Alexander Tzonis

In the 1940s, one bank of the Ilisos River in Athens was a large slum, with shacks set up there by refugees who arrived after the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe. Alexander Tzonis, an architect and professor emeritus of the Delft University of Technology who grew up nearby, was deeply fascinated with the ingenuity of the community and sought to immortalize it in photos.

The State Museum of Contemporary Art presents "Spring Torrents," a double bill that explores social movements in two very different parts of the world - Russia and the United States - at two very different times - the early and mid-20th century.