ETHNOGRAPHIC CENTER
GIORGIS MELIKIS
MASKS RESEARCH CENTER
masks ritual melikis museum
The Ethnographic Center has a particular sensitivity and orientation towards the Balkans and the Black Sea. It deals with and presents important findings from three major and popular topics.
A. Anastenaria, where the natural space (konaki) is on the first floor of our Center. With special space for the konaki and the icons, we have put together a collection that is perhaps the largest inside and outside of Greece with more than 2,500 tamas of popular worship from Roman times to the present day.
B. The Thracian Kalogero, a significant event of popular worship which was first recorded in 1879 by Georgios Vizyinos. The entire action with its performing troupe and its magico-religious masks in an interactive development with projections and information as it still survives in Meliki by the local Thracians from the village of Kosti in Thrace.
C. Balkan Masks
In the complete national collection of Greek masks and considering the area of the Balkans and the Black Sea as a common place of performative magico-religious actions in recent years, we have put together a collection with corresponding Greek masks from events and ceremonies of the inhabitants of the Balkans. The common near-temporal performance of the folk events of the Twelve Days in the Christian world of the Balkans lends a pandemic celebratory atmosphere which may seemingly differ in its particularities, but the core remains the same. Research, record, interact and present.
The Giorgis Melikis Ethnographic Center - Mask Research Center has collaborated until today with exhibitions, announcements, synergies, installations with the Ministry of Culture (Archaeological Authority of Antiquities of Imathia, Halkidiki), National Bank Educational Foundation, Universities of AUT, Macedonia, Ioannina, Thessaly, Municipality of Thessaloniki, Salamina , Polygyrou, Kavala, Folklore and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia-Thrace, Thessaloniki Concert Hall, ART Thessaloniki, ERT, galleries etc.
He has organized exhibitions with works by Professors of the School of Fine Arts of AUTH, an exhibition with engraving works by Vassos Katrakis, an exhibition in memory of Christos Tsolakis, an exhibition with masks at the Byzantine Museum of Veria, an exhibition with masks at the archaeological museum of Polygyros, an exhibition with masks at the Folklore Museum and the Ethnological Museum of Macedonia, an exhibition of masks at the Salamis Town Hall, an installation on the theme of Kavafis, etc.