Magnum Editions: Political meeting in Yozgat, Turkey, 1990

Nikos Economopoulos’ early black and white work saw him photographing his native Greece and its neighbours, primarily focusing upon displaced and liminal groups – including refugees and the Roma. Following the fall of Yugoslavia, he photographed extensively in the Balkan Peninsula. In 1990, Economopoulos attended a political rally in Yozgat, a city in central Turkey, organized by supporters of the late statesman, İsmet İnönü, the second president of Turkey. Economopoulos could sense that violence was about to erupt among the all-male crowd, but before the photographer’s eyes, a butterfly touched down on the shoulder of a man in front of him. He immortalized this fleeting moment of serenity in an image that became iconic.