A living dialogue about history, culture and modern Greek reality, through the narratives and approaches of people with different beginnings and fields of action opens up the series video with the title ‘Greece in Context“ which, in June, presented the Benaki Museumand Department of Greek Studies of Stavros Niarchos Foundation(SNF) in Simon Fraser University Canada (SFU)
The series, consisting of eleven episodes, is available to the public through YouTube channel of the Benaki Museum, in Greek and English, hosts persons from the academic community, artists, writers as well as professionals of culture and creation, whose work discusses issues relating to the past, present and future of Greece in a constantly changing global context.
Turning to the premises of the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture, the events accommodate an invited speaker, who is invited to share his views by answering four key questions related to his work and his understanding of Greek culture.
Each episode is organized around an object from the Museum's collections, which acts as a starting point for meditation and interpretation. Through this, participants express personal accounts and critical positions on issues of culture, history, politics, as well as the dynamic continuity and breakage that shape modern Greek society. An object, a visual, a story or a knowledge emerges, highlighting the power of objects as carriers and narrative catalysts.
Through this approach, the Museum is redefined as an area of active dialogue and search – a living organism that is not limited to preserving cultural heritage, but cultivates modern thought and critical engagement with the present. Through the meeting of objects, voices and ideas, the series proposes a multidimensional reading of Greece as a historical and contemporary cultural organization.
"Greece in Context offers a unique opportunity to return to the well-known halls of the Benaki Museum, through the company of a multi-collective group of visitors, who not only enjoy the works and stories told by the showcases, but also ask questions that connect then to now. The Benaki Museum has rarely felt so alive on the digital screen," notes Giorgis Manginis, Scientific Director of Benaki Museum and participant.
THE Dimitris Kralis, former Director of SNF SFU Hellenic Studies and participant declares: "It was a real pleasure to work with the Benaki Museum and its team, forming — within its very dynamic spaces — ideas and plans for a new research project in Northern Lesvos. Touring his spaces and thinking along with the worlds of the past that his curators reconstruct with such care, I found inspiration to place my own archival work within his own cultural and material context. “
The Sabrina Higgins, current Director of SNF SFU Hellenic Studies points out that "Greece in Context offers us the opportunity to highlight Greek culture and identity within time and space, and to examine the role of Greece — through material culture — as an interlocutor, performer and active factor in an interconnected and multicultural Mediterranean environment, from antiquity to today" while Sophia Khandaka and Peace D. Kochovilis, creators of the series Greece in Context, explain that "Greece in Context was created as a space of dialogue — an invitation to review Greece through people, ideas, objects and experienced experiences, and to approach culture as a living process that constantly shapes the way we understand the past, present and future."
The videos include the Michael Afollayan, artist, activist, Anasa Cultural Centre, Katerina Vranas, stand-up comedian, Michael Herzfeld, Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Kalyvas Stathis, Gladstone Professor of Government and member of All Souls College, University of Oxford, Christos Karras, Executive Director, Dinos & Lia Martinou Foundation, Dimitris Kralis, p. Director, SNF SFU Hellenic Studies, Professor, Department of Global Humanities, Simon Fraser University, Rick Lowe, artist, George Manginis, Scientific Director, Benaki Museum, Maria Papadimitriou, artist, Giannis Chamakis, Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Neohellenic Studies of Joukowsky Family, University of Brown and Sophia Khandaka, Curator of Collections of Global Civilizations, Benaki Museum