New call for participation 2010 Alexandroupolis-Samothrace

ΠAI

"The eon is a child playing,

tossing dice;

the kingdom is the Child's"

Heraclite's saying seems to encapsulate the new awareness of our age, in which, like children, we play with all cultural landscapes and information from all ages and fields, tossing with configurations, probabilities and open possibilities

The word ΠAI, meaning Child, is inscribed on many sacred items in the museum of Samothrace. The Cabirian mysteries that were taking place there, like the Eleusinian ones, were consumated with the birth of the Child.
In the winged dimension of our space age, where all cultures meet and crash, PAI, the archetypal Child, seems to be the unageing nucleus behind all cultural diversities and styles.

The Union of Cultural Associations of Evros EPOFE has decided to create an international cultural arch dedicated to this unifying foundation stone, in Samothrace, the Child’s island in order to restore the ontological value of this mythical site

The selected works will remain in the permanent collection of the Municipalities of Alexandroupolis and Samothrace. The artists will receive an official letter indicating the permanent location of their art work.
A catalogue will be issued in the lapse of a year from our exhibition on the 24th of August 2010.

Procedure
-1st of January – 22nd of June 2010
Please send an image of your work with a very short biographical note to polykasda@gmail.com
- After getting the final OK, please send the work, by simple post, to
Katerina Kaltsou, EPOFE Plateia Polytechniou, Alexandroupoli, PC 68100, Greece
The works should be light, sent in envelopes or rolls. They will be framed, when needed, by the local municipality
- The deadline for the arrival of the works, in Alexandroupolis, is the 9th of July 2010

curators of the exhibition
Polyxene Kasda, Artist member of IAA UNESCO, essayist, Athens
Dores Sacquegna, Director of Primo Piano Livingallery, Lecce, Italy
Pierre Chirouze, President of the artistic association K-Droz, Paris

Organization
Katerina Kaltsou, Secretary of the Union of cultural associations of Evros, editor of the newspaper the Citizen of Thrace

Complementary installation project for Children

Ciconia Ciconia come back

Children of the world are invited to create fantastic birds which will hang from the branches of the trees around the international exhibition PAI in Samothrace
This installation is dedicated to the Storks; the bird whose presence is a pointer to the health of the ecosystem
Storks have disappeared from the island
Their come back would mean health, good luck and fertility.
In international folklore, Storks are represented carrying the new born babies
The image of the Stork carrying the Child stands for the Cabiros/father with Pai/Child; dyad venerated in the Cabeirian mysteries of Thebes and Samothrace.
The Children installation will be included in the catalogue of PAI "The eon is a child playing"

Procedure:
The fantastic birds must be sent to
Katerina Kaltsou, EPOFE Plateia Polytechniou, Alexandroupoli, PC 68100, Greece
until the end of June2010

From the Year of Astronomy 2009 to the Year of Biodiversity 2010

                        

In August 2009, in the context of the International Year of Astronomy, we realized an international municipal pinacotheque, in the form of a constellation, in the mountainous village Gergeri, on the island of Crete in Greece: The traditional watermills were turned into art rooms and the streets of the village were covered, by the local youth, with star constellations, linking the different spots of the exhibition, like Ariadne’s thread in the mythical Cretan labyrinth.

The inauguration, which lasted two days, was interrupted by a meal in the Forest of Rouvas, a sanctuary of wild life on the southeastern flanks of Mt Ida.

It was an immersive experience in infinite tufts of hollies, platans, cypresses, cretan orchideas and cyclamens, witnessed by the numerous inhabitants of the forest like the Cretan wildcat (Felis silvestris), the asvos (Meles meles), the weasel, the hare (Lepus europaeus), the Mioxos (Mouse-squirrel – Glis Glis Argenteus), the spiny mouse (Acomys minys), the shrew (Crocidura zimmermanni), the lizard (Chalcides ocellatus), the frog (Rana tiribunda) and the snail (Helix aspersa), in the company of raptor vultures (Gyps fulvus), the solitary Vitsila, the Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). red-tailed hawks (Buteo-buteo), chukars (Alectoris graeca), chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs), goldfinches (Carduelis - carduelis), woodcocks (Scalopax rusticola), bees and colourful butterflies

The meal in the Forest of Rouvas was followed by a dessert at the Vromolimni {the dirty lake}; ground recession caused by the fall of a meteorite and situated one km from the inhabited area. There are many small holes around this area, in the shape of inverted cones, known as ‘chonia’, signs of a shower of meteorites. The Vromolimni was full of aquatic turtles, watersnakes, Cretan frogs and rare wild birds.

The opening ended in the company of the shepherds self- made musical organs, in the yard of an old school where the museum of natural history is situated.

The Gergerians had hosted us in an arch of biodiversity.
This is how we moved, from 2009 the year of Astronomy, to 2010 the year of Biodiversity.

see also Gergerian Experience, Artooth.gr-articles.

galerists, artits and local residents dancing on the flanks of legendary Mt. Ida

The international artists who participated in the Gargling Sky 09 exhibition and whose works remained in the permanent collection of the Municipality of Rouvas, were:
France : Dellavilla, Bechara, Fournier Claudine, Jaquemart Michel, Legrand Marie-Pierre, Levine Colette, Métier Monique, Bregent Edwige, Monreal Rafael, Picazo Sara, Romero Miriam, Soler Estela, Vial Magdalena, Winter Sonia ( members of K-Droz, Paris)
Italy: Daniela Tomerini, Fausta Squatriti, Alberto Schiavi, Luisella Carretta, Alberto Casiragay (Poesia e Spiritualita review), Angioletta Denitto {Primo Piano LivinGallery},Cristina Gori, Alessandro Cardinale and Piero Ferroglia
Romania: Virginia Videa, Gheorghe Zaharia, Grama Gabriel Valemtin
Iceland: Dadi Guobjornsson,
India: Dev Udaiyan
Australia: Annee Kelly
Lebanon: Lena Kelekian, Hilda Kelekian, Hagop Sulahian
Carabeans: Roopnarine Geeta
Canada: Houle Daniel JAYD, Houle Easton, Roche David
Corea: Ruy Ilseon, Ruy Ilji
USA, NY: Hera,. Khurshid Saleem
Greece: Georges Syrakis, Gefso Papadaki, Basiliki Sofra, Giota Vorgia, Antonis Papantoniou and Agelika Korovessi, from Athens. Christos Alevras  from Thesaloniki and Manolis Prinianakis, Rena Mataliotaki, Athena Tsiblostefanaki and Chrysa Vathianaki from Crete

We thank them and we hope to host their works in the new exhibition PAI "The aion is a Pai {Child} playing, tossing dice, the Kingdom is the Child's" which will take place in Thraki and Samothraki, organised by the EPOFE, Union of the Cultural Associations of Evros.

The Gargling Sky event was curated by Polyxene Kasda{Athens},Chrysa Vathianaki{Crete} with the cooperation of K-Droz {Paris}, Poesia e Spiritualita review {Milano} and Primopiano Livingallery{Lecce}

Poly Kasda, Zefiiroula drifting calamity 

                                                                    

Antonis Papantoniou, for Gargling Sky,Greece