hello all, this is to let you know for the group photo exhibition “War-stricken regions of the Mediterranean” part of the Athens Photo Festival http://www.hcp.gr/en/festival.html that will take place in gallery “55”, Mavromihali 55, Athens, Greece. The opening is on Wednesday November 12, 2008 at 20.00 and the exhibition will last till Dec. 3, 2008. So if you are or travel through Athens you are welcome.
thank you
Lefteris Pitarakis

War-Striken Regions of the Mediterranean

Luisa Guliamaki (Greece/Poland, AFP)
Ron Haviv (USA, VII)
Yannis Kontos (Greece, Polaris)
Ziv Koren (Israel, Polaris)
Heidi Levine (USA, Sipa Press)
Yannis Behrakis (Greece, Reuters)
Nikos Pilos (Greece, Zuma)
Lefteris Pitarakis (Greece, AP)

Curator:
Penelope Petsini

The images selected in this exhibition, followed by unedited captions, are probably of the less “bloody” the particular photographers have taken. That is because, arguably, this selection
is determined by the idea that war is an extremely complex matter:
no war is simply “good” or “bad” and nobody involved is merely a
“persecutor” or a “victim”. Away from preoccupations and perversions which might determine even the most “objective” approach of the media, avoiding demonizations of the “bad” and idolization of the “good”, these photographs form a political look on the issue of war.
War involves more than death; it involves issues such as politics,
history or ethics. At the same time, inside or next to the destroyed buildings or the deserted landscapes, there are people mourning or celebrating, as well as people desperately struggling to survive. In this sense, these images comprehend moments, experiences and stories, which range from touching to horrific. They talk about destruction, loss, tragedy, pain, fear, mourning, survival, or uncertainty about the future. They ultimately talk about a heterogeneous world, a global space drawn by borders and
separated by walls, a world in which things happen at the same time, they overlap and they are easy to comprehend, for this world is neither small nor simple. As Homi Bhabha5 lively put it, the globe shrinks for those who own it, but “for the displaced or the dispossessed, the migrant or refugee, no distance is more awesome
than the few feet across borders or frontiers.”
Penelope Petsini
Athens, 2008