An exhibition dedicated to the life and works of late Melina Mercouri will open on 18 January 2022 at the Technopolis cultural complex in Athens.

This exhibition is to mark the 100th anniversary of Melina Mercouri and has been organized by the Athens Municipality in collaboration with the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport, and the Melina Mercouri Foundation. The year 2020 had been designated by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport as Melina Mercouri's year but the pandemic in March of that year, curtailed the planned celebration. 

The award-winning actress, activist and former culture minister, was the first woman in the post. , Melina served as Greece’s culture minister during the years 1981-1989 and 1993-1994.

 Her passion for culture and political activism made her one of the most legendary advocates  for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. It was her presentation at the Mexico UNESCO meeting that also encouraged James and Eleni Cubitt to meet with her and go on to establish the BCRPM in October 1983.

The exhibition opening on Tuesday in Athens, is aptly entitled ‘Remember and love me’ and will showcase Melina’s life and work through three areas highlighting her career in film, theatre and politics. It will feature rich photo and audiovisual material as well as personal items – some exhibited for the first time.

Items will include 13 costumes from theatrical performances and films; 25 posters from her cinema career; 37 photos of Mercouri with international personalities such as Salvador Dali, Pope John Paul II, Queen Elizabeth, Indira Gandhi and Catherine Deneuve; original scripts with handwritten notes; six letters; her dressing room; and items she carried during her last trip to New York.

The exhibition will open its doors on Tuesday 18 January and run until Friday 11 March 2022.

Visiting days: Tuesday – Sunday and visiting hours: from 11am – 8pm. Admission is free.

BCRPM's first protest at the British Museum on 08 February 2020  honoured "". We thank BP or not BP? once again for their support over the years and including us in this protest also. To read more on that protest, please follow the link here.  

Melina, the last Greek goddess

Melina Mercouri was an icon of her era. She was a woman of action, a woman of passion, and an influential figure in the fields of arts and politics.

When I first visited with my 11-years-old son the exhibition on Melina Mercouri ‘Remember me and love me’ (named after the song composed by Stavros Xarchakos for the film ‘Melina Mercouri’s Greece’, 1965) at the Technopolis of the Municipality of Athens (18^th January – 11^th March 2022), I had the strong feeling that Melina was staring at us…  Her beautiful eyes on the 25 film posters and the 37 photos from her theatrical performances and with famous personalities filled the exhibition hall. But it was not just her eyes; her voice too, singing with Manos Chatzidakis and Mikis Theodorakis (a recent loss), performing in theatre and acting in cinema, or speaking passionately against the Junta and for freedom and democracy, overwhelmed the place through two big video screens.  All these photos and sounds recalled my own childhood – with a bit of nostalgia, alas- in the ‘80s, when Melina was an active Minister of Culture.

Melina was certainly present in this exhibition in more than one way. Beautifully designed by Nikos Kaltsas (the new Director of the Cycladic Museum, and former Director of the National Archaeological Museum), with the co-operation of Manuella Pavlidou (on behalf of the Melina Mercouri Foundation), this exhibition, organized by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, in the heart of the historical centre of Athens marked the centenary since Melina’s birth (1920) and a celebration for Melina’s (she is Melina par excellence for us) legacy to Greek culture. The exhibition is presented in two main parts: arts and politics, interwoven with each other since Melina expressed her passion in both arts and politics. Thirteen costumes of her films and plays recall her international success as an actress (Top Kapi; Phaedra; The Streetcar named Desire; Sweet Bird of Youth etc.). As the Minister of Greek Culture (1981-1989, 1993-1994) she related her name with the campaign for the return and reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (the so-called 'Elgin Marbles’ until then). She was also responsible for the foundation of many Municipal and Regional Theatres (DI.PE.THE), the institution of the Cultural Capital of Europe (Athens being the first in 1985), the restoration project of the Acropolis monuments, the unification of the archaeological sites of Athens, and the introduction of school education in theatre and culture ‘so that a different society, a different mentality, and different politics are created’.

Some of her personal objects are also exhibited, including parts of her dressing room, her passport, other official documents, and press excerpts reporting her death on 6^th March 1994. My son was particularly touched by two specific exhibits: the folded Greek flag which covered her coffin and a copy of the red dress that she used to wear during her fiery anti-dictatorship speeches abroad which she had asked to be buried with. ‘Well, she chose to be remembered – and be buried- as a true Greek fighter, not as an actress!’ my son uttered.  This reminded me of the Aeschylus’ funerary epigram[1].

Melina’s legacy to younger generations may be to fight for one’s principles, for the common good, for culture and humanism. Melina’s campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens is still an open issue, which should be taught at school, not just as a matter of political debate, but also as an example of cultural diplomacy and as training in the concepts of democracy, freedom, and cultural heritage. Melina’s dream is still alive worldwide and it deserves to come true at last, so that she is reborn too.

Antiopi Argyriou-Casmeridis

[1] The epigram of Aeschylus’ gravestone at Gela, cited by ancient sources, while unlikely to be by Aeschylus himself was probably written soon after his death by a member of his family: Αἰσχύλον Εὐφορίωνος, Ἀθηναῖον τόδε κεῦθει/ μνῆμα καταφθίμενον πυροφόροιο Γέλας// ἀλκήν δ ́εὐδόκιμον, Μαραθώνιον ἄλσος ἄνεἴποι/ καί βαθυχαιτήεις Μῆδος ἐπιστάμενος (="Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian, who died in the wheat-bearing land of Gela; of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak, and the long-haired Persian knows it well"). Athenaeus 14.627c-d; Pausanias 1.14.5; Plutarch, Moralia604e-f). The inscription on his gravestone commemorates his military achievements against the Persians at Marathon, but makes no mention of his enormous theatrical renown. See Krikona, E., “The Memory of the Persian Wars through the Eyes of Aeschylus: Commemorating the Victory of the Power of Democracy”, Akropolis: Journal of Hellenic Studies 2 (2018): 85-104.

The Melina Mercouri ‘Remember me and love me’ exhibition closed on 11th of March. 

Antiopi Argyriou-Casmeridis has a Doctorate in Ancient History (PhD, Royal Holloway University of London) and is an alumna of the University of Cambridge (MPhil in Classics, Clare College), and a High School Teacher of Classics at Ralleio Girls' School of Piraeus.