Context, Reflection, and the Shifting Landscape of Cultural Exchange

When I began researching this article for Octopus, the impetus was the current display at ΕΜΣΤ, The Greek Month in London, 50 Years On: Αrt at a Time of Political Change (curated by Polina Kosmadaki), which revisits the original Greek Month in London held in 1975 and hosted by seven UK institutions. I started by discussing the project with one of the two curators who conceived and executed it: Sir Norman Rosenthal, then Curator and Head of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and later known as the Exhibitions Secretary at the Royal Academy of Arts. Together with his co-curator, the Greek art historian and curator Christos M. Joachimides (1932–2017), they produced a project that sought to reposition Greece in the cultural consciousness of Europe, not through nostalgia but through contemporary artistic practice and political intention.

I share here the end of our discussion, as it is revealing when assessing what The Greek Month in London signified for Greece and the UK, and what such a project might represent today. In Rosenthal’s words: “The exhibitions and other activities did not have a huge impact in London; in Greece, it was huge. There was a lot of controversy in Athens about it at the time. But in London, nobody was interested in it, and nobody knew!” I asked whether such a project, if conceived today, would have any resonance. He replied bluntly: “I have no idea! I cannot tell you. That was then. It was a celebration of the collapse of the colonels, now I am not sure.”
Rosenthal’s uncertainty about the relevance of such an endeavour today is the starting point for this reflection. To consider the “now” to which he refers, it is important to position the 1975 political context historically.

When The Greek Month in London opened in 1975, it was more than a cultural festival. It was a gesture of reintroduction. Greece had just emerged from seven years of dictatorship, and London, with its networks of artists, intellectuals, and émigrés, offered a stage upon which new narratives could be tested. It brought together exhibitions, films, performances, and discussions across the city, anchored by the ICA exhibition Eight Artists, Eight Attitudes, Eight Greeks, which featured the work of eight artists who lived and worked abroad, in New York, Paris, and Rome, and whose work was situated within dominant international movements of the time, such as Arte Povera, minimalism, or illusionistic painting: Stephen Antonakos, Vlassis Caniaris, Chryssa, Jannis Kounellis, Pavlos, Lucas Samaras, Takis, and Costas Tsoclis. Their practices had evolved in dialogue with the avant-garde in the respective cities where they lived and worked. At the same time, the exhibition Theophilos, Kontoglou, Ghika, Tsarouchis: Four Painters of 20th Century Greece took place at the Wildenstein Gallery, alongside performances, readings, and talks. This exhibition presented paintings of Greek modernism by artists of the so-called Generation of the ’30s, a loosely bound group of people that played a significant role in the country’s cultural history and included writers, poets, artists, critics, and scholars who emerged in the early 1930s and introduced modernism to Greek art and literature.

The 1970s were marked by exhaustion and reorientation across Europe. Britain was navigating an economic crisis while Greece sought to redefine its democratic and cultural identity. Within this context, The Greek Month in London emerged as both a celebration and an inquiry, a means of asking what it meant to be Greek, European, and modern at a moment of transition. Looking back today, the programme can be read less as cultural diplomacy and more as an early attempt to situate Greece within the global flow of ideas and artistic production.

The collapse of the junta in July 1974 brought relief and anticipation. Artists and intellectuals who had been silenced or exiled began to re-emerge in the national cultural landscape. While abroad, many sought ways to reconnect to the newly democratic Greece. The works presented in London in 1975 were not tokens of national identity but rather complicated what it meant to be Greek at such a transitional time. While traces of Greek identity were present, they were refracted through displacement, on the one hand, and experimentation, on the other. What united them was not a shared aesthetics but a shared condition: the negotiation of visibility and belonging across borders.

Looking back at The Greek Month in London, we can see that it occurred at a key turning point, helping Greece reconnect with the wider international art world after years of isolation. At the same time, it revealed a deeper problem that remains relevant today, the difficulty of presenting national culture without letting it become boxed in or defined by nationality alone, that is, how to define Greek culture beyond the collection of cultural artefacts produced by Greek nationals.

For the artists involved, it was both an opportunity and a risk. They were presented as Greek artists, yet their work resisted simple categorisation. The ICA’s internationalist ethos provided an ideal setting for this complexity. Under Joachimides and Rosenthal, the project was not framed as a national showcase but as an engagement with contemporary artistic thought, in keeping with the ICA’s mission. Certainly, the celebration of Greek culture in the UK allowed for such an internationalist outlook. The same festival happening in Greece would have been perceived very differently. Ironically, as Rosenthal mentions, it granted the project a certain invisibility in the UK and great exposure in Greece.

What is the situation today? Can we still observe polarisation between Greek artists living abroad and those pursuing careers in Greece? Although the cultural landscape is very different, with Athens, Thessaloniki, and even several islands now attracting international artists and curators, many still feel the need to move to ‘international cultural centres’ such as New York, Paris, or London. National recognition often comes from outside Greek borders. Institutions in Greece have developed substantially in the past decade, yet in their efforts to support the local scene, they sometimes create policies that inadvertently reinforce divisions between artists based in Greece and those abroad, Greek or otherwise. However, there are examples, such as the NEON Organization or the EMΣT mentorship programmes, which broaden their target audience by asking multinational artistic groups only to include Greek contributors or simply requiring the artist to reside in Greece.

Fifty years on, the lingering effects of economic crises and the attraction of educational mobility continue to lead many Greek artists to live permanently abroad, including in the UK. Despite Brexit, Britain remains a nurturing environment for Greek artists. The generation of Eight Artists, Eight Attitudes, Eight Greeks bore the marks of migration. Their relocations to Rome, Paris, or the United States were often forced by circumstance. Their work carried the weight of absence, of homeland, language, and a need for independence. It spoke in different codes, hinting at resistance.

The contemporary Greek artists living and working abroad today operate under very different conditions. They are not displaced, but rather economic migrants, often self-determined, navigating an art world that is global, networked, and precarious. Many relocated after the 2012 financial crisis; others moved to study or for art residencies and stayed. Their immigrant status is less about estrangement than circulation. For these artists, Greek identity is one layer among many. Their work engages with broader questions such as ecology, labour, technology, gender, and migration, beyond national frameworks. Their Greekness has not vanished; it has become relational and more self-aware. The artists working abroad today are shaped by mobility and global precarity. The difference with previous generations of artists living abroad is not merely historical but also contextual. The shift from exile to mobility mirrors a broader transformation in how culture operates. The idea of a singular national narrative has given way to overlapping networks and plural voices. Rather than focusing on how to represent Greek culture, we consider how Greek artists participate in global conversations and what platforms, institutions, or cities enable their work.

From this point of view, diasporic institutions should not reject the national framework but recognise its limits. National identity continues to shape cultural policy, funding, and institutional access. Yet within these structures, there is scope to act critically and creatively, opening spaces for artists whose work is genre-defying. Institutions can contribute by facilitating encounters informed by, but not confined to, questions of origin. Diasporic institutions must navigate this complexity not by providing definitive answers but by creating conditions for dialogue and inquiry.

Indeed, Greek artists today are seeking spaces for cultural expression that question or move beyond nostalgic framings of homeland and belonging. Crucially, diasporic institutions must balance the expectations of their increasingly diverse, multilingual, and transnational publics with those of long-established audiences who may hold idealised views of culture. Their mission should focus on dialogue rather than fixed ideas about identity. This focus does not erase historical facts or senses of belonging to a land, a nation, or a language. It acknowledges that identity is formed through relation, not fixed essences, which often manifest as idealised, conservative, or even reactionary conceptions of real Greekness. Such institutions can potentially become laboratories rather than showcases, constantly redrawing the cultural maps within which they operate and supporting artists with Greek nationality, artists based in Greece, or simply artists interested in Greece and the region, to share their work with new publics. For example, in February 2024, the Hellenic Centre, in collaboration with the University of Westminster, hosted the first Albanian-themed event at the venue. Under the broader title “Albanians in Greece: Migration, Memory and Art”, the 4-hour-long event explored Albanian migration to Greece through academic research, archives, art, and film. Presentations ranged from Rexhina Ndoci’s study of onward migration to Ilirida Musaraj’s evolving Archive of Albanian Migration, emphasising oral histories and everyday objects. Dimitris Gotsis’ film Pendulus and Fjorida Cenaj’s performance Arra highlighted identity, belonging, and intergenerational experiences, fostering dialogue among speakers and an engaged audience of around 100 people.

Founded in 1994, the Hellenic Centre promotes Greek culture and heritage in the United Kingdom. It has served as a cultural hub for Greek, Cypriot, and philhellenic audiences, offering exhibitions, lectures, concerts, films, theatre, and language courses. Operating independently, sustained by membership, donations, and event income, it is governed by a Board of Trustees drawn from the Greek and British cultural and business sectors, alongside me, as Director since September 2022. The Centre was established through a collective effort by Greek and Greek Cypriot community leaders seeking a permanent cultural home for Hellenism in Britain. Over time, it has evolved and built enduring partnerships with cultural foundations, embassies, universities, and art organisations across the UK and Europe. Today, it sits at a pivotal moment precisely because the communities it served for three decades are undergoing profound change. Long-established diasporas are experiencing intergenerational shifts in language and orientation, giving rise to hybrid identities that blend multiple heritages. At the same time, new forms of mobility shaped by the financial crisis, refugee movements, Brexit, Black Lives Matter, and the COVID-19 pandemic have further diversified communities, reshaping the Centre’s remit and possibilities. Whereas in the past it served the established Greek communities, it is gradually becoming a hub for emerging artists, newcomers, and broader London audiences. When it opened, it functioned as a monument to national culture. Today, it operates as a space where the very notion of national identity is occasionally questioned. Its purpose is not to fix an image of Greece abroad, but to provide a platform for publics, academics, artists, and thinkers to engage with one another and with London’s wider cultural ecosystem. Much in the spirit of Eight Artists, Eight Attitudes, Eight Greeks, the Hellenic Centre aims to discuss national identities within a shifting internationalist framework.

As Director of the Hellenic Centre, I see its role not as a guardian of identity but as a facilitator of transition. The Centre is part of an evolving ecology of institutions, artists, and audiences that are reconsidering what it means to belong, to connect, and to create in an interconnected world. In this sense, its legacy contributes to a broader understanding of national cultural representation, offering a model for how diasporic institutions can function as spaces of openness and exchange. To some extent, the role of cultural institutions working within a national framework is not so much to define or reinforce assumed notions of national identity, to define what it is to be Greek, but to draw the line around what being Greek should not be: the conservative and reactionary ultra-nationalist mythification of Greece and Greek culture.

In general, diasporic institutions are positioned at a unique intersection of cultural diplomacy, artistic practice, and community life. Their development has shifted from projecting an image of Greece to fostering relationships between artists and audiences, Greek and British institutions, and past and present. Hellenic Centre’s exhibitions and performances, conversations and collaborations allow different forms of knowledge to meet. The newly introduced curatorial strands have taken into account the need for space in the programme both for important Greek artists who are nevertheless unknown in the UK and for emerging artists pursuing careers in Britain and acclimatised among their peers. These strands are important as they help promote artists who have been overlooked by British audiences and, at the same time, support those already based in the UK who are nurtured by their tutors or contemporaries. The 2023 exhibition Vlassis Caniaris: Selected Works 1960s–1980s reintroduced Caniaris to British audiences. The exhibition’s resonance was amplified by its timing, coinciding once again with the refugee crisis, the movement of people to and from the UK, and new understandings of borders and liberties. Apart from Rosenthal, few non-Greek visitors knew or recognised Caniaris’ work despite its presentation at the ICA in 1975 and numerous exhibitions in Greece, Germany, Switzerland, and France. In this situation, the Centre became the platform that enabled the re-evaluation of Caniaris in Britain.

Amid the landscape of biennales, pavilions, and national festivals, what is the relevance of national cultural events abroad? In 1975, The Greek Month in London made sense as a declaration of presence. Greece, newly free, needed to reintroduce itself to the international community. Today, however, similar curations dedicated to single countries risk reproducing hierarchies of centre and periphery or reducing artistic production to questions of origin.

The impulse behind The Greek Month in London to create visibility and foster dialogue remains pertinent. Yet as the world has changed, so too must the framework of the conversation. Can we imagine a contemporary iteration? Would that need to be collaborative rather than representative, international rather than national, horizontal rather than hierarchical? And would it emerge from networks of artists, curators, and communities working across borders rather than from one or two individual curators with access to prestigious institutions?

In preparing this text, I visited the Tate Archives, where the ICA’s records are held. Looking back at The Greek Month in London, one is struck by how much it relied on personal initiative. The organisers had no blueprint; they built connections through correspondence, trust, rejection, financial difficulty, and persistence. Informality has its value because it reminds us that cultural exchange begins with relationships rather than blueprints. Yet building institutional resilience requires strategy, as it safeguards against sentimentality, nepotism, and compromise, ensuring that these relationships can be activated within a sustainable framework.

Documentation of The Greek Month in London, including catalogues, press clippings, and photographs, shows a persistent assumption that culture serves as a bridge in times of transition. For those of us working in institutions today, that assumption is less reassuring than demanding. The past should not be venerated or duplicated but interrogated.

In a world where artists move fluidly between cities, residencies replace borders, and digital platforms collapse distance, the notion of a fixed national identity becomes problematic. Yet this makes institutions such as the Centre more necessary. As funding cuts across the arts in the United States and the United Kingdom, after Brexit, intensify, exchanges grow increasingly fragile. Within this fragmented landscape, such institutions can offer reassurance, connectivity, and continuity.

Revisiting The Greek Month in London today is less about nostalgia and more about examining how institutions mediate between past events and present realities. The lesson from 1975 is not one of national celebration but of institutional adaptability and the need to keep creating conditions that allow artists to articulate their own terms and reshape themselves in response to migration, as well as climate and cultural change.

The Greek Month in London remains a compelling case study in the politics of cultural exchange. Born of a historical need to reintroduce a nation recovering from dictatorship, it showcased intellectual vitality. Fifty years later, its relevance lies less in its national ambition than in its demonstration of what cultural diplomacy can achieve.