo exhibition at the Benaki Museum in Athens in 2019, underscores his commitment to environmental themes and the fragile beauty of our planet's ecosystems.

Through published monographs like Iceland (teNeues, 2016), Vietnam: The Paths Less Travelled (Rizzoli, 2020), Greenland (teNeues,2022) and Morocco (to be published by teNeues, 2025), Fokion invites readers to experience the subtle magnificence of these distant lands.

His attention is now focused on Central Asia, where he hopes to create his next project, tentatively titled Silk Road. The project Silk Road is already under process and covers the entire route through the “stan” countries and China. It was initiated in 2023 and when completed, it will present a visual narrative of amazingly versatile landscapes and historical sites, as well as remains of monuments of significant architectural and cultural interest that are linked to the major routes of the Silk Road. Fokion’s goal is to create a fine art photo book that will render what the eyes of a daring traveller would encounter today if he or she travelled the complete Silk Road route from China to the Caspian Sea.

His journeys are often shared with his wife, Mata Tsolozidis - Zissiadis, an active supporter and partner in his artistic ventures. Mata is the owner and administrator of the George Tsolozidis Collection, an antiquities collection spanning 7.000 years of history (https://tsolozidis-collection.org).

Together, Fokion and Mata bridge the realms of art, culture, and environmental awareness, creating a legacy of appreciation for the natural world’s awe-inspiring landscapes.



fz@fokionzissiadis.com  
Exhibitions
17 Oct – 17 Nov 2019
Benaki Museum/Pireos 138
Athens, Greece

Visit exhibition website
Icebergs
From Genesis to Extinction

Personal Exhibition
Publications
2025
Fokion Zissiadis
Upcoming by teNeues
MOROCCO
Upcoming publication
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2024
Fokion Zissiadis
Personal Publication
COMMON BIRDS OF LESSER INTEREST
I have the privilege of living in an exceptionally beautiful coastal pine forest in Sani, Halkidiki. This choice has given me the great pleasure of observing nature in all its seasonal variation. To capture in a photograph whatever strikes my curiosity satisfies my desire to hold on to the moment in a tangible, lasting manner. Because of the pandemic and my seclusion in the countryside, I became more keenly aware of sounds and images that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. This is how the world of the Eurasian collared dove unfolded before me: like winged signs in space and time or like the humility of grey in an endless dance in flight that deserved to be enclosed within two dimensions. Photographing this world took its time, a little more than three months. Throughout this period, I experimented with various techniques so that my shots would not only record what I saw but also methodically bring to view the sequence of this process. I hope that they also render the pleasure that this unique cohabitation gave me.
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2022
Fokion Zissiadis
teNeues
GREENLAND
One of very few illustrated books on Greenland that shows the facets of its beauty in varied and high-quality photography: impressive close-ups of polar bears, aerial views of beautiful structures created from land, water and ice, authentic portraits of indigenous people and their living conditions.

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2020
Fokion Zissiadis
Personal Publication
VIETNAM: The Paths Less-Travelled
Fokion first emailed me in November 2015. He was planning a trip to photograph Vietnam, he said, and needed our help with logisitics and ideas for locations. He wanted to explore ‘vistas of high photographic interest’, and meant to visit us at different times of year to document Vietnam’s seasons. Looking at his website, I could see he had an eye for wild, almost oppressively vast landscapes of raw nature. In his Iceland panoramas, the lava fields, the ocean, the sky stretch away, only to turn in on themselves, inverting our idea of nature as freedom. But his portfolio also included macro photography, images of nature’s miniature kingdoms, and even something close to documentary, the industrial architecture of Thessaloniki Port. For all the variety, a geometrical precision marked Fokion’s work, and he would use this to expand our sense of space and perspective. I wrote back to him with a proposal for his first trip: Sa Pa, Ha Giang, Cao Bang and Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam’s far northern frontier.

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2015
Fokion Zissiadis
Personal Publication
ICELAND 10/10
This work presents a selection of my photographs of Icelandic nature and its wonders during the summer and winter season. In August 2013 I dedicated 10 days and in March 2014 another 10 days to travelling more than 7.000 kilometres in total, covering almost the whole area of the country. Accompanied by expert Icelandic guides in both trips, I photographed mainly landscapes but also remains of the human civilization captivated by Iceland’s nature, found dotted here and there among those spectacular landscapes. Both itineraries, yielded a harvest of more than 1000 photographs of Iceland in summer – as seen through the mind, eye and soul of a travelling Greek photographer. 
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