The first, exhibition, in which you are also a curator, is titled Making a Splash: Mermaids and modernity. What is it about?
What the exhibition tends to look at is the iconography of the mermaid itself across cultural spaces but it looks at it in regard to the challenges to modernity. In the Greek example, which is Effy’s contribution, she looks not only at the ancient idea of the mermaid –the gorgona- in Greece, but also how it has implemented itself within Greek society. For example tourist shops and how they contrast to ecclesiastical images. The mermaid often serves as a metaphor to remind us of particular value. For example the legend of princess Thessaloniki, the sister of Alexander the Great, who had elements from the fountain of youth spilled on her hair. When she learned of her brothers passing, she threw herself into the sea and she turned into a mermaid. According to the legend she would wander the seas asking passing ships about her brothers fate. The sailors that told her her brother still lived were allowed to live, but those who told her that he was dead, she would drown. So it’s a moral tale and tells us that we should consider what our answer should be in any particular question.
The second exhibition is about Clement Meadmore, a sculptor famous in Australia and overseas. What is Effy’s contribution to that?
Effy Alexakis, Gorgona shop, Plaka, Athens 2017. Lambda print Source: Supplied
Clement Meadmore was one of the artists commissioned by Ion Nikolades to renovate the Legend Café in the mid '50s. Effy has gone through photos from «In Their Own Image: Greek-Australians’ National Project Archives», in Macquarie University and provided the curators of the exhibition with images of the old café. These photographs have been enlarged in size and turned into murals on the walls.
Now the last exhibition is based in Athens correct?
Legend Café & Milk Bar, Bourke Street, Melbourne, Vic., c. 1956 Source: Supplied
That is correct. The Greek Embassy in Athens moved offices and the Australian Ambassador ti Greece, Kate Logan, wanted something unique for the new building. What Effy has done is selected contemporary images of Greek Australians with various narratives. There are stories about people’s lives for instance, such as Fani Coustas, mother of actress Mary Coustas. You also have people like author Angelo Loukakis and Justice Chryssa Loukas Karlsson.
What should the people that go to the exhibitions expect?
Fani Coustas (Theofani Efthimiadou), Melbourne, Vic., Australia, 2018 Source: Supplied
They will see the depths of the Greek presence, the contemporary association of Hellenism in regard to using its ancient roots but placing it in a modern contemporary setting. They’ll see the importance of Hellenism in terms of its expansion into other cultures and other ideas. These are the things that are embodied within Hellenism. In terms of Greeks, the global diaspora make their mark wherever they go and for me that’s something that comes out of all three exhibitions.
