The “transformed” village welcomed this summer, for the first time in its colorful and playful form, with tourists not stopping to photograph its every corner.
He transformed his village by placing in all the neighborhoods approx 100 tin potscreating small figures with pots depicting villagers and painting games in the schoolyard.
THE oil painter Stelios Papagiannis was looking for a way to express his love for his village, Paliouri in Halkidiki, but also to honor the memory of his mother, who he lost at a young age. Familiar with brushes and paints, he first started by painting in the school yard a limp, a snake, the alphabet and a chess and continued by collecting used tins and inviting the children of the village to paint them.
“I was collecting tins all last winter, cleaning them and preparing them for painting. Children of Paliouri – and not only – took it upon themselves to paint them, begonias were planted and now there are around 100 such pots scattered around the village”, says Mr. Papagiannis to APE-MPE, who continued the project to beautify his place, making dolls from plastic pots.
“I got in touch with the artist Georgia Markopoulou, who keeps a country house in the area, and we made figures out of pots, which we again placed in various places, mainly high up, even on a balcony of an abandoned house.” In fact, as Mr. Papagiannis explains, the 29 pot-dolls depict local people and mainly old women he remembers from his childhood, such as grandmother Xanthippi, who no longer lives with her granddaughter.
“All the models – pots have my own memories of the grandparents in the neighborhood. But one couple I imagined was like that and it’s my father Polychronis giving a rose to my mother Kalouda, who died at 48 years old, when I was 8 years old,” he says.
The models of Paliouri, as Mr. Papagiannis calls his creations, do not lack the neighbors Iulia and Ismeni, Mario, Manolis, Tzortzia, all real people of the village who inspired the creator.
The “transformed” village welcomed this summer, for the first time in its colorful and playful form, with tourists not stopping to photograph its every corner. The comments, according to Mr. Papagianni, are flattering and encouraging for the continuation of the effort, supported by the whole village, which takes care of the plants in the tins and the figures-pots, where the plants have been carefully selected to play the role. ..of hair.
However, on August 11, at 7 pm, Mr. Papagiannis organizes a game revival event inviting visitors and residents to play on the lame he has painted on a village road, to remember the “apples” and the mosque and of course, to tour Paliouri and to know all the creations.
RES-EMP
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