Photography Exhibition
Traces and Ruins
Curated by: Plato Rivellis
Delphi, Saturday October 29, 2016 at 19:00
The European Cultural Centre of Delphi inaugurates a photography exhibition titled TRACES AND RUINS in the Exhibition Hall of the Conference Centre in Delphi, on Saturday, October 29 at 19:00.
The exhibits include a total of 140 photographs by 70 photographers.
Previously, in May (20-23/05), a seminar on the same theme was held at the Delphi Centre under the instruction of photographer and author Platon Rivellis. The content focused on photographing the archaeological site and the Museum of Delphi, aiming to highlight the relationship of photography with the concept of trace, the dimension of memory, the fragments of space and time, the senses, and the imagination.
During the four-day event, the 82 participants had the opportunity, in the morning hours, to photograph the antiquities and submit their photographs for evaluation in the afternoon during the lectures.
The seminar program was supported by the Ephorate of Antiquities of Phocis.
"The average photographic result was exceptionally high," notes Platon Rivellis in the exhibition brochure. "The production of good photographs exceeded not only my expectations but also the possibilities for an exhibition with fewer photographers and more photographs per photographer, thus highlighting each photographer’s personal proposal."
The exhibition will last until November 20, 2016.
Photographs
Traces and Ruins
A group exhibition resulting from twelve hours of discussion and six hours of photography at the archaeological site and the museum of Delphi
Those who have seen my photographs, read my texts, or attended my classes are familiar with my love for ruins. The attraction they exert on me is related to the certainty of death, the suspicion of immortality, the hope of transformation, the promise of duration, but above all the questions raised by time and beauty. A tired body or a weathered face appear, to me, more beautiful than those untouched by decay, because even beauty needs time to blossom and imagination to reveal itself. A ruined building attempts to merge with its surroundings and borrow the beauty of nature's eternity. The materials that wear out may age but are not destroyed. That is why stone or wood calm our anxiety, while aluminum or glass nurture it.
However, those who know me personally are aware that ancient ruins are also linked to my childhood, a childhood that keeps me –unfortunately– bound to its –fortunately– sweet memories. Mycenae, Olympia, the Acropolis, Sounion, but above all Delphi were favorite places of my father, who always took the opportunity to guide and accompany our foreign friends there. Especially Delphi, in combination with –then humble– Arachova, Livadeia, and Osios Loukas, were also among the most common destinations for family weekends, so much so that during my school years, I became the undisputed guide for my classmates during school visits to antiquities. Finally, I cannot forget the first tender escapes with young friends who initially headed to Delphi and sometimes thereafter to Rome to test their handling of the allure of ruins. My interest in photography is likely related to the above, as photography is nothing but a trace, that is, a ruin, of a reality that once was but will never be again. Ultimately, photographs are the ruins of memory.
The opportunity to collaborate with the European Cultural Centre of Delphi awakened all these emotionally invested memories within me and sparked the desire to challenge the good photographers who would trust me to try their luck at something very difficult: to capture and transcend the archetype of every ruin that is the sacred space of Delphi. Every photographer knows that the more significant the subject he focuses his lens on and the more interesting it is, the more doomed the result is, as the margins to surpass the obvious to impose his own transformation narrow suffocatingly. The great power of the real usually crushes the photographic trace, removing any possibility of transcendence. Delphi is one of the most hostile subjects for a photographer. They staunchly resist violation. They are not just ruins. They are ruins laden with history. And they bear not only the time of their life and the trace of their death but also the presence of the reverence, fear, and hope of the people who have trusted them throughout the centuries. They are ruins charged with emotions. Even worse, these imposing ruins are integrated into a sacred nature that with its suffocating morphology prevents the photographer from boldly composing the surrounding space in which he will incorporate and transform them. The very environment is part of the sacredness of the space and all that it encompasses.
The eighty photographers who gathered from all over Greece in the hospitable amphitheater of the European Cultural Centre of Delphi to listen to and discuss the above thoughts with me, to put them into practice by photographing the sacred archaeological site of Delphi, to trust their photographs to my comments, and finally, to submit them to the judgment of others through an exhibition, did not all have the same level of knowledge and photographic skills. However, as it turned out, they all had the courage and desire to participate in something that could deter many. And the reasons for this would be many: a) An ambiguous title (Traces and Ruins), which on one hand distances from the obvious, i.e., the simple depiction of the grand space, and on the other, hints at the conjunction of reality and photography through the transcendence of the object. b) The fact that the photography had to be done amid a tourist crowd that attempted to photograph the same subjects with obviously different goals. c) The very tight time frames within which the photography had to be done (very few hours over two or three mornings). d) The difficulty of the specific subject, which both in content and form was already complete through history and nature. e) And finally, the fact that all photographers applied in the same space and at the same time thoughts and directions that had been analyzed during those days in the context of the specific seminar by the same teacher.
I must admit that the result of the photography surprised me despite my nearly forty years of teaching experience in photography. The average photographic result was extremely high. And the production of good photographs exceeded not only my expectations but also the possibilities for a photography exhibition as I had designed it, namely with fewer photographers and more photographs per photographer, so that each photographer’s personal proposal would emerge. This difficulty was also due to the fact that almost all of those who participated in the seminar produced work, with the exception of a few who attended it rather out of artistic interest without being photographers themselves. And the mere fact that such an overwhelming majority put into practice the thoughts that were discussed would be enough to make me happy regardless of the quality of the photographs that resulted. And this is because the first lesson for every artist is to derive joy from the process and not from the result and not to hesitate to flirt with failure, as it is the usual companion of artistic production. In the end, a selection of two photographs from each photographer was chosen for the exhibition, regardless of the quality of each one’s overall production, and thus a number of 140 photographs was gathered. Nevertheless, an effort was made to have the selected pairs hint at the difference in approaches, and I believe that to some extent this was achieved. The fact that I too am participating with two of my photographs, something I usually do not do when I curate an exhibition, was to emphasize the equality of us all in front of artistic creation and to show with specific elements that in art the teacher may know more but cannot always do more.
Plato Rivellis
Lecturer of the seminar
and curator of the exhibition
Opening
