What would you take with you? Uprooting / Borders

PRESS RELEASE

Maria Belivani
What would you take with you? Uprooting / Borders

Painting, sculpture, art installation, creative writing

Under the auspices of the UN Refugee Agency
in the framework of the World Refugee Day campaign

Opening: Thursday, 9 June 2016, 20:00
Duration: 9 June – 2 July 2016

The art gallery ‘Technohoros’ invites you to an innovative art exhibition based on painting, sculpture,  installation and creative writing entitled ‘What would you take with you? Uprooting / Borders’, which will be launched on 9 June, at 20.00 pm and will last until 2 July.

This is Maria Belivani’s personal exhibition under the auspices of the UN Refugee Agency in Greece in the framework of the World Refugee Day campaign. The same exhibition was presented in January 2016 at the Fοlklife and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia-Thrace.

During the opening, Christina Aggelopoulou, the granddaughter of Stratis Myrivilis, one of the most influential Greek writers of the 20^th century, will recite excerpts from the latter’s novel ‘Mermaid Madonna’. Dr Dimitrios Keridis, Professor of International Relations at Panteion University, will open the event.

Barbara Hendricks travelling to Greece with UNHCR as an Honorary Lifetime Goodwill Ambassador will also attend the opening together with refugee children and families.

In the framework of an exhibition of paintings, water color portraits, plaster sculptures, maps, texts and an interactive installation, the audience is invited to choose an object which they would take with them, if they were forced to leave their home and their country, possibly forever. Faced with the collective human pain and nostalgia, the visitors are invited to develop their own perspective of the notion of uprooting. The exhibition registers and connects the past with one of the most serious and unresolved international problems, the refugee crisis, based on reliable historical sources, with references to the refugees from Asia Minor, Pontus and Armenia who arrived in Thessaloniki and other areas of our country; to Muslims who left during the population exchange of 1922; and to Jews deported to Nazi camps in 1943.

As noted by the art historian Thouli Misirloglou: “The work of Maria Belivani asserts a human quality. Through lyrical and sensitive submersions into the inner self of the sort highlighted by the transparency of watercolor or acrylics, the painter retains an adult childhood while simultaneously seeking out the human voice in the forest. She follows the human freefall into tempestuous inner and outer reality, stressing the highlights of a life lived in spiritual awareness. The spiritual involvement that contemporary art requires as fuel is present here. Building on personal experiences and memories from both her familial – intimate environment as well as the broader urban social background, Maria Belivani weaves a new narrative of the experience of uprooting. The multidimensional political and social history of Thessaloniki and its multiculturalism throughout the twentieth century -especially its first half- form the canvas and unseen reservoir for new creations.

Dr Marianna Vildiridi-Hatzitoliou, President of the Board of Directors at the Folklife and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia-Thrace notes: “Maria Belivani uses painting, sculpture, installation and the written word to suggest ideas. Her touch is fluid and strong, revealing, penetrating and ultimately affectionate. Her ability to talk about humanity with sensitivity and compassion but also with honesty and clarity underlies the profound effect with which her art engages the viewer.’

The exhibition serves under the auspices of the UN Refugee Agency in the framework of the World Refugee Day campaign. On World Refugee Day, held every year on June 20th, we commemorate the strength, courage and perseverance of millions of refugees. This year, World Refugee Day also marks a key moment for the public to show support for families forced to flee by signing the petition #WithRefugees at www.refugeeday.org. Through this petition people from across the globe can call on governments to work together and do their fair share for refugees. The #WithRefugees petition will be delivered to UN headquarters in New York ahead of the UN General Assembly on September 19.

Support UNHCR’s emergency response today! www.unhcr.gr/how2help. Bank accounts: ALPHA BANK 101-00-2002055436 / IBAN: GR89 0140 1010 1010 0200 2055 436 and PIRAEUS BANK: 5055011562-423, IBAN: GR11 0172 0550 0050 5501 1562 423.

Please confirm your donation: Phone: +30 210 7454701-2 / Fax: +30 210 7454300 / E-mail: psfrgre[at]unhcr.org.

Papantonis Winery will sponsor the opening event.

Media sponsors: Protagon, art22, Culture Now and Global View.

Opening: Thursday 9 June 2016, 20:00

Duration: 9 June – 2 July 2016

Opening days and hours:

Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 11:30 – 15:00 & 18:00 – 21:00

Wednesday, Saturday: 11:30 – 15:00

Sunday, Monday: Open upon appointment

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter