Children's fear, children's dreams

On Friday, 18 January at 19:00, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete opens the exhibition “Children’s fear, children’s dreams” with works by Stella Driyannaki, Christos Kotsoulas (Capten), Chryssoula Skepetzi, Angelos Skourtis.

The concept and the curation of the exhibition is by Maria Marangou.

The exhibition examines whether childish fears really exist and the extent to which they affect the children’s behaviour and dreams.

What fears are these? Fear of school, fear of the family, fear of the changing body but also of physical violence, the fear caused by some fairy tales and their role models—the wolf and the witch of old or the internet heroes of today. It is also the fear that comes through television and the news from war zones where the victims are mostly children.

The idea of this exhibition in Rethymnon started from the oldest school in the city (any city), which was built under Ottoman rule for the Turks, was then used to provide elementary education to whole generations of Rethymnians and today continues to be a school attended mostly by the children of the dynamic community of economic immigrants.

How do the children experience fear, how do they dream of their aspirations, how do they feel before their ‘nightmare’, even if they are well protected by their families? Is fear gender-related? Is there a threat of punishment? Do the indigenous children have the same fears as those who followed their parents’ destiny in migration?

The artists approach the subject each from his or her point of view.
Stella Driyannaki uses the oldRethymnonSchool as a model, photographing children today and looking for parallels with children from older times.

Christos Kotsoulas (Capten) works on the boyish role model of seamen and dreams of a captain’s cap and insignia—all oversized and perhaps scary as well. It is no accident that he signs his work as “Captain”.

Chryssoula Skepetzi has worked on the notion of the prison cage to explore whether a free and un-dogmatic conscience in the field of education can function in dogmatic and oppressive environments and how the cell can be interpreted as protectionism.

Finally, Angelos Skourtis exhibits a series of knifed photographs of children who have bags over their heads or are covering their faces to avoid looking at evil, as well as a series of ‘injured’ paintings he collected from the previous exhibition.

The exhibitions will run through May 4, 2013; as always, there will be educational programmes and guided tours for children and adults.



Communication:
Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete
Katerina Kouyoumoutzi
Himaras 5, 74 100 Rethymnon
Τ: +30 28310 52530, F: +30 28310 52689
e-mail: info@cca.gr • http\\:www.cca.gr