Description

Edition print of 40 by Menelaos Karamaghiolis for ‘SECCMA Trade: Details of Love’, a project curated Kostas Stasinopoulos organized by SECCMA Trust, with all profits in support of Emantes – International Lgbtqia+ Solidarity.

Menelaos Karamaghiolis is a filmmaker who works in Athens producing feature films, documentaries, video art, radiomovies and video installations starring real-life neglected heroes and transcending frontiers and stereotypes to serve as an essential tool for dialogue and social change. His films have been screened globally and won many awards like the feature documentary ROM, 1989, that was considered “a turning point for Greek documentary films” and “a masterpiece that must become a classic of the history of cinema” and fiction films  BLACK OUT (p.s. RED OUT), 1998 considered as “the first post-modern Greek film” and J.A.C.E. – Just Another Confused Elephant, 2011, participated in 48 international festivals (including TIFF Toronto International Film Festival) and won 11 awards and the first greek interactive documentaries, MEETING WITH REMARKABLE PEOPLE (12 feature films, 180 short films). His video installations have been shown at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, the Venice Biennale, Rodeo and the Geneva Contemporary Art Center (mini retrospective) among others.

Emantes – International Lgbtqia+ Solidarity is a Social Cooperative Enterprise based in Athens, Greece, that was founded in July 2018 by experienced volunteers in the LGBTQIA+ refugee field as well as in feminist and/or queer groups. Some of the founding members were refugees/asylum seekers at the time. Emantes’ mission is twofold. On the one hand, they provide direct or indirect psychosocial support to LGBTQIA+ refugees/asylum seekers. On the other hand, they raise awareness on the issues the LGBTQIA+ refugee/migrant community faces, by highlighting the multiple repressions posed by its dual identity and its invisibility within the general refugee/migrant population. Emantes means “we” in kaliarda, the slang used by homosexuals in Greece during the 1940s, in order to safely communicate with one another. In modern Greek, “imantes” means straps, which to Emantes are a symbol of solidarity. Straps can lift or hold together very heavy objects. So, in a way, Emantes understand and envision solidarity through diversity and adversity, a connection with “others” in the most unlikely combinations.

SECCMA Trust is a creative venture of SERAPIS that aims to form an alliance supporting the growth and expansion of contemporary art locally and internationally.