The Greek Australian Cultural League (GACL) will launch its ‘Lost Homelands’ exhibition on Saturday 5 November from 2pm at Steps Gallery, 62 Lygon Street Carlton.
Commemorating the centennial of the Asia Minor Catastrophe and dedicated to all people’s loss of homeland and their search for a new existence, the event will be officially launched by Dr. Andonis Piperoglou, Senior Lecturer in Global Diasporas at the University of Melbourne.
The 13-day event, from 1-13 November will feature a related poetry afternoon on Sunday, November 6, and will also host the annual presentation of the GACL literary Awards.
The exhibition also serves as an avenue to introduce artists from the Greek Australian Artist Directory (GAAD) to the broader community. A new and important archive of Greek Australian visual and performing arts practice in the country which was only introduced recently, and has over 40 artists currently registered from both disciplines.
The GAAD aims to represent artists established, emerging, past and present who are or have been practising traditional and contemporary art in Australia.
The GACL has, since its establishment 50 years ago accumulated a wide range of information on Greek Australian artists and their works which it aims to preserve through their new initiative the GAAD so that they might be enjoyed by coming generations.
“The annual ‘Antipodean Palette’ exhibition is notably one of the GACL’s most successful art events, so the notion of a Greek Australian Artist Directory was identified by the GACL members as an important project to pursue,” says Vasy Petros.
The exhibition will include works from 15 Greek Australian artists on the theme of lost homelands, in an attempt to capture the essence of the emotional and spiritual impacts forced migration has had on communities across the globe.
The GACL has extended an invitation from members of the community, saying they would like to hear from anyone with information on Greek artists who are no longer with us, but whose artistry and service has contributed to the arts in Australia.