PCAI is happy to announce the participation of PCAI collection artists Leda Papaconstantinou and Navine G. Dossos in the exhibition South by Southeast at EMST.
This exhibition marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of EMΣT’s collection and its orientation. Drawing on recent acquisitions, donations, as well as existing works in the collection and donations, the exhibition foregrounds a new collection policy, begun in 2021, that looks beyond inherited Western canons and repositions Greece within a wider Mediterranean and south-eastern European cultural geography—one that extends through the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa. In doing so, it reframes Greece not as the periphery of Western Europe, but as a central node in South East Europe and the Middle or ‘Near’ East, a historically entangled region shaped by mobility, exchange, conflict, multilingualism, and layered identities. The exhibition includes 50 artists from more than 20 countries.
The exhibition’s title is a deliberate play on Alfred Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest, signaling a symbolic reorientation away from the long-standing fixation on Anglo-Saxon and Western European cultural paradigms that has marked Greek modernity since independence. Instead, South by Southeast insists on a more complex, plural cartography—one that acknowledges Greece’s strategic geographical location at the crossroads of continents, empires, and belief systems, and its deep historical affinities with the region once known as the Levant. This shift resonates with broader cultural and geopolitical currents, including what has been described recently as a contemporary “turn East” in Greece, reflecting renewed political, economic, and cultural engagements with neighbouring regions.
South by Southeast is not only a presentation of recent acquisitions; it is a proposition about how we might imagine the future of cultural institutions in a multipolar world. It invites viewers to reconsider where Greece stands—historically, geopolitically, and culturally—and to recognise the creative and critical potential that lies in embracing the country’s south-eastern orientation as a source of inspiration and renewed cosmopolitanism. The latter issue will be explored in a major group exhibition opening at the museum on December 10th this year.
ARTISTS
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Diana Al-Hadid, Monira Al Quadiri, Athanasios Argianas, Lynda Benglis, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Chryssa, Bia Davou, Navine G. Dossos, Eirene Efstathiou, Stelios Faitakis, Apostolos Georgiou, Ivan Grubanov, Artan Hajrullahu, Mona Hatoum, Giorgos Ioannou, Emily Jacir, Sven Johne, Konstantin Kakanias, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Bouchra Khalili, Panos Kokkinias, Jannis Kounellis, Nate Lowman, Rabih Mroué, Eleni Mylonas, Jennifer Nelson, Gabriel Orozco, George Osodi, Adrian Paci, Leda Papaconstantinou, Maria Papadimitriou, Malvina Panagiotidi, Rena Papaspyrou, Antonis Pittas, Walid Raad, Thomias Radin – Alexander Brack – Matthias Meisen, Michael Rakowitz, Serban Savu, Nedko Solakov, Sphinxes, Thomas Struth, Lina Theodorou, Costas Tsoclis, Vangjush Vellahu, Kostis Velonis, Vangelis Vlahos, Eirini Vourloumis, Akram Zaatari
Curated by Katerina Gregos
From 11 June 2026
Read more here.
Image Credit: Panos Kokkinias, “Arcadia”, 2011
Activity aligned with Goals 1, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
