What We Found After You Left
8/11-30/11/2017
Exhibition of Greek photography inspired by Tripoli Cancelled
Featuring photographers of FOCUS and 18ANO Athens
Accompanied by daily screenings of Naeem Mohaiemen’s Tripoli Cancelled (2017)
November 8-30, 2017
Opening November 8 at 17.00
EMST Mezzanine
Curated by Naeem Mohaiemen
From April until July 2017, Tripoli Cancelled screened at EMST (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens) as part of documenta 14. For Greek audiences of a certain generation, it was a chance to see, again, the vanished Ellinikon Airport of their memories. Designed by Eero Saarinen in 1969, the airport was closed in 2001 and replaced by the current International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos (named after the leader of the Greek national liberation movement).
For younger audiences, it was an airport that never was. Those born in the 1990s may never have flown through this airport, at least as far as memory can be recalled. Thinking of the idea of visiting the memory that was never, a group of photographers from Focus and 18 Ano, in collaboration with Marina Tsekou of the EMST Education Department, began visiting the abandoned Ellinikon. Over the summer, they worked with the Cultural Center of the Olympic Air Personnel, who had previously worked with the team of Tripoli Cancelled.
By the end of summer, this group of photographers came back with images that are radically different from the film. Other than a few common markers (control tower, runway, airplane, mannequin), most of their photographs uncovered different fragments– those visible when not pursuing the airport as staging ground for fiction. Ellinikon was, again, a site of many stories, waiting.
This exhibition stands as a monument to an architecture that in the future may not exist. Being of an optimistic temperament, we invite our fellow Athenians to begin to thread other stories into this space. Ellinikon is not over yet.
Exhibition Participants: Léa Martin Abazoglou, Stella Anastasopoulou, Eirini Angelidi, Dimitris Chronopoulos, Filippos Ferentinos, Nora Gkika, Konstantina Flegka, Michalis Georgiou, Christos Kanakis, Anna Kantrivioti, Kostas Klinakis, Vaggelis Kokoroskos, Viktoria Kunakaki, Panos Mazarakis, Eleutheria Motaki, Eva Mplesleme, Nantia Panagopoulou, Ioanna Paraskelidi, Penny Theodosiou, Giorgos Sotiriou, Christina Sotiropoulou, Rita Tsela, Panagiotis Vorgias, Xristina Zagoraiou.
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 11.00 – 19.00
Continuous screenings of Tripoli Cancelled (95 mins)
Tuesday to Sunday: 11.00 – 19.00
Entrance: Free
The photographs and videos presented at the exhibition were created in the framework of the EMST educational program coordinated by Marina Tsekou, Education Curator (EMST), Giannis Vastardis, Photographer (Focus, 18 Ano), Andreas Pliatsikas, Photographer-Special Therapist 18 Ano), with additional support from Takis Zerdevas, Director of Focus Photography School.
Photography: Composite by Naeem Mohaiemen of 22 photographers’ work at Ellinikon
