“Myrtis: face to face with the past”, the unique exhibition arriving to Albania for the first time from the Greek museums at the COD (Centre for Openness and Dialogue), it will remain open from 14 September to 6 October 2018. This exhibition was made possible thanks to the cooperation between the United Nations and the Greek Embassy in Albania.
The exhibition is in itself is a collaboration between history, archaeology, medicine, technology and art. Consequently, it includes a variety of archaeological and technological objects, paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, installations and is distinguished for the itinerant character, traversing many places in the world, starting from the country of origin, Greece.
Any scientific evidence or any artistic production, consequently, relates to the short life of an 11-year-old girl who lived during the Pericles’ golden age and tragically passed away because of the typhus epidemic that plagued ancient Athens 2 500 years ago. The reason that Myrtis reappears one way or another is because even 2 500 years later, thousands of lives are lost by typhoid fever.
The purpose of the exhibition is to present all the steps from the archaeological excavation to the study of skeletal material, leading to re-creation the face of one of the victims of the Athens plague.
Little Myrtis is a special girl even for the United Nations. Appreciated at the United Nations Summit on Millennium Development Goals as “Friend of the Millennium Development Goals”, has been “revived” today to become a powerful voice in achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially in issues related to the prevention of diseases affecting children.
Records show that, despite the enormous efforts to reduce child mortality, millions of children lose their lives every year before they reach the age of five.
In the exhibition, through painting, sculpture and wood engravings, real and abstract reflections for the Myrtis symbol are given in the form of support from Greek and foreign artists.
In the artworks of the exhibition, the idea is to consecrate the figure of the little girl by the self-taught artist Giannis Mytrakas (“Mother goddess, mortal mother”); the painter Vasiliki Sari, in turn, displays Myrtis through a canvas sculpture thanks to the mixing of techniques (“Iketides”); Vasilis Apostolou presented Myrtis as something she could never be, as woman (“Untitled”); Paskalis Agelidis is another artist who through the painting titled “Kujtimi” seeks to see hope.
Myrtis is the symbol that delivers the call coming from antiquity, bearing in itself the criticism for the contemporaries about the non-prevention and failing to treat those diseases that are not necessarily deadly. The general coordinator of the exhibition is Manolis I. Papagrigorakis and its curate is provided by Haralampos Haitas.
