Greek Dialogues - Islanders, the Making of the Mediterranean: a different exhibition narrative. Reflections on an interdisciplinary project

Date and Time: Tuesday, 20th June, 2023 at 17:00h BST

Venue: Cynthia Beerbower Room, Newnham College, Cambridge and

Online: Access details below

The penultimate Greek Dialogues seminar of this academic year features Dr Anastasia Christophilpoulou (Senior Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean, Fitzwilliam Museum) who delivered our first seminar in November 2020. Dr Christophilpoulou revisits the Being an Islander project, for which she is the Principal Investigator, reflecting on the insights afforded by the methodology employed and the extent to which it was successful. The seminar also features a screening of the award-winning documentary "Being an Islander."

"Being an Islander" was conceived in 2018 as an interdisciplinary project, with research clusters encompassing Insular and Mediterranean Archaeology, Social and Visual Anthropology, Archaeological analysis, a large public engagement project in collaboration with the diasporic communities of Cyprus, Greece and  Italy, the exhibition ‘Islanders: The making of the Mediterranean’ at the  Fitzwilliam Museum, and the production of an award- winning documentary.

The project, has a broad diachronic scope and applies an integrative analytical approach. The research, as well as the subsequent exhibition themes, integrates multi-scalar approaches to past human interaction within continental and island environments, while both our research work and corresponding public engagement programme engaged works of contemporary artists whose creations contemplate what belonging to an island means.

In this lecture we take a retrospective look at the methodology and practice of the project and exhibition, and ponder whether it has achieved its interdisciplinary mandate.

Immediately after the lecture, join us for the screening of the award-winning documentary Being an Islander, which explores the theme of insularity as a social construct and as a form of social and cultural identity.

The documentary uses the island of Sifnos in the Cyclades as a research model to clarify what defines island identities in the Eastern Mediterranean, a place of biogeographical, historical, and evolutionary crossroad of three continents. Discussion will follow.

Producer: ArkLab Limited

Executive producers: Dimitrios Bouras, Anastasia Christophilopoulou

Director: Dimitrios Bouras

For background and further reading suggestions, visit Being and Islander: A Captivating Journey of Identity and Culture Explored and Acclaimed.

Topic: Greek Dialogues - Islanders, the Making of the Mediterranean: a different exhibition narrative. Reflections on an interdisciplinary project
Time: Tuesday 20th June, 2023 at 17:00h BST

Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/92542628428?pwd=eTJscnRHUGhXelc2SE9QQndnV0RVZz09

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Meeting ID: 925 4262 8428
Passcode: 713299

: The Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies Channel

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