By Venia Pastaka

Art Historian

Inspired by Yannis Pappas’s 1971 painting ”The Three Fates” and marking the launch of a memorandum of cooperation between the Athens School of Fine Arts and the Benaki Museum, 78 students from all the workshops of the Athens School of Fine Arts as well as the Higher School of Fine Arts and Marble Craft of Panormos, Tinos, draw inspiration from and create works based on the theme of the ancient myth.

The exhibition, which opens on May 6 and runs through July 26, takes place in the outdoor and indoor spaces of the studio of the renowned sculptor Yannis Pappas, who served as a professor and dean of the Athens School of Fine Arts. The curators of the exhibition, Theodoros Bargiotas, assistant professor at the University of Athens in the Department of Digital Arts and Cinema, and Giorgos Alexandridis, assistant professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts, have created an environment in which the viewer engages with the work of emerging artists as well as the work of Yannis Pappas himself, which serves as a starting point and point of reference for contemporary visual storytelling.

At the same time, the exhibition serves as a meaningful revitalization of the studio space itself, which is treated not merely as a museum but as a living arena of artistic production. Papas’s sculpture studio, with traces of the creative process still present, is revitalized through the presence of young artists. As a space that has been and continues to be a magnet for artists, it is transformed into a meeting place for exchange and experimentation.

Thus, the past does not remain static, but permeates the present, creating a dynamic environment in which artistic practice continues and evolves. Through this process, the exhibition not only reimagines the myth of fate but also the very function of the art space, redefining it as a place of lively dialogue between education, memory, and contemporary creation.