Theorimata (On History) at EMST

Theotimata (On History) at EMST, (National Museum of Contemporary Art) in Athens.

A wonderful glimpse into Greek contemporary art. What I found particularly pleasing about this exhibition was the number of women artists featured.

This is a group show exploring the idea that the knowledge of the past aids our interpretation of the present and is a guide to the future. 

The exhibition consists mainly of installations as seems the case with a lot of contemporary art.

Erato Tagaridi, Asphyxia, 2016-2020, (metal tubes, rubber, textile)

looking closer

looking closer

Filippos Vasileiou, Another Thing, 2016-2020 (installation and performance)

Georgia Damopoulou, Reminder of Destruction - Loving Life, 2020, (resin, thread, copper tube)

Annita Arguroliopoulou, '46-'49, 2020, (mesh, metallic yarn)

Klitsa Antonious, No Photographs Should Be Taken Beyond This Point, 2020. (two metal signs, mechanical device, light, sound)

Giorgos Harvalias, Europa, Countries-Pillows, 1993, 1994 (printed blankets from Hellenic Navy)

Makis Faros-Zoi Pirini Collective, Gridfields, (metal, printing on translucent surface and plexiglass, 

electric motor, LED lights, sensors, sound)

Marios Spiliopoulos, from the 'War' Series

Nikos Papademitrious, Monument to Betrayed Heroes, 2020, (bronze cast, revolution flag, velvet hood, memorancum photocopies, plinths)

Dimitris Alithinos, Carpent Tua Poma Nepotes, 2010, (acrylic, canvas, fabric)

Angelos Antonopoulos, Confinement, 2017, (sculpture with sound)

Angelos Antonopoulos, Confinement, 2017

Pantelis Lazaridis, Spectators/Fragment 2020,  (mannequins, togas, clothing, shoes, metal cart, acrylic paints and varnishes)

Efsevia Mihalidou, Metabasis, 2020, (wire, paper, salt, ashes, coal and rope)

Yorgos Lazongas, From the series 'Columns', 2010 (drawing)

Evi Kirmadikou, You 3, 2020

detail

Efi Fouriki, Transcriptions, 2019, (black and white photograph and video projection with sound)

Efi Venetsanou,  Overthrow, 2020, (installation)

Kostas Vrouvas, The Sound of the Gong, 2019, (iron, wood)

Eleni Lyra,  Rea's Children, 2019, (replicas of ancient Greek statues, plaster sculptures, contemporary children's clothes and construction trolley)

looking closer

Giorgos Tsakiris,  But, Why Should We Love Animals? 2020, (carpet, wood, iron, pumpkin)

Dimitris Skourogiannis,  The Phantom of the Blue Boy (after the work of Thomas Gainsborough), 2016, (fabric, threads, beads, foam, acrylic, wood, aluminium and porcelain statuettes)

Paris Chaviaras, Memory and History Form a Right Angle, 2020, (drawing, clay)

Yioula Hdjigeorgious, Promise, 2018, (bronze, thread, fabric)

Fotini Poulia, Till Death Comes, 2020, oil on wood - photographic installation

Thanassis Chondros - Alexandra Katsiani, How Do you Deal With It? 2021

Fires still raging in Evia

I wasn't going to post any more on the fires in Greece as it's all over the news now and I have already written how it has affected us - this is a personal blog after all.  However, I saw these extraordinary photographs taken by NASA and published by CNN Greece, and I think that most people might not have seen them. They show how the fire has spread in just six days, and the gargantuan task our firefighters face, particularly since so many other areas in Greece are burning.

Tuesday 3rd of August

Wednesday 4th of August

Thursday 5th of August

Friday 6th of August

Saturday 7th of August

Sunday 8th of August

The fire in Evia, Greece's second largest island, has cut a line across Evia, isolating its northern part. The fire has left behind it a trail of destruction, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people, engulfing forested mountainsides, obliterating vast swaths of forest and burned scores of homes. The heat was so intense that the water evaporated before reaching the fires. One official described this as a 'biblical catastrophe'.

Since the fires started seven days ago, there's been a lot of reports on social media about the fact that not enough was being done and that the people in Evia felt abandoned by the authorities. The partner of a friend, who has been in one of the villages, reported that in that area they had to fight the fires solely from the ground - no planes were available at all. I guess with so many fires all over Greece, there were not enough to go round, plus the fact that Greece is a country with limited resources.  I also read that a lot of villages had been saved only because young people ignored evacuation orders and stayed behind to keep fires away from their homes.

Today, the fact that not enough has been done in Evia was reported in the Guardian. The report said that 'many villages criticised the authorities' response. 'The state is absent', one villager from the north of the island', Yannis Selimis, told Agence-France Presse. 'For the next 40 years we will have no job, and in the winter we are going to drown from the floods without the forests that were protecting us'.'

And then, I saw that the Istiaia-Aidipsos Council in Evia have updated their cover photo:

The words 'Monoi mas'  has been superimposed on a photograph of the fires in the area. Moinoi mas means 'on our own', so the meaning could be translated as either, 'we are on our own', or, 'we will have to deal with these fires on our own'.

So, it's official. The people of Evia feel abandoned, having to deal with this major catastrophe on their own.

This is not a one-off. This is part of larger picture, which includes the recent fires in the Americas and Siberia, as well as the flooding in so many parts of the world this summer. It concerns all of us. It's climate catastrophe, brought on by human beings, and only human beings can stop its acceleration.

Again, in the Guardian today: 'the fires, floods and extreme weather seen around the world in recent months are just a foretaste of what can be expected if global heating takes hold, scientists say, as the world's leading authority on climate change prepares to warn of an imminent and dire risk to the global climate system'.

Greece is burning

It's the greyest of grey days but this is not England in winter, but Greece in summer with temperatures of 45oC and it's not cloud but dense smoke that covers most of Attica.  It feels like we're under a grey dome that is suffocating us. I look out of the window and I see the trees and neighbouring houses through mist. Nothing is clear, everything is grey, grey. 

This is day three and it's the worst yet. Despite double glazing and a powerful air purifier that's been on continuously for the last three days, today I can smell smoke in the apartment. My throat does the involuntary clearing thing it does when I have asthma and I am coughing.  The authorities are worried about the electricity supply being cut off and a black-out not just in the Attica region but reaching as far as islands like Mykonos, Syros, Paros amongst others. 

I talked about an apocalyptic atmosphere in my previous blogpost and this is what it's like. There is an eerie silence and stillness everwhere. Doors and windows shut. The streets are empty, there is no-one about. 

photo: Louisa Gouliamaki

The wind is picking up as I write, and this will fan the flames and make the fires much more difficult to control.

photo: Michael Papas

The North Athens fire is raging out of control. Flareups of Tuesday's fire in Varybobi have spread to another 11 suburbs in the foothills of Mount Parnitha. Thousands of people were roused from their beds this morning and were evacuated. Residents in Vothonas and Marathon (26 km from Athens) received orders to head to the coast at 5am today as the fire service indicated that the main fire had split up into multiple fronts, spreading in different directions. Today is critical as the country is bracing itself for strong winds that have been forecast in Attica and the rest of Greece. 

A firefighter just passed away having spent the night in hospital: apparently a burning electricity pole fell and injured his head, and in the end the injury proved to be fatal. The cost of these fires is immeasurable: hundreds of people have lost their homes; thousands have been evacuated; thousands have been without electricity; thousands of acres of land have burned; the loss of wildlife must be horrendous even though animal welfare groups have been working tirelessly to save as many animals as they can. It's an ecological disaster.

source of image not known

More than 80 wildfires have been reported around Greece in the last three days. Fires continue to plague the region of Ilia in the Peloponnese, where firefighters have urged residents in 29 areas, including ancient Olympia, to be evacuated.

The fire in Evia, Greece's second biggest island, has already burned nearly 5,000 acres. The blaze continues to burn out of control but this morning it has begun to change course: the blaze is now moving towards the north and northwest of the island, inching dangerously close to the coast. Firefighters are reporting that several roads on the island are no longer passable. I just read on the news that it's completely out of control.

Fires have also broken out in Mani in Lakonia, and in Limogardi in Phiotida.

The disaster in Greece is part of a larger crisis unfolding across countries in the Mediterranean, which have been experiencing extreme heat, prolonged drought and raging wildfires, all hallmarks of the climate crisis. Burning fossil fuels has raised carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to dangerous levels, increasing the odds of extreme heat. That in turn is priming forests for large wildfires, a situation we've seen play out with increasing regularity. 

Are we going to do anything about it?

Fire!

There is an apocalyptic atmosphere: a grey cloud hangs over everything, there is no sun, no horizon, a sense of doom pervades everything - this is according to Ken who just came in from his morning walk. I went out on the terrace when I woke up and lasted about a minute: the smell of burning is so intense that I had to go inside immediately, as I know what smoke inhalation does to my asthma.

Image by Yannis Panagopoulos, showing the smoke cloud rising over Athens.

The fire in Varibobi, a suburb in Northern Athens started yesterday at mid-day and quickly spread to neighbouring suburbs.  By the afternoon, as we were being driven to IKEA of all places, we could see the massive cloud rising over Athens and in the course of the afternoon it reached us in the Southern suburbs.

(I could not find out who took this photograph)

More than 500 firefighters spent the night battling the wild fire. Five water-dumping planes and nine helicopters joined the battle at first light, while the army, police, municipal workers and dozens of volunteers have also been mobilised. 'This morning, there's cinders and ash everywhere, dozens of hectares of pine forest have been razed, dozens of houses have been completely destroyed, and thousands of people have been evacuated from the area', according to an eye-witness.

photo by Yannis Liakos

The National Observatory of Athens are advising people to stay indoors.

photo by Yannis Liakos

Even though wild fires have been raging across the countries around the Mediterranean, including serious fires all across Greece, I thought that this time we had been spared in Athens. How wrong I was! As I mentioned in my previous post the climate catastrophe is here with us, now, and unless we, as a world community, change our ways, the future is at best uncertain, and at worst, we are doomed.

Heatwave

We've in the middle of the third heatwave since we arrived in Greece a month ago, but this one's different: the heat is unbearable. Temperatures are going to climb up to 44oC today and tomorrow, and what's worse, this is a heatwave that's going to last for at least 2 weeks. It's apparently one of the worst  in the country's recorded history, worse than the 1987 heatwave that left 1300 dead people in its wake.

The only thing to do is to go swimming where we can cool down. In the evenings if we decide to go out we chose places that are by the sea, away from all the concrete of modern living, and with the hope of a breeze.

Climate scientists have been predicting that rising temperatures, changes in rainfall, driven by human emissions will create havoc on our planet. After the deadly heatwaves in the Americas, floods in Europe and China, and fires in Siberia concerns increase about the growing ferocity of extreme weather in a climate-disrupted world. During this last week the fires in Turkey have left six people dead and more than 50 people needing hospital treatment. In Patras in Greece, four villages have been evacuated as wildfires are raging. Rhodes was left without electricity yesterday due to wild fires across the whole island. Italy is burning as I write, with more than 800 flare-ups recorded this weekend.

There must have been one near Athens, which as far as I know was not reported, as I did not read anything about it in the papers. It must have been deemed too minor to be reported. On Tuesday however, when we were on the beach, we saw fire-fighting planes coming to the sea to load up with water. The next day we found ash on our terrace.

The Climate Advisory Group, led by Sir David Kind, recently declared that greenhouse gas levels were already so high that they foreclosed a 'manageable future for humanity'. 'Nowhere is safe', King said.

This climate catastrophe, all human-made, is going to get worse. Despite the very clear signs of this and the certainty that it's going to get worse, I fear that governments, in the pockets of big business who only care about profit,  are going to continue paying lip-service to this catastrophe, without doing anything about it. Unless things change, we are doomed.