Thirteen years of photographic encounters on a small island

The Kythera Photographic Encounters celebrated their thirteenth birthday this year. Ever since 2002, the last few days of September have witnessed a gathering of photographers, researchers, curators and photography enthusiasts on the island of Kythera for a three or four-day program of exhibitions, lectures, presentations and discussions. The primary purpose of the Encounters is to provide an opportunity for all those involved with the photographic medium in Greece to meet and exchange views in an open and accessible setting.

This unusual event is administered by a small group of three or four volunteers, assisted by a few well-wishers in Kythera and elsewhere. There are no offices, permanent structures or employees and of course no regular budget. The name was ‘borrowed’ from the Rencontres Photographiques of Arles – not the bloated three-ring circus of today, but the more relaxed and informal event of the seventies. At the same time, we wanted to reproduce something of the spirit of Aris Georgiou’s Photographic Concurrence in Salonika, an event which in effect died in 2006.

From the very start, the core of the Encounters has been the two-day Conference on the History of Greek Photography, the only one of its kind in Greece. The end of the last century witnessed a steady increase in the serious study of photography in this country, though that increase was not accompanied by the emergence of a regular forum at which the results of ongoing research could be disseminated and discussed. For this reason, access to the Conference has always been open to anybody willing and able to contribute to an open debate around issues pertinent to the medium of photography. Beyond a general and by no means rigid concern with photography in Greece, there are no restrictions on the subject matter; invited speakers have included academics, art critics, researchers, sociologists, archaeologists, historians, psychoanalysts and professional photographers,

The intention had always been that a part of the conference presentations, namely those which could be reproduced in print, would be regularly published. In practice, the papers of the 1^st Conference were published under the title Greek Photographic Studies 2002, a volume which remains a valuable addition to the still somewhat anaemic Greek photographic bibliography. The publication was underwritten by the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography thanks to its then director, Costis Antoniadis, at a time when that institution was more concerned with serious research than with public relations exercises; sadly, there was no follow-up in subsequent years. Discussions with other potential publishers have not so far borne fruit, though there are plans for a new website later this winter where many papers will be posted in .pdf format.

Our other and equally important care has always been for the participation of young photographers and researchers. The conference podium has always welcomed the latter, while the former are invited to take part in the annual group exhibition of young Greek photographers, one of whose exhibitors is awarded the prize of a solo exhibition the following year. This group exhibition has included a wide variety of participants, from talented amateurs to the graduates of domestic and foreign institutions, and we are particularly proud of the fact many successful contemporary photographers first exhibited their work in Kythera. Finally, from the first year onwards we established a tradition of providing subsidised, low-cost travel and accommodation for young people and students.

The rest of the exhibition program usually tries to encompass the three basic categories of historical photography, contemporary production with an emphasis on newly emerging artists, and work by established Greek photographers. Alongside these exhibitions, and always depending on the resources available, we usually try to organise at least one other event which is not necessarily photo-based. These have included a performance of music by the composer Panayiotis Leftheris (2002), the annual award for the best photographic publication of the year (2003-2010), the presentation of Susan Trangmar’s audiovisual work A Question of Distance (2006), Pat Kaufman’s installation in the harbour of Kapsali (2006), Margarita Manda’s full-length film Goldust (2009), the mixed-media installation of Maria Schina (2011), Lizzie Calligas’ projection piece The House of Cavafy (2013), as well as the open seminars of Yiorgos Depollas.

Perhaps because they answered a need of some kind, the Kythera Encounters have benefited from the support of the greater part of the Greek photographic community. Though there is insufficient space here to list the names of all those who have participated in the Encounters over the past thirteen years, I feel an obligation to mention certain individuals without whom this project would scarcely have flourished. Amongst our most dedicated supporters have been three of the founders of the Athens Photography Centre and protagonists of the New Greek Photography movement, Costis Antoniadis, Yiorgos Depollas and Nikos Panayotopoulos. Alongside them, Aris Georgiou, founder of the Salonika Photographic Concurrence and first director of the Museum of Photography. Amongst other well-wishers from the first generation of the New Greek Photography movement, Eleni Maligoura and Lizzie Calligas have been assiduous in their attendance. Of established institutions, the photographic departments of the Benaki Museum and of the Hellenic Literary & Historical Archive (ELIA), in the persons of Aliki Tsirgialou, Vassiliki Hadjigeorgiou and their colleagues, have contributed generously through their participation, through their research and with exhibition loans. We are deeply grateful to them all.

John Stathatos
Published in issue 16 of Wip (Work in Progress), the online photography magazine