NIKOS PANAYOTOPOULOS, PENELOPE PETSINI AUFARBEITUNG: THE WALL
The series Aufarbeitung: The Wall is about the Berlin Wall twenty years after its fall. It is part of an extended photo project focusing on memoryscapes of the Cold War Era in Europe. Working through the past (Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit), a catchphrase in the famous “historians’ feud”, coined by Adorno, refers to the process of revisiting historical events through an examination of often controversial material, which causes such profound embarrassment and heated conflicts, that some call it “the battle of memory”. After its fall in 1989, the Wall turned into a memorial with multiple–especially political– functions, becoming an international symbol and featuring prominently in mnemonic representations of the 20th century. From the rudimentary facilities and the colourful little flags flapping in the vast, empty spaces of the early 1990s, to the recent carefully constructed trails and official monuments, the Wall demonstrates that memory should not be conceived exclusively as binding us in some deep sense to past times but as mode of re–presentation and as belonging ever more to the present.
NIKOS PANAYOTOPOULOS
Born in Athens, 1945. He studied photography in London (BA, Polytechnic of Central London 1974-77). He is a Doctor of Philosophy in Arts and Humanities (University of Derby, 2000-08). As an Advisor to the Minister of Culture, he has co-ordinated the institutional formation and reforms on photography in Greece (1994-2004). He wrote extensively on photographic theory and criticism and organized several photographic research projects, seminars, workshops, events & exhibitions. He has also been co-organizer and participant in several conferences. His photographic work has been exhibited and published in Greece and abroad. He joined the Photography Department of the Technological Educational Institution of Athens in 1986 from which he retired as a Professor of Art Photography in 2012. The last years he is affiliated with the Department of Visual and Applied Arts, University of Western Macedonia.
Penelope Petsini
Studied Photography in Athens and UK (University of London, Goldsmiths College –MA in Image and Communication; University of Derby –Phd) sponsored by the State Scholarship Foundation (I.K.Y.). She is a Doctor of Philosophy in Arts and Humanities, specialized in photography. Her research interests, both in terms of theory and practice, focus on photography and its relation to personal and collective memory, history and politics. She has exhibited and published extensively both in Greece and internationally. She has had affiliated appointments as lecturer of photography theory since 2004 (Department of Photography & Audiovisual Arts, TEI of Athens; School of Architecture, University of Patras). She’s currently the course leader of the Photography course of Life-Long Education Program, Department of Visual and Applied Arts, University of Western Macedonia.