THE MUSEUM GUESTS
Michael Afolayan
Michael Afolayan, born in Athens to a Nigerian family, describes how growing up in Greece shaped his dual identity and artistic path. Immersed in the performing arts among cosmopolitan Greeks of the 1980s, he discovered ways to express and explore African culture within the Greek context. This led him to establish ANASA Cultural Center, dedicated to African arts, intercultural dialogue, and the empowerment of the Afro-Greek community…
Christos Carras
Christos Carras, born and raised in London, studied philosophy at Cambridge and completed a PhD in aesthetics of contemporary music in Paris before moving to Greece in 1990. After working in the wine sector, he gradually returned to the cultural field, contributing to European music networks and later serving at the Theocharakis Foundation. From 2009 to 2022, he was Executive Director of the Onassis Stegi, where he…
Yannis Hamilakis
Yannis Hamilakis, archaeologist and professor of Archaeology and Modern Greek Studies at Brown University, sees archaeology as the study of how material things and time relate—whether in prehistory or the present. Besides his Neolithic excavation at Koutroulou Magoula in Thessaly, he researches the “archaeology of the present,” including migration and border crossings on Lesvos…
Sophia Handaka
Sophia Handaka is a social anthropologist and curator of the Benaki Museum’s Collection of World Culture. The donation of 151 African art objects instigated the long-term project Africanisms, developed in collaboration with ANASA Cultural Center and a number of first- and second-generation members of the Afro-diasporic community of Athens. Together they visited the museum storerooms, handling objects and sharing memories, knowledge and personal stories, which shaped the people-centred exhibition Africa Amongst Us* (Benaki…
Michael Herzfeld
Michael Herzfeld, professor of social anthropology at Harvard University and honorary Greek citizen, reflects on Greece as a lifelong intellectual and emotional focus shaped by his own multiethnic, Jewish background. He introduces the concept of “crypto-colonialism” to describe countries like Greece and Thailand that were never formal colonies yet internalized Western pressures and ideals, especially through monarchy, nationalism and a rigid model of the nation-state.
Stathis N. Kalyvas
Stathis Kalyvas, political scientist and professor at the University of Oxford, studies comparative politics with a focus on how political identities are formed and how conflict and violence shape societies. Over the past decade, he has increasingly turned his attention to understanding contemporary Greece—how it functions, how it is perceived, and which deeper cultural patterns define it. He is currently writing a book on political violence, exploring how different forms of violence, from revolutions to wars, are interconnected and how they..
Dimitris Krallis
Dimitris Krallis, a historian of Byzantium who teaches at Simon Fraser University and until recently directed the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies, works on the social and political history of the medieval Roman (Byzantine) state, especially satire, criticism and aspects of the culture usually ignored by both Enlightenment and conservative Orthodox narratives. His recent Greek-language book on Byzantine fiction and the “Greek imaginary” uses…
Rick Lowe
Rick Lowe, a Houston-based artist, first came to Greece for Documenta 14 (April-July, 2017) where he participated with the “social sculpture” Victoria Square Project, a community art initiative bringing together refugees, migrants and local Greeks to shift debate from politics to shared culture. Later, collaborating with the Benaki Museum, he paired his paintings with objects from the collection and was struck by the depth of Greek material culture…
George Manginis
George Manginis, Academic Director of the Benaki Museum, describes how his view of Greece has been shaped by a lifetime lived “from the outside,” through the lenses of the West, the Middle East, and the Far East. He shares his idea for an exhibition and a book dedicated to the postwar philhellene designer Terence Harold Robsjohn-Gibbings, who, in collaboration with Eleftherios Saridis, created the most renowned series of Greek…
Maria Papadimitriou
Maria Papadimitriou is a Greek artist whose practice spans sculpture, installation, painting, video and socially engaged art. Her work investigates collective memory, gendered bodies, myth and the politics of trauma. Although born in Athens, she moves constantly between the local and the global, teaching at the University of Thessaly and creating socially oriented projects such as TAMA, Souzy Tros, and the Victoria Square Project (with Rick Lowe).
Katerina Vrana
Katerina Vrana is a Greek stand-up comedian who performs in Greek and English and loves to joke about stereotypes—cultural, gender, and, more recently, those around disability after she herself became disabled. Her latest Greek-only show, Derpederisa, explores how deeply conservative mindsets and gender roles still shape life in Greece, while movements like #MeToo, LGBTQ+ rights, and discussions on domestic violence slowly challenge them. She uses humour to expose…