“URBAN SURVIVORS – HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGES OF A RISING SLUM POPULATION”
In the framework of the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, the “Urban Survivors – Humanitarian Challenges of a Rising Slum Population” exhibition opening took place on Sunday, March 11, 2012 at the Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki (Warehouse B1, Port). The exhibition is co-organized by the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and Medecins Sans Frontier-MSF (Doctors Without Borders) and with the support of the State Museum of Contemporary Art and the Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki.
The idea arose from the “Urban Survivors” project run by Medecins Sans Frontier in co-operation with the Noor Photo Agency and Darjeeling Productions. The exhibition brings forth photographs of five big slums in Dhaka, Karachi, Johannesburg, Port-au-Prince and Nairobi, where MSF is actually running projects. The featured photos are the work of the agency’s award winning photographers Stanley Greene, Αlixandra Fazzina, Francesco Zizola, Jon lowenstein and Pep Bonet.
In her welcome speech, the Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki director, Syrago Tsiara, underlined that “Art provides us with the opportunity to open a window to the world and see that there are living conditions much more different that ours. No matter if the photos are thought as art photography or documentary photography, images from slums around the world make us compare and realize that things in Greece are not as bad as they seem”. As far as the collaboration between the Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki and Thessaloniki Documentary Festival is concerned, she noticed that “it is a proof of how important it is to strengthen the bonds among the different cultural institutions, especially under the present circumstances”.
Further on, representing the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Thanos Stavropoulos –co-curator of the exhibition in collaboration with Melina Spathari, head of the communication department of MSF- thanked the Medecins Sans Frontier for its co-operation in realizing the exhibition, as well as the Contemporary Art Center for hosting it. “The “Urban Survivors – Humanitarian Challenges of a Rising Slum Population” exhibition reveals a problem that lies at our doorstep”, he stressed and added that the specific exhibition is well-fitted to the Documentary Festival’s purpose, that is, to raise public awareness on major problems of our time.
Melina Spathari, in turn, thanked the TDF and the Contemporary Art Center for their initiative to support the “Urban Survivors” project. “Through this exhibition we communicate to the people that support us the urbanization phenomenon which we should no more treat as non-existent. In our project we placed Athens near Dhaka, Port-au-Prince and Karachi. Whatever happens in Haiti does have an effect here; the phenomenon is one and the same: people who face the insecurity of having nowhere to live and even no way to survive. Such circumstances may have looked “exotic” till now, but we cannot say they are not familiar to us today”, notices Mrs. Spathari. In addition, she called upon everyone in our society to financially support the MSF activity and to sensitize people on the humanitarian crisis in the slums. “We should feel the problem as if it was ours. Let’s don’t forget that solidarity is the only antidote to the crisis, the last shelter of our civilization” she said.
Planning and organization: Melina Spathari, Thanos Stavropoulos
Production Management: Anna Milosi
Duration: March 11-18 (Opening on Sunday, March 11, at 12.00)
Opening hours: daily 12.00 to 20.00
