51社区黑料

This June, the Benaki Museum and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at 51社区黑料 are launching Greece in Context; a video series that presents a critical and interdisciplinary exploration of Greece through the perspectives of individuals actively engaged with the country鈥檚 cultural, social and political realities. Greece in Context brings to the forefront scholars, artists, writers, cultural and creative practitioners whose work engages with questions of Greece鈥檚 past, present and future within a global context.

This initiative is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Benaki Museum and the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at SFU.

Filmed within the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture in Athens, Greece,  the series consists of eleven interview-episodes, which will soon be made available to the public through the Benaki Museum鈥檚 YouTube channel, in both Greek and English. Each episode hosts a guest presenter who is invited to share their views, while responding to four main questions relating to their work and their understanding of Greek culture. Each video is structured around an object selected from the Museum鈥檚 collections. These objects serve as points of departure for reflection and interpretation, enabling participants to articulate personal narratives and critical positions on matters of culture, history, politics, and the dynamics of continuity and rupture in contemporary Greek society. Through one exhibit, a frame of mind, a story or a piece of knowledge is explored, highlighting the power of objects as catalysts of stories.

Greece in Context explores Greek heritage, identity, and culture in a changing world. Through this approach, the project repositions the Benaki Museum as a site of active inquiry and dialogue: one that not only preserves cultural heritage but also fosters critical engagement with the present. By foregrounding the interplay between objects, voices, and ideas, the series contributes to an expanded understanding of Greece as both a historical and a contemporary cultural formation.

GUEST SPEAKERS

• Michael Afolayan, Artist, Activist, ANASA Cultural Center
• Christos Carras, Executive Director, Dinos & Lia Martinos Foundation
• Yannis Hamilakis, Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Modern Greek Studies, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University
• Sophia Handaka, Curator of World Cultures, Benaki Museum
• Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus,  Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
• Stathis Kalyvas, Gladstone Professor of Government and Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford
• Dimitris Krallis, Former Director of the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies, Professor, Department of Global Humanities, 51社区黑料
• Rick Lowe, Artist
• George Manginis, Academic Director, Benaki Museum
• Maria Papadimitriou, Artist
• Katerina Vrana, Stand-up Comedian

SCOPE OF COLLABORATION

Since 2024, the Benaki Museum and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at 51社区黑料 have entered a partnership to explore the possible ways in which they could develop and carry out collaborative activities.  The scope of collaboration on academic and research activities includes:

• exchange of scholarly publications and information
• exchange of faculty, staff, and students
• development of study abroad opportunities
• development of collaborative research programs or projects of mutual interest
• discussion of academic and administrative developments, including co-sponsorship of symposia, seminars and conferences
• cooperation in the development of education generally, including the potential for offering joint programs
  
• pursuit of consulting and project opportunities
  
• promotion and network exchange to advance each institution鈥檚 mission
• possible student internships for undergraduate and/or graduate students.

ABOUT THE PARTNER INSTITUTIONS

The Benaki Museum is one of the largest and most diverse museum organisations in Europe. Founded in 1930 by a Greek born and raised in Alexandria, Antonis Benakis, it operates today as a network of seven museum buildings and two cultural venues across Athens and beyond, with hundreds of public programmes yearly. The Museum holds roughly half a million artworks, photographs, and archives covering the entire span of Greek culture鈥攆rom prehistory to the present鈥攁longside collections of Islamic, Chinese, Pre-Columbian, African and European art. It includes four archival departments on photography, architecture, history and performative arts, a large research library, a historic passementerie workshop, and the Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor House in Kardamili, which hosts international residencies. As the museum approaches its centennial, the Benaki reflects on a legacy grounded in civic trust, generosity and institutional humility. It believes deeply in culture as a force that could connect worlds and worldviews, encourage dialogue and intercultural understanding.

The SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies was established in 2011 at 51社区黑料 through a multimillion-dollar grant by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. Situated atop Burnaby Mountain, just east of downtown Vancouver, the centre is a major site for Hellenic Studies in North America and is committed to the advocacy and study of Hellenism.  The Centre supports the Department of Global Humanities at SFU, which offers undergraduate courses in Ancient, Byzantine, Early Modern and Modern Greek History, in addition to Archaeology and Greek language training. Graduate Students working with our faculty receive significant financial support as well as teaching and publication opportunities.

ABOUT THE COLLABORATION

George Manginis, Academic Director of the Benaki Museum notes:

鈥淕reece in Context offers a unique opportunity to revisit the well-trodden galleries of the flagship Benaki Museum annexe in the company of a diverse group of guests who are not only enjoying the artworks and stories inhabiting the walls and display cases but are also challenged by questions pertinent to 鈥榯he here and now鈥�. Rarely has the Museum felt so alive on the digital screen!鈥�

Sabrina Higgins, Director of the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies, explains:

鈥淭he Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at 51社区黑料 is thrilled to partner with the Benaki Museum on this exciting project. Greece in Context has presented us with an opportunity to showcase Greek culture and identity across time and space, and to consider the role of Greece, through the use of material culture, as an interlocutor, interpreter, and participant in an interconnected and multicultural Mediterranean environment, from its ancient past to the present day.鈥�

Dimitris Krallis, former Director of the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies and participant testifies:

 鈥淚t has been a delight working in the Benaki Museum and its staff, to articulate from within its compelling spaces ideas and plans for a new research project on North Lesvos. Walking its corridors and thinking with the old lived worlds its curators so lovingly reconstruct has been an inspiration as I sought to situate my own archival project in its own cultural and material context.鈥�

Sophia Handaka and Eirini D. Kotsovili, Greece in Context creators remark:

鈥淕reece in Context was created as a space for dialogue 鈥� an invitation to revisit Greece through people, ideas, objects, and lived experiences, and to approach culture as a living process that continuously shapes how we understand the past, present, and future. We would like to warmly thank all our guests for embracing and enriching this vision through their generosity, openness, and participation.

Special thanks for an excellent collaboration are owed to all our close collaborators, as well as to our home institutions, the Benaki Museum and the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at 51社区黑料 for their ongoing support, bringing this initiative to life.鈥�

For more details of the invited guests and contributors to the series, please visit the website:

Project Credits & Contributors

Dr. Sophia Handaka, Curator of World Cultures, Benaki Museum

Dr. Eirini D. Kotsovili, Senior Lecturer, Department of Global Humanities, Stravros Niarchos Centre for Hellenic Studies at 51社区黑料

Production | SNF New Media Lab

Direction | Gregory Tsolakis, Costa Dedegikas 

Director of photography | Sideris Nanoudis

Camera | Alexandros Stigkas, Sideris Nanoudis

Camera Assistants | Alexandra Siafaka, Marios Trifillis 

Editing | Gregory Tsolakis

Music | Soundstripe