On Monday, June 22, at 20:00, at the Benaki / Piraeus Museum 138, the illustrated edition, 280 pages entitled Giannis Psilakis, is presented. Traces of people.
The photographer, his life and work will be spoken by:
George Magini, Scientific Director of Benaki Museum
Vangelis Chronis, Poet
Alexis Papagelas, Journalist
Eleni Athanasiou, Art historian – Exhibition curator and book curator
Giannis Psilakis (1967-2006) was an award-winning professional photographer ‒ explorer. His involvement with photography began in 1997, with themes focusing on folklore and travel issues, emphasising the study of the last native tribes of the planet. He travelled, inter alia, to the islands of Indonesia, the highlands of Papua New Guinea and Pakistan, inland India and Kashmir, Ethiopia, Tunisia, as well as the Andes of Bolivia and Chile.
During his stay in these areas he met and recorded with his lens the Mentawai tribes on the island of Siberut, Indian Ocean, the Huli in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, the Kalash in the mountains of Karakoram, the Hunzakut in the Indian Caucasus, as well as the Mapuche and Aymara Indians in the Amazon and Andes of Latin America.
His interest in these – largely unknown – peoples and cultures prompted him to study them in depth and capture them photographically, with the sole aim of awakening the Western world and improving society through understanding diversity and deeper similarity between people and peoples.
An important part of Yannis Psilakis' work has been presented in exhibitions both in Greece and abroad, while articles with his own photographic material have been published in Greek and international publications.
After the earlier edition entitled Giannis Psilakis. The world is one (editor: Eleni Athanasiou, Benaki Museum 2006), the current bilingual edition (Greek – English) titled Giannis Psilakis. Traces of people include unique unpublished material, derived from the photographer's travels around the world, drawn from his archive.
The publication attempts to capture and record, through John's photographic lens, the perpetual need of man to leave behind marks, to reconstruct the world mosaic not through speech, but through image. The face, the look, the landscape, the daily and ritual life, the customs of a cultural heritage threatened with extinction, function as signifiers, as living testimonies of a cultural and existential footprint that tells the story of human wandering.
This photographic album is a journey to the Traces of people on this planet, where earth, light and faces make up an invisible map of existence.
As editor of the Helen Athanasiou edition notes, "the photographer of this book was not just an observer. He looked at the world not to explain it, but to feel it, to honor it. He would listen with his eyes and shoot with his heart. A humble pilgrim of their everyday lives did not keep their distance. Instead, he shared their food, their sun, their silences and rhythms [...]. This book is not just a file. It's a testimony. It's his breath that keeps living through his photos. His print.
In every person, in every photograph that silences and speaks at the same time, there is its own trace, its own look. Quiet, tender, deeply human. A photographic album of images and sounds that are not erased. A reminder that he passed through here and left behind the rarest art: the art of seeing people.".
GIANNIS PSILAKIS • A short BIOGRAPHICAL
Giannis Psilakis (1967–2006) was born and raised in Athens. After completing his circular studies, he went to London, where he studied World History. There he had his first contact with the art of photography, which he chose as a lesson of choice, but soon evolved into his basic means of "visual" recording his knowledge and experiences.
Indicative:
• In 2000, his photo gained worldwide distinction in Nikon's international photo competition.
• In 2006 a photo exhibition was held with great success at the Benaki Museum, accompanied by the first edition of his monograph entitled:
Giannis Psilakis. The world is a / Yannis Psilakis. A World United.
• In 2007, as part of the official events for the Cultural Year of Greece in China and on the occasion of the Beijing Olympics, an exhibition was held with his own photographic material in the Forbidden City, entitled: "Greece through the eyes of Giannis Psilakis".
• In 2008, under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Patriarchate of Alexandria, the exhibition “Greece – Africa” was hosted at the Zappeion Megaron, accompanied by a self-titled album.
== sync, corrected by elderman == Helen Athanasiou