Images and music of Asia Minor refugees

Commemorating the 101st anniversary of the Asia Minor Disaster, the exhibition Siko Psichi Mou!…Images and Music of Refugees of ’22, of the Foundation of the Hellenic Parliament for Parliamentaryism and Democracy, at the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation traces the role and importance of music and song as identity and collective memory. The exhibition will be opened by President Nikos Christodoulides on October 2.

The main axes of the exhibition are life before 1922 in Smyrna, Ionia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Constantinople and Propontis, Eastern and Northern Thrace. Life and music-making are highlighted, as well as how generations sang of upheaval and displacement. All of that is connected to the main focus of the exhibition – music and song – and seeks to answer questions such as: What is the role of music in the individual and collective identity of refugees? How are the memories of the Disaster recorded in the songs of the refugees? In what way do memories reach today and how are they perceived in the national life and musical creation of the descendants?

Photographic, audio-visual and archival documents as well as a number of documents contributed by local associations, organisations and individuals, converse in the exhibition with verses and various melodies: obituaries, traditional songs and dances, Asia Minor rembetika and the newest Greek music.

The exhibition will run until June 2024 and will be open every day at the Cultural Foundation of the Bank of Cyprus in the old town of Nicosia. Alongside the exhibition, there will be numerous parallel events such as musical performances, which will highlight the musical journeys of refugees, experiential educational programmes, lectures, a conference and other specially designed activities based on the multi-sensory museum programme Senses of the Foundation for the Disabled groups.

Siko Psichi Mou!…Images and Music of Refugees of ’22

Exhibition commemorating the 101-year anniversary of the Asia Minor Disaster. October 2-June 2024. Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, Nicosia. Opening night: 7pm. Daily: 10am-7pm. Tel: 22-128157. www.boccf.org