Art Exhibition “The Land of the Lokrians”

The Atalanti of reality and the Atalanti of Art!

Visual artist Konstantina Karli, at the Opountian Atalanti Cultural Center, until August 10th, “narrates” with her brushes and her engraving perspective, revealing to us another Atalanti—one that is not simply inhabited, but breathes and dreams. She stands with the reverent gaze of a stranger, a passerby among ancient stones, places, names, and centuries-old olive trees that remember and recount, with light flowing from within outward. She sees Atalanti not as a location, but as a state of suspension, a mirage. In the pauses and breaths of Time, the Locrians travel from the Earth into a sleep that is both memory and dream. Shadows unfold and pass through—faces from yesterday, familiar ones—gathered “at Asimo’s wedding,” not to be seen, but to remind. And beside her, her mountain does not rise but bends under the weight of its quiet acquiescence and silence, making its way to the sea—to tell her story… Through Konstantina Karli’s brush, Atalanti stretches into the depths of History. A place and at the same time a symbol, it does not declare—it whispers, with voiceless lips, the verdant song of historical continuity, hiding its tears in a black handkerchief.

Those of you who choose to cross the threshold of the Cultural Center—the spiritual child of a Lokrian native, Dimitris Charalambous, who succeeded abroad and now returns to offer what he believes he owes to his homeland—will feel that the works of Konstantina Karli gaze at you with the tactile memory of a long-forgotten vesper. And if the eyes of your soul remain open, you will witness not merely a past that remembers, but a present building bridges toward a future that resists flattening and erasure.

By Panos Niavis