The Deste Prize 2007 for contemporary Greek artists May 19, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Arts Events Greece.comments closed
25 May – 3 November 2007 > Exhibition Opening on 24th May 2007, Award Ceremony on 24th September 2007
The opening of the Deste Prize 2007 Exhibition will take place on Thursday, 24th May 2007 at the Deste Foundation’s Centre for Contemporary Art. The Deste Prize was established in 1999 as an inseparable part of the Foundation’s overall policy of supporting and promoting contemporary Greek art and is awarded every two years to a young Greek artist living in Greece or abroad.
The exhibition, which will run until Saturday, 3rd November 2007, will feature works of the six artists, namely Loukia Alavanou, Nikos Arvanitis, Savvas Christodoulides, Socrates Fatouros, Yiannis Grigoriadis and Eleni Kamma, who were shortlisted for the Prize by this year’s Selection Committee. The six artists are currently in the last stages of preparation as they will all present new works on this occasion.
Loukia Alavanou’s double video-installation, titled Chop Chop is a pastiche of images taken from horror films and animated cartoons that conflates the boundaries between reality and fantasy. The work attempts to comment on the process of passively experiencing the reality of spectacle: especially that of the spectacle of horror channeled through the movie industry and the Mass Media.
Nikos Arvanitis’ installation Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie probes the extent of our dependence upon the power of authority and control, focusing on electrical power both as a necessary condition for the advancement of technology and as a formative factor for the individual’s mental and psychological being.
In Savvas Christodoulides’ construction titled A Place in a Garden, two wooden beams converge in order to support the frame of an armchair on whose arms are perched birds of the same material. The work’s central part, the armchair, evokes the image of a “place-receptacle” for the living body that is hospitable par excellence, allowing the individual to perceive and contemplate space, time and the notion of continuity and to form a clear concept of such conditions. The birds (in this case, eagles) appear to be an organic feature of the garden, lending the work a subtle quality of political dissonance.
Socrates Fatouros’ Royal Couple is a sculptural installation consisting of two forms with pronounced pictorial qualities, which develop vertically in space to create a new shape. The relationship of dialogue and interdependence between these two parts is not a forced or compulsory one, but rather one in which both are mutually complemented. It thus gives rise to a new “whole”, which stands at once as a “boundary-obstacle” and as a reminder of the notion of unified, unbreakable form.
Yiannis Gregoriades takes on the role of the contemporary flaneur, so that he may continue to explore and document built space through a new series of works that bears the general title Yugo Panoramic. The series consists of photographs and videos focusing on the new monuments and scenes of everyday life in the cities of former Yugoslavia. The works serve as a tool in the search for those notional devices that will enable us to interpret the wider region of the Balkans.
Eleni Kamma uses the dual identity of the common dandelion Taraxacum officinale, a plant possessing medicinal properties yet considered a weed by gardeners, as a starting point for her work. Her drawings and models are parts of a system marked by discontinuity, rupture and the intersection of binary structures. Through her work the artist calls upon the viewer to ponder issues of order, hierarchy and identity.
The Deste Prize 2007 includes a grant of €10.000.
Deste Foundation, 11 Filellinon and Em. Pappa Street, Nea Ionia, Athens, tel 210 2758490, fax 210 2754862, http://www.deste.gr
Greek Volunteers establish Museum in Pakistan May 19, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Hellenic Light Asia.comments closed
The Greek Volunteers, a non-governmental organisation of Greece, has established a Museum, Cultural Centre of Kalasha (Kalashadur) in the Bumburet town, Chitral district, where more than 200 objects depicting the culture and lives of Kalash people have been put on display.
Kalashadur in-charge Athanasios Lerounis, a teacher at a technical school in Athens and member of the GVs, had started work on the Museum in 1995. He said that the GVs had been established in 1999. Before the establishment of the NGO he was working individually under a Greek teachers’ federation.
The NGO has started welfare activities in the Hindukush range where the Kalash valley exists. It has constructed schools, water tanks and hospitals and provided free medical treatment to the valley residents.
In 2001, it built the Bashali maternity home in the Karakal village of Bamboret and completed the construction of Kalashadur in 2004 with the assistance of its main sponsor, Hellenic Aid of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Lerounis said the GVs members worked voluntarily and the entire fund was exclusively spent on the welfare of the people of the region. The NGO supervises the work from its foundation to completion.
The aim of Kalashadur, he said, was to support the unique Kalasha tradition and improve education, health and living standards of the people in three Kalash valleys, Bumburet, Rumbur and Birir.
Lerounis also said the NGO had also planned a health centre, a school, seminar halls, a technical centre, a library and an ethnological museum in Bambore.
Daphne’s Greek Cafe opens in Boulder May 19, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Greek Taste World.comments closed
Daphne’s Greek Cafe, known for its fresh, Greek and delicious food officially opened it’s Boulder restaurant on Monday, May 14th. The new restaurant, is located at the Twenty Ninth Street Mall.
Currently, Daphne’s has restaurant locations throughout Arizona, California, and Colorado. Known for Fresh, Greek and Delicious food, Daphne’s features a variety of classic Greek dishes served at reasonable prices in a warm and friendly atmosphere. Daphne’s signature dishes include the popular chicken and steak ka-bob plate; two flame broiled skewers marinated in lemon, herbs and spices, served with a Greek salad, rice pilaf, warm pita bread and tzatziki sauce. Also unique to the menu is the Zesta®; a flash fried pita filled with Fire Feta®, a proprietary recipe of four varieties of peppers, creamy feta and 14 secret seasonings, with a choice of chicken, gyros, or falafel. Reasonably priced for both lunch and dinner, Daphne’s Greek Cafe offers catering at all locations.
Daphne’s Greek Cafe in Boulder will be open daily for lunch and dinner Sunday through Thursday from 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM and on Friday and Saturday from 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM. Additional information can be found at www.daphnes.biz
Javelin > Did you know? May 19, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Athletics, Culture History Mythology.comments closed
The art of the javelin throw dates back to the ancient Greeks and consists of the five transitional movements >
run-up, transition, pre-delivery, plant and release.
Greek Orthodox Church in Dubai > Gulf’s first May 19, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Greek Diaspora, Religion & Faith.comments closed
Work is due to begin in about a week’s time on a church that is set to be the first of its kind in the Gulf.
St Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church will be built in traditional Byzantine design on land donated by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the Gulf News reports.
The building will cost a total of about Dh15m and already about one quarter of the final cost has been covered by donations of money, materials and labour. John Theodory, an Arab Canadian who is chairman of the church committee, said construction would take one-and-a-half years.
“It’s really something. It is quite an achievement. People have been really enthusiastic with their support by making donations or offering materials and things are really working fast now. We have enough to start on the project without hesitation,” he said.
Final permission to commence construction was received about three weeks ago, and Theodory said he hoped contractors would begin preparing the site, an 1,800 square metre plot of land in Jebel Ali, later this month with actual construction set to begin next month.
Iraq has a Greek Orthodox Church and there is one in a rented villa in Kuwait, but St Mary’s will reportedly be the first Greek Orthodox Church built in Byzantine design in the Gulf region. Greek Orthodox Christians in the UAE so long had to use other churches for their services, which regularly attract as many as 400 people, swelling to 2,000 during major Christian events such as Easter.
The new church will have a main hall with a capacity of about 400 worshippers, plus a gallery with space for a further 100 or so. Much of the work on the basement of the church is being done for free by a contractor, Theodory said. Efforts will be on to raise the remaining funds to finish the construction, both by generating donations and securing materials and labour from contractors.
Services are likely to be conducted in Arabic and Greek for worshippers from Russia, Syria, Greece, the Ukraine and Cyprus, among other places.
Greece’s Olympic Legacy May 19, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Tourism.comments closed
Greece hopes to boost one of its main industries by earmarking land for golf courses, holiday homes and conference centres in a bid to lure richer tourists.
Greece has yet to tap into year-round sports or religious tourism, which would attract even more and better-spending visitors to the country, long seen mainly as a beach destination.
This year it expects more than 15 million visitors, the third consecutive season to see a rise. The number of tourists has increased by about 17 per cent since Athens hosted the Olympic Games in 2004. A main pillar of the economy, tourism accounts for about 18 per cent of GDP and roughly one in five jobs.
Campaign to save Venizelos’s historic home on Crete May 19, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Architecture Greece.comments closed
The family home of Greek statesman Eleftherios Venizelos at Halepa on the island of Crete is imbued with a sense of the major events that took place in Greece during his lifetime.
The home in which he lived for over 30 years (from 1880 to 1910) and then occasionally from 1927 to 1936 is to be restored. An honorary committee has been set up comprising celebrities who will supervise the project that will see the historic home converted into a Museum. In 2002, the Greek state bought the home from Venizelos’s heir Nikitas Venizelos and granted it to the Eleftherios Venizelos National Research Foundation, which has its headquarters in the home. It had been renovated in 1970 but has since been found to be unstable and requires immediate reinforcement.
The western Crete department of the Greek Technical Chamber has completed the plans and has budgeted the work at about 2 million euros. Parliament and its Speaker Anna Psarouda-Benaki are to meet part of the cost and will help the foundation raise the remainder. The foundation has launched a nationwide campaign that included a concert in January this year at the Athens Concert Hall. The next step is a Celebrity Dinner on Wednesday, May 30, at the Goulandris Museum of Natural History.
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