Archipelago
book exhibition

primary school, Chora - Folegandros
19 July - 5 September 2004

Archipelago is an exhibition that, for the first time, brings together a wide range of books on the history, culture and life of the Aegean, surrounded by photograhic and archival material from museums and private collections.
The exhibits fall into three major thematic categories: Travelling (Maps and portolans, travellers and travelogues, travel quides), People (occupations, exile, religiousness, celebration, every-day life, art, architecture and environment), The sea (war, sponge-fishing, shipping and ship-building). The books are set out alongside with the exhibited articles and follow the same categories.

The Aegean sea has been in the limelight for decades, either as a field of territorial claims or as a major touristic destination. However, even though more and more people choose to visit its islands, very few are familiar with the dramatic aspects of its troubled and eventful history: the collective perception of the Aegean has been largely formed by stereotyped images of sun-drenched, white-washed houses set against an endless blue background. The Aegean societies, however, having been through wars, financial crises, social upsettings and a succession of periods of prosperity and decline, have given birth to a unique culture: its history is recorded in the accounts of the 18th-century European travellers who visited the Archipelago fascinated by the allure of the - then unknown- ‘Near East’; in the families of islanders who, driven away by the poverty of their own birthplaces, built ships, emigrated, created the new Greek maritime empire and opened new sea-ways, thus bringing the West closer to the East; in the people of the islands who stayed in their homelands and created unsurpassed arts and crafts.

This exhibition aspires to re-approach the life of the Archipelago islands and to invite their visitors to look closer next time they find themselves there.