The first major participatory exhibition in Greece is a fact, and it is about the 1980s. Besides, it is bilingual and, therefore, particularly friendly to foreign visitors of the city too. Photos, clothes, all kinds of souvenirs and memorabilia, toys, pieces of furniture, audiovisual records and anything you can imagine will be among the exhibits on the exhibition called “GR80s. The Greece of the Eighties at the Technopolis”, which is to open on 25 January. Until March, the exhibition that is hosted in the old industrial gas facilities in Athens will revive the history, the culture and the atmosphere of the ’80s, in a partnership between the “Technopolis of the City of Athens” and the “Onassis Cultural Centre”. The public and private life during the decade will be recomposed through 4,000 interactive exhibits, four subject areas, 13 kiosks, rare photos, extensive audio-visual material and more than 30 parallel events. The result is expected to be very realistic since a large part of the exhibits came from volunteers who lent authentic objects of the decade for the exhibition.
Category: CULTURE
News about culture and cultural heritage
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“GR80s”: get to know the Greece of the’80s through an exhibition!
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Culture capital celebrations get underway in Paphos
CELEBRATIONS to mark the official opening of Pafos2017 got underway in the town on Saturday ahead of the main event later in the evening.A number of free events are being held in Paphos over the weekend to mark the occasion.
Excitement is mounting in the town and the buoyant mood was further lifted by a superb performance from the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra at Kennedy Square in the heart of Paphos old town which was scheduled to start at 12 noon.
Crowds gathered as the sun shone, braving a biting cold wind, to enjoy the hour long performance which also featured the Concert Clemens Choir and the Music Lyceum of Paphos Choir.
The musical offering got off to a late start due to a technical sound issue which was resolved during the performance, but which didn’t manage to dampen the spirits of the performers or the audience.
Cypriots, ex pat residents of all nationalities and visitors also enjoyed complimentary local wine and zivania.
Aarhus and Paphos, the two European Capitals of Culture for 2017, will be connected throughout the year by a series of common projects and actions, of which this performance is the first.
The work of the internationally renowned Danish composer, Lars Møller, was composed specifically for the opening event of the European Capital of Culture – Aarhus2017. He was in Paphos to present his work with the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra, the Concert Clemens Choir and the Music Lyceum of Paphos choir.
The Paphos choir also performed at the Aarhus cultural capital opening celebrations in Denmark last weekend.
The Aarhus Jazz Orchestra is conducted by Lars Møller, the Concert Clemens Choir by an energetic conducted Carsten Seyer Hansen.
At the end of the concert, crowds were reminded to show their support and attend the main event later in Paphos which gets underway in the newly revamped town hall square at 7pm.A walk around the city and the main venues of the Pafos2017 European Capital of Culture also got underway at 10am. Information points and volunteers provided information to the public.
Five recitals from five soloists, musicians and singers, performing works from the classical and the modern repertoire started at 10.45am at Vintage Art Café, Ananas 8Bit Coffee, Deloubak Espresso Cuisine Co, Beanhaus Coffee Roasters and Let them Eat Cake.
Free parking for the weekend’s events will be available at a number of places including: Karavella, the new public parking behind the old police station, the 7th Elementary school stadium, Iakoveio Gymnastirio [Korinos] and underground parking at the government buildings.
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Egyptian museums achieve revenues of EGP 45m in 2016
The Ministry of Antiquities’ affiliated museums have achieved total revenues of $45m with 974,400 visitors in 2016.According to a statement by the ministry’s museums division, the museums achieved the highest revenues in December, recording EGP 6.8m with 117,000 visitors, while the lowest revenue reached was $1.7m in June with 21,800 visitors.
Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Anany told Daily News Egypt that the number of visits of museums and archaeological sites has increased during the recent months starting from October which coincide with the winter season, when the tourist flow increases in Egypt.
The museums’ total revenue in January reached EGP 2.8m with 72,400 visitors, compared to EGP 4m in February with 125,000 visitors.
The museums’ total revenue in March recorded EGP 3.6m with about 111,700 visitors, compared to EGP 3.5m with 68,000 visitors.
The revenues declined gradually, to record EGP 2.9m in May with 51,600 visitors, until they dropped to EGP 1.7m in June with 21,800 visitors.
The museums’ revenues in July were EGP 2.8m with about 84,000 visitors, and EGP 3m in August with 80,000 visitors.
The museums’ total revenue in September recorded EGP 3m with about 76,000 visitors, compared to EGP 4.2m in October with 70,900 visitors.
The revenues jumped in November recording EGP 5.7m with 94,700 visitors, and continued its growth to EGP 6.8m in December with a total of 117,000 visitors.
The number of the museums affiliated to the Ministry of Antiquities is 31 across the country, including 21 open-air museums and eight under-development museums, as well as two closed museums.
The closed museums are El-Arish and Beni Suef museums, while the ministry is still developing the Greek Roman museum, the Port Said museum, the Ahmed Orabi museum, the Tanta museum, the museum of Tanis, Rommel Cave museum, Mohamed Ali museum in Shubra, and the Royal Vehicles museum in Bulaq.
The ministry has opened three museums in the second half of 2016 after finishing their development, including Farouk Corner museum, which was opened in August; Mallawi museum, opened in September; and Kom Oshim museum, opened in November.
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Hundreds of coffins to be restored in Egyptian conservation project
Egypt will restore hundreds of coffins dating back thousands of years to the time of the pharaohs as part of an American-Egyptian project to preserve and document one of the world’s oldest civilisations, a director of the project said.The conservation effort, funded by a US grant, will restore more than 600 wooden coffins that date to various eras of ancient Egypt and which are currently stored at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
“There has been no other project like this worldwide, with this number of coffins being documented or restored,” said head of the museum’s restoration department, Moamen Othman.
Egypt was awarded the conservation grant worth $130,000 (£105,000), in December 2015. That project is part of a larger US-Egypt treaty signed in 2016 to curtail illicit trafficking of the country’s rich cultural heritage.
Antiquities theft flourished in Egypt in the chaotic years that immediately followed its 2011 uprising, with an indeterminate amount of heritage stolen from museums, mosques, storage facilities and illegal excavations.
Global interest in Egypt’s pharaonic era remains high. The hunt for the resting place of the lost queen Nefertiti grabbed international headlines in 2015, though the search has yet to bear fruit.
The gilded ancient relics and resting sites of the pharaohs were once the cornerstone of a thriving tourism sector, a vital source of foreign currency, that has suffered setbacks since the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP), a US programme founded in 2001, has been responsible for the conservation and restoration of countless ancient sites, museums and artefacts around the world.
The fund previously helped Egypt to conserve a mausoleum in historic Cairo and an ancient temple in upper Egypt.
“One of the main goals of the project is to ensure that the [Egyptian] Museum has a full inventory of the objects and understands their conservation needs so that the coffins can be made available for research by scholars but also for the public,” AFCP programme director Martin Perschler said.
“It means that in the long run more people here in Egypt and people from around the world will have the opportunity to discover and appreciate the full range of heritage and of history within this single collection of coffins.”
