The central museological idea of the exhibition analyzes the refugee issue from the years before the Asia Minor Catastrophe to today
Following the decision of the Municipal Council of the Municipality of Pavlos Melas to grant the Ministry of Culture the use of Buildings D and B4 within the former Pavlos Melas Camp in Western Thessaloniki, in order to establish the Museum of Refugee Hellenism there, and the approval of the museological and museographic application study
of its permanent report, the Ministry of Culture is proceeding with the relevant procedures for the inclusion of the project in the Regional Operational Program “Central Macedonia” of the NSRF 2021-2027.
The studies were prepared with funding from the Ministry of Culture, through a Programmatic Agreement for Cultural Development between the Ministry of Culture, the Region of Central Macedonia, the Municipality of Pavlos Melas and the Developmental MATH AAE/OTA for the creative reuse of the camp’s buildings and the environmental upgrade of the
metropolitan park of Pavlos Melas.
The Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, said: “With the restoration and operation of the Museum of Refugee Hellenism in the two buildings of Father Stratopedou Pavlos Mela in Western Thessaloniki, we are keeping the memory alive, but also honoring the enormous contribution of Greek refugees to the social, economic and her cultural personality
Thessaloniki and Greece, more widely.
For Thessaloniki, which has welcomed a large number of uprooted Greeks, it is an important landmark of history and memory. The concession of use of the two buildings by the Municipality of Pavlos Melas ensures the necessary condition for the development of the project. I thank the Municipal Council for its decision. The Ministry of Culture will establish the Museum and then hand it over to the Municipality for its operation. The buildings, which will be restored to accommodate museum use, present morphological differences, which a museographic study bridges. Based on the design, both at the museological and at the museographic level, a single exhibition is formed. The selection of the exhibition material was made with the main concern of awakening the senses and recalling memories. Our goal is for the Museum of Refugee Hellenism to be a precious ark of national memory, which recapitulates the history of Hellenism in the East and highlights its valuable contribution to the Nation”.
The central museological idea of the exhibition analyzes the refugee issue from the years before the Asia Minor Catastrophe to the present, in the light of the concept of “belonging” to a place and the concept of homeland and how these concepts are influenced and shaped by historical and socio-political conditions of the time. In context
this creates two “places” that represent the “here” and the “there” of the refugees: On the one hand, their neighborhoods in the East and on the other, its districts.
The realization of the central museological idea is achieved through the appropriate use and combination of the objects and the supervisory material. The selection of the exhibition material was made with the main concern of recalling memories through a journey from “there” to “here”. Memories are awakened through texts, sketches,
drawings, photographs, postcards, maps, projections, digital applications, audio
applications and objects.
The Museum’s permanent exhibition, divided into two distinct sections, explores and presents the history of the Greek refugee populations that settled in Thessaloniki. The first part of the exhibition in building B4 is entitled “From the neighborhoods of Mikrasia, to the districts of Thessaloniki”. The second part of the exhibition entitled “Smell, Melody,
Memory” is spatially developed in the small neighboring building D. The two sections of the exhibition form a whole of the same Museum, however, due to the fact that they are housed in different buildings, they present an autonomy and self-sufficiency in terms of the meaningful narrative. The core of the exhibition is the collection of objects and relics of the Holy Metropolis of Neapolis and Stavroupolis. A total of 2,718 objects were recorded, documented and digitized, of which 1,955 objects were registered in the Integrated Information System (ISIS) of the Ministry of Culture with the aim of enriching the digital collections and mobile monuments. Of these 2,718 objects, a total of 413 were selected for the exhibition in building B4 and a total of 30 were selected for the exhibition in building D. The objects in the collection are diverse both in terms of their type and their place of origin. These are objects of Greek refugees, such as books, pictures, clothes, tools, tools, cooking utensils, church items, household goods, heirlooms and memorabilia, votives, musical instruments, personal notes and manuscripts, coins and seals.
The majority of objects are from Cappadocia and the wider Pontus region, but also from many regions of Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace. The photographic material of the exhibition comes from the collection of the Diocese of Neapolis and Stavroupolis, the Historical Archive of Refugee Hellenism (IAPE) and the archive of the “Christos Kalemkeris” Museum of Photography.
Source :Skai
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