People of Aegina #12 – Haris Metaxa
What made Haris Metaxa, Greek philosopher, interpreter, and poet, combine her life in Paris with living in Aegina, where she spends the second lockdown, and organize the first International Mini Festival “Life is A Dream Dedicated By Desire” International Art & Culture Project, From the World to Aegina and back?
My name is Haris Metaxa, I have been living in France since 1997, and I have been in Greece during the past year, with breaks. My goal is to open human, cultural, and artistic bridges of communication between Greece and the world, based in Aegina. “From the World to Aegina and back” Festival highlights the similarities of the artistic life between Greece and Europe through actions that say a big “yes” at a time when we are looking at life through a window. The message is that we are adapting and moving on to the path of awakening and affirmation for life if the pandemic is the deepest no. And all this on the island of Aegina.
Why Aegina?
I chose Aegina because among the many good features, it has all the petty, bourgeois “evils” of Greek society, and at the same time it can open up to all the good. It is not a society that has conquered everything, but it could do so for two reasons. Firstly, for its history, as Aegina has always been a key-island, both in antiquity and in modern Greek times. Secondly, for the international “enlightened” community that has nowadays chosen the island as a place of residence.
This is what played an important role in my decision to stay in Aegina.
When I first visited the island and saw the quality of life, I decided to stay and write a book. It is one thing to wake up in the morning and see the snow-capped mountains, like today, and another to live the urban and stressful life of Athens or Paris. During my stay on the island when I was writing, my Italian friends, poets of Greek descent, showed me the interview of Costas Varotsos in We Love Aegina. The interview revealed a little innocent boy, behind the sophisticated artist, who hopes and wishes the island to overcome its evils and become an international pole of attraction for the people who dream and create, like all of us. So, I felt connected to the art community and decided to stay.
The magical, healing, energetic past of Aegina is a given.
Aegina is a healing island. Each of us perceives this differently. You know it because when you are in Aegina, you feel something in your soul. I came for a weekend, then I stayed. Did you know that Aegina has a connection with Asclepius?
We will highlight the therapeutic role of the island at the Festival with the help of Content Curator Lizzy Koster. Lizzy is the perfect “victim” of Aegina. The island has transformed her. She is like a priestess. I will also collaborate with the curator Marianna Catzaras, who will be the secret door through which the Francophonie will pass, in all its creative tendencies and tensions.
In Aegina, I met people of all nationalities who have a story to tell, something to narrate.
These people are part of a community, a social sensibility. I met a fisherman from Kalymnos with a story that inspired an academic from Ioannina to write a book. I am interested in the invisible people who hold the key of history in their hands and heart. So history lies in their stories. It is a kind of oral literature where tradition passes verbally. These narratives will be translated at the Festival by interpreters in many languages. The simultaneous presence of many languages, speaking more than one language frees you from the brainwashing that is part of every national culture. A single language is nothing but a prison. Only with the second language does one see oneself in the mirror. That is why the multilingual element of the Festival is important to me.
Aegina and its unique flavors
The Festival will also have events that embrace taste. Aegina is an island rich in products. My wish is to put producers and artists in the same room and let them discover each other’s world.
Aegina with one word
Beauty and hope.
Some feelings that Aegina awakens in me when I arrive on the island.
As I was born on an island, my soul was always thirsty to return to an island. I am Cretan and what I adore is the double horizon, the double infinity. In Crete, you feel the sea on both sides. Aegina is a more cosmopolitan Crete for me. When I arrive on the island, I feel like a child, as if time has stopped. I go back to the decade of my birth, the ’60s, which was beautiful because, even though we were still in the dictatorship, we had, like all the oppressed, a hope that the future would be better. It never happened, so it is this hope that still nourishes us. For me, Aegina is the island of hope, nostalgia, childhood, the good and the bad. I like the petty-bourgeois element of the island. It is kind of archaic, in the sense that one can see mainly men. The men are in the seas with their boats or on the mountains hiking. Within 4-5 decades, very few things have changed in the social dimension of gender in Greece. Aegina is the infinite possibility of hope.
What moves me in Aegina
I find very touching the simultaneous presence of its three temples, Aphaia, Kolona, and Elanios Zeus.
My favorite places on the island
I love Aphaia and Paliachora. I adore Marathon and Kolona. The small coves when you head from Agia Marina to the city are also amazing. I like everything I have met, especially the coastal part of the island. I also love the places where I can see Aphaia and Kolona.
Δείτε αυτή τη δημοσίευση στο Instagram.
The first thing I did when I came at the end of October 2020 was to go to Aphaia.
The spectacle was breathtaking, the whole landscape paved with small yellow crocuses that sprout.
Δείτε αυτή τη δημοσίευση στο Instagram.
A few words about We Love Aegina
I like it very much because it has the freshness of the new generation that in its soul blooms the flower of beauty and hope. We Love Aegina transforms love into a way of communication and business, through the enlightened management of the island’s promotion.
A few words about the DESIRE IN / FOR AEGINA International ART Project
The DESIRE IN / FOR AEGINA International ART Project is expected to take place between April 15 and May 15, 2021, pandemic permettendo, throughout the island, with the participation of artists from around the world. Organized by WICCAN AC Paris, the Festival aims to open bridges of communication between Greece and the world based in Aegina. The events of the Festival serve art, poetry, philosophical thought, the body, and the senses, through sculpture, performances, painting, photography, poetic duels in different languages, and narrative short stories. The DESIRE IN / FOR AEGINA will also celebrate the 200 years from the 1821 Greek revolution by using it as a theme in the artists works. The Festival is organized by Haris Metaxa, Curator of the “OPEN BORDERS” Exhibition project, with Content Curators Marianna Catzaras and Lizzy Koster. It is dedicated to the memory of the composer and musician Martina Cisek, Vienna 1959-2020.
*If keeping up with the dates physically seems impossible because of the pandemic, the Festival will start with an online version and move on the island at a later time.
A few words about Haris Metaxa
Haris Metaxa was born in the 1960s in Heraklion, Crete. She holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Florence and is a professional Interpreter in 4 languages. She is the founder of WICCAN, Women’s International Culture Creativity and Art Network. “My activity is twofold. I am at the same time a professional linguist and a devoted poet and philosopher with a strong interest in culture and the arts. I write poems in 4 languages . I use poems artistically, in collaboration with other artists, introducing poetry to sculpture, painting, music, and dance. At the same time, I work as a conference interpreter.”
Stay tuned for more #weloveaegina stories!
Do you want to become an Aegina Ambassador yourself or do you know anybody else who would like to? Send us an email at: ask@weloveaegina.com or contact us through our social media!
#weloveaegina
Follow @we_love_aegina on Instagram and Facebook