With an impressive exhibition entitled “Hymn To Freedom” organized by the public benefit Cultural Organization “Exodos”, the 2023 exit celebrations in Messolonghi begin this year.

The opening of the exhibition will take place on Saturday, March 25, 2023 at 7.30 in the afternoon in the premises of the Historical Museum of “Exodo”, while in the same place, the mayor of the Holy City Costas Lyros will declare the opening of the 15-day artistic and spiritual events for the 197th anniversary of the exit of the garrison of the free besieged.

The exhibition is a collective visual “reading” of the hymn to freedom of Dionysios Solomos.

The exhibition was curated by the art historian Iris Kritikou, who invited distinguished Greek artists to meet the hymn from the beginning and choose one or more stanzas and “create” works of art inspired by the content of each stanza.

This rare and extremely difficult project of the curator, implemented as a valuable synergy by artists coming from many different places in Greece, sends at the same time the message of collective work, communication and “together”.

The original works of the exhibition have been implemented with different techniques and materials, but they all retain the dimension of the correct A4, so that the viewer can close up to surround them in the way of open pages of a book, Small though the Demas but extremely large in symbolism effect.

Along with the visual works, “Exodos” curated the video recording of 158 Mesolongians and friends residing in various parts of Greece and the world, and honourably the mayor of Zakynthos, who recited a stanza of the National Anthem that will be heard in the exhibition.

The poem “hymn to freedom” was composed by Dionysios Solomos in May 1823 in Zakynthos and published in Missolonghi in 1825.

It consists of 158 quatrains of which the first two stanzas were established in 1865 as the National Anthem that are performed and accompanied by the raising and lowering of the flag, while they are chanted at solemn moments and ceremonies.

The exhibition will run until April 30, 2023 and its operation will be daily (except Monday and Tuesday), 11 p.m. until 1.30 noon and 7.30 m.m.  to 9.30 m.m., with free entrance, while for organized groups of visitors or for educational guided tours of schools the exhibition will be open daily and outside hours after telephone communication with the secretariat of the museum.