ARIADNE KYTHIRA AWARDS

ARIADNEPHOTOGALLERY.COMe-mail : [email protected]

DirectorCostis Antoniadis

This catalogue was published by ariadnephotogallery.comon the occasion of the exhibition “The Kythera Photographic Encounters Young Photographic Awards 2006-2011”3-20 October 2012

© ariadnephotogallery.com - For the edition© The photographers - For the photographs© The writers - For the Texts

THE KYTHERA PHOTOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHERS’ AWARD

The first Kythera Photographic Encounters took place in October 2002,

bringing together photographers, photographic historians, critics, curators

and fans of photography for four days of exhibitions, lectures, discussions and

socialising. Held annually ever since, the event quickly became an important

fixture for Greek photography thanks to the Conference on the History of Greek

Photography which lies at the heart of the Encounters. The conference, the

only one of its kind in the country, is designed as a forum for the presentation

of new and ongoing research on all aspects of historical and contemporary

photography in Greece; it is open to both professional and amateur researchers,

while photographers are often

invited to speak about their own

work.

From the very beginning, the

involvement and participation

of young photographers has

been considered crucial to the

Encounters’ success, and every

year, one of the four shows held

at various sites around the island

has been a group exhibition

for photographers under thirty

living, working or studying in

Greece. In 2002 and 2003, these

exhibitions were selected from the work of students attending the Athens

Technical Institute’s Department of Photography and the Focus School of

Photography respectively; from 2004 onwards, interested participants were

invited to submit work in digital format, between ten and twelve of whom

would be invited to take part.

Young Photographers Exhibition 2009 (photo P. Petsini)

In 2006, eleven curators and teachers of photography were invited to propose

one exhibitor each; at the end of the Encounters, one of the exhibitors would

be selected by a three-man jury to receive the first Young Photographers’

award, consisting of a solo exhibition the following year accompanied by the

publication of a catalogue by tetarto editions. The winner of the 2006 award

was Chara Varsamidou for her sequence “Mirrors”.

Thereafter, the Young Photographer’s exhibition was selected from submissions.

The award winners in subsequent years were Elena Panouli for “Sincerity

of Line” (2007), Marili Papadopoulou for “The Borderline” (2008), Giorgos

Moutafis for “Unaccompanied Minors” (2009), Loukas Vassilikos for “Street

Red” (2010) and Andrea Shkreli for “Inaccessible World” (2011). Sponsorship

of the award by tetarto editions continued for two years, resulting in the

publication of catalogues for Chara Varsamidou and Elena Panouli; sadly,

financial stringencies made it impossible to continue catalogue publication

without a sponsor.

Stelios at the Kythera Photographic Encounters (photo A. Katsakos)

Those same financial stringencies and the absence of any official support

have led the Kythera Cultural Association, under whose aegis the Encounters

are held, to partially suspend the 2012 Kythera Photographic Encounters, at

least as far as events on the island of Kythera are concerned. We are therefore

extremely grateful to Ariadne Photogallery for offering us the opportunity to

maintain continuity by means of a retrospective group exhibition of award

winners from 2006 to 2010, plus a solo exhibition for last year’s winner, Andrea

Shkreli.

Whilst we look forward to holding the twelfth Kythera Photographic

Encounters on their home ground once again in 2013, this new link with a

world-wide audience by means of an online gallery is one whose value we fully

appreciate, and which we hope to maintain in future. Bringing together the

radically different work of six such talented young photographers in an online

exhibition cannot but increase awareness of the vitality of contemporary Greek

photography.

John Stathatos

Artistic Director

Chara Varsamidou: Mirrors

“The people depicted use their bodies silently; they seem to be undergoing real

emotional and physical pain. Their dramatic gestures and the symbolic elements

suggest that they acting out certain roles. Despite being completely absorbed by

their emotions, they submit their gaze, inviting the spectator to view them, to enter

into their world. They demand recognition, acknowledgement and response. My

intention was to intervene between these two levels of the gaze, to direct their

intersection and create the preconditions for an interaction engaging observer and

observed in a fluid, subjective relationship”.

Kythera Photographic Encounters Award 2006


Elena Panouli : Sincerity of Line

Her subject is constructed space. The city. The city without the presence of man. The

city as the trace of man. Severe, almost uncompromising images. Square format, frontal

composition. Constructed space is represented with horizontal and vertical lines, usually

with a flattened depth of field. Place remains indeterminate, time is effaced. The sky is

not the kind of sky which encourages reverie, simply another slab of geometric colour.

The light, too, is frontal, shadowless. When they appear, shadows become an additional

geometric feature.

Eleni Maligoura



Marili Papadopoulou: The Borderline

“I return to my childhood home. I am suspended on the borderline between the conscious

and the unconscious. I study the house’s history, recall my grandmother’s old stories, try

on different roles for myself. I watch the light fall through the rusty windows, revealing the

signs of time past, exchanges between old and new interiors. I peer into the mirror…”





Giorgos Moutafis: Unaccompanied Minors

“War, enforced conscription, physical and psychological violence, the death of their

parents or simply disastrous economic conditions are only a few of the reasons why

hundreds of children find themselves obliged to flee their countries. The journey to

Europe is difficult, the crossing of the Aegean perilous. Some of the children make it.

Others are lost. In the narrative, the term illegal immigrant always precedes the term

child”.

Loukas Vassilikos: Street Red

“Photographing in the street, you feel like the spectator of a performance directed and

staged for you only, that the actors, set, activity are there for your eyes only. Paraphrasing

the sign from the Magic Theatre in Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf, the streets are a theatre

“for photographers only”. And you, the photographer, are there to become a witness, a

narrator of little stories, snapshots of an invisible performance in which the colour red

rules”.



Andrea Shkreli: Inaccessible World

Andrea Shkreli’s sequence “Inaccessible World” is the result of a three year-long

involvement with the tattoo parlour of Nick and his friends. This is the record of a world

literally inaccessible to most people, one whose habits and customs obey different rules.

The images arrive unencumbered by captions or explanations. Some may recall that,

beyond the ephemeral fads of fashion, hard-core tattooing is traditionally associated

with marginalised social groups, who try in this way to assert dominion over at least

their own bodies. Powerful photographs of a claustrophobic, neon-lit world depicted

unsentimentally and without condescension.

John Stathatos



Documents

ARIADNE KYTHIRA AWARDS