“Axios – Ludias – Aliakmonas Deltas: an uknown treasure”

International Photography Contest
Subject: “Axios – Ludias – Aliakmonas Deltas: an uknown treasure”
The Authority for the Management of the Protected Area of Axios – Ludias – Aliakmonas Deltas and the Photography Center of Thessaloniki, aiming at highlighting the mentioned protected area and raising environmental awereness on its ecological values, proclaim an international photography competition with the subject “Axios – Ludias – Aliakmonas Deltas: an uknown treasure”.
The photographers are invited to visit and photograph the area which extends to 320 sq.klms and consists of the Axios and Aliakmonas Deltas, the Gallikos and Ludias Estuaries, the Kalohori Lagoon and the Kitros Saltmarsh. The area is protected by European legislation (is a member of the Natura 2000 network) and international conventions (Ramsar Convention). Its wetldands provide the locals with irreplaceable natural resources and the fauna and flaura with a hospitable haven. More than 200 species of birds can be observed here, many of which rare or threatened.
No technical, colour or other limitations are set by the organizing committee, the contestants are invited to impress with their personal look.
Terms of the contest.
● Participation in the contest is free. Any professional or amateur photographer may submit photographs, with no discrimination whatsoever.
● Any interested individual may enter the contest with a portfolio, single photographs or a series of photographs.
● All images should be submitted (by post or in person) only at the following address:
Foreas Diahirisis Delta Axiou – Ludia - Aliakmona
Halastra ,57300
Thessaloniki, Greece
(To the attention of: Photography Contest)
Submission deadline: 31-08-2008 (postmark)
● The jury panel shall consist of representatives of the Authority of Management and of the Photography Center, and of one accomplished photographer.
● The judgement of the jury panel shall be final. No objection or other claim shall be accepted.
● Each photograph must be printed on paper size of at least 20×25 cm. At the back of each photograph (even if it is part of a series) the following information should be written: title of the photograph (if any); location where the photograph was taken; the photographer’s full name, address, phone number and e-mail address (if any). Also, for the needs of the catalogue, the photographs should be sent in digital archives of the same size, in resolution 300 dpi.
● Languages: Greek, English
● The submitted material shall not be returned.
● The images to be selected by the jury panel shall become the main part of a large photography exhibition that will be initially
presented in the city of Thessaloniki and subsequently in other locations inside and outside Greece. The first exhibition of the photographs shall begin in the first week of October 2008.
● The expenses for the exhibition of the images shall be borne by the organizer.
● At least 60 of the prize-winning photographs of the exhibition shall be included in a luxurious catalogue / album, which shall be sent to all prize-winning photographers.
● 13 of the photographs shall be included in a 2008 calendar to be published by the Authority of Management of the Protected Area of Axios – Ludias – Aliakmonas Deltas.
● Additional prizes shall be announced very shortly. The prizes shall be awarded at a special ceremony.
● The contest results shall be announced on the internet and made known to all participants.
● The copyright of the catalogue and calendar belongs to the Botanical Garden of Stavroupoli. The copyright of the individual photographs belongs to the photographers.
● All works may be used to publicize the contest and its goals in any medium and in any manner. The contest participants are not entitled to any remuneration whatsoever.
● Participation in the contest means the unconditional acceptance of all terms referred above.

Authority for the Management of the Protected Area of Axios – Ludias – Aliakmonas Deltas -
Photography Center of Thessaloniki

Cheap Photo in Thessaloniki

Everybody can buy photo works now!

In an attempt to contribute to the rise of market value of photography as work of art, the Photography Center of Thessaloniki organises for the sixth consecutive year the Cheap Photo exhibition at Tettix Gallery, Thessaloniki. The show is on view from December 7, 2007 to January 15, 2008.

Participant artists in the exhibition are Christos Kyriazidis, Emmanouil-Nikolas Panteris, Amalia Evangelopoulou, Eftichis Andreadakis, Yannis Tsiroglou, Anna Kourtza, Vicky Maria Ioannoy, Angeliki Mitsi, Thanassis Raptis, Argyris Liapopoulos, Vassilis Karkatselis, Dionyssia Geka, Thomas Filios, Fotini Lamboudi, Elpida Katsika, Olga Tzimou, Efi Petala, Thomas Kostamis, Thalia Karafilli, Evdokia Kontova, Georgia Kourkounaki and Kimon Axaopoulos.

CROSSROADS

CROSSROADS

In the frame of Biennale1

The Photography Centre of Thessaloniki participates in the concurrent programme of the 1st Biennale of the State Museum of Contemporary Art with the group photography exhibition "Crossroads".

The opening of the exhibition will take place on Monday, September 10th 2007 at the TETTIX gallery (Tsimiski Rd. & Dialetti 3) at 20:30 and will last through October 5th.

As cities collect distinct groups of people with varying social or national backgrounds and religious traditions as a rule, they favor "meetings" between disparate people and elements. These kinds of crossings -predictable, coincidental or unanticipated- where the subject of the
camera lenses of the Thessaloniki Photography Center’s artists Thanasis Raptis, Efthimis Mouratidis, Avgerinos Zaharias, Ismene Goula, Vasilis Karkatselis, Yorgos Papaharalambous, Tasos Deyiannis, Stavros Dagtzidis and the video by Achilleas Savopoulos.

In search of the “other city”

We are looking at the city’s crossroads and walls, at the aimless wanderings of stray dogs and the fleeting glances of passers-by as we are constantly in search of the “other city”. When exploring our familiar urban place, we discover a parallel universe of heterotopias[1]- places recklessly drifting between reality and utopia. They resemble uncharted islets that are either places where we escape from the hustle and bustle of our ordinary lives or, places of exile for any and all our inclinations. Heteroclite aspects pass across each other within this universe of heterotopias: real and imaginary, ecumenical and personal, private and public.

There are heterotopias other than the ones described by Foucault –prisons, hospitals, museums, brothels- that are not so evident and live on the sly, almost representatively such as graffiti or wall to wall advertisements. Upon the walls, matter is crossed with written messages and echoes like a voice from “another place” that is trapped in cement. In other areas, the massive fancies of consumer society occupy the cold and impersonal facades of buildings, unexpectedly disguising them with the images of sensational models.

Still, these “other places” are not extending within the urban milieu; they are also the places that live within every man’s soul, the places that each one of us carries within him, our homelands, our experiences and memories that become apparent from glances and gestures. Even at a remote nudists’ beach, where bathers are free of the paraphernalia of their urban origin, the city continues to exist as an experience and inner sense. Art itself, as “another” way to comprehend and conceive reality, generates heterotopias. The artist can sabotage the standard image of a city that is a complex network of crossroads and traffic lights, and create from the original actual image “another place”: a city that levitates and escapes by gliding over its own reflection.

Accordingly, the work of art itself is an Heterotopy since it is uniting us with the world, it is here and it is everywhere at the same time, it contains simultaneously all places. Isn’t it true that a work of art can create a connection between us and other places, times, memories and sensations by perpetually weaving invisible networks of relations and crossroads?

Olga Karamitopoulou

Art historian

---

[1] Heterotopia: other place, from the Greek words

hetero= other and topos=place.

Foucault's idea of an heteropia is a single space

that contains all other spaces.

Balkan focalizations

Balkan focalizations

Three Serbian and two Greek photographer exhibit together

On Monday, August 27, Helios Cultural Centre in Neapoli, Thessaloniki opens the group photography exhibition "Balkan Focalizations", in collaboration with the Engraving Centre of Neapoli, the Photography School of the University of Belgrade and the Photography Center of Thessaloniki. The artists participating in the exhibition are Branimir Karanovic, Tijana Rancic, Branislav Stankovic from Serbia and Vassilis Karkatselis and Thanassis Raptis from Greece, all artists with a significant work undertheir belts and a strong presence in their hom eland and abroad. The exhibition consists of black & white and coloured photos, digital or not and invite us to follow the focalizations the eyes of the artists make, as well as their problematic. The exhibition lasts till Saturday, September 15. The exhibition takes place in the context of the series of events organized every year by the Municipality of Neapoli under the title "Balkan Square".