The Victoria Karelias Collection of Traditional Greek Costumes welcomes, on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, a unique exhibition entitled “ From Avgi to Myrtis and from Myrtis to the present: the clothes narrate”. Two famous ancient females, Avgi, a Mesolithic woman of 7.000 B.C. from Trikala of Kalabaka, Thessaly, and Myrtis, a young girl of 430 B.C. from Athens, Attica, meet for the first time in the Collection’s premises, featuring 9.000 years in the history of clothing.
Avgi and Myrtis, whose garments were designed by the designers Yiannis Metzikof and Sofia Kokosalaki respectively, take their place amongst the costumes of the Collection, in an atempt to illuminate the gradual transformation of clothes from mere means of survival to a means of expressing mental processes and a carrier of complex social messages. Taken as two fixed points of reference in time, Avgi and Myrtis become the starting point of an interesting discussion about the primary role of clothing in prehistory and its evolution in historical times based on raw materials at hand, productive capabilities and social stratification within given living conditions.
At the same time, Avgi and Myrtis inspire a collective artistic commentary that accompanies the exhibition. Twenty-one contemporary Greek artists respond to the invitation for the creation of works of art inspired by the archeological findings of Avgi and Myrtis. These are Olga-Maria Aggelidou, Pashalis Aggelidis, Aggeliki Antonea, Stelios Gavalas, Kostis Georgiou, Mihalis Doulgeridis, Nikos Zivas, Andreas Kalakallas, Amalia Karkoulia, Takis Kozokos, Peni Manavi, Yiannis Metzikof, Alexandros Papakonstantinou, Giorgos Papasotiriou, Vasiliki Sarri, Stefanos Souvatzoglou, Konstantinos Spiriounis, Giorgos Stamatopoulos, Vaggelis Rinas, Nikos Fortomas and Sofia Fotiadou. Their works are a victory of the human struggle against time, a link between the past and the future and a bridge between the individual and  the collective experience.
The exhibition, which is under the auspices of the United Nations’ Regional Information Centre and the University of Peloponnese, will be on until January 26, 2025.