πύργος μπαζαίου

PHILOSOPHY

The Naxos Festival at Bazeos Tower, which began in the summer of 2001, was a bold and imaginative move to transform an exceptional 17th century landmark monument into a temple of learning and culture, fulfilling its original purpose in the present-day.
After extensive restoration work, accomplished through the exclusive use of private funds, the task of displaying the monument was assumed by the Cultural Not-for-Profit Organization AEON, in association with the Benaki Museum, as well as various institutes, universities and museums, both in Greece and abroad.

The ensuing years justified our ideas, which are finding fertile ground not only in the entire country, but primarily on Naxos, where we have been warmly received, and experience the community’s interest and expectations. And this constitutes our truest reward. Our proposals have been accepted.

Our philosophy may be summarised in three parts:

• Culture requires free expression, time, education and organization.
• Culture unavoidably encompasses tradition, yet it should always face forward with contemporary and bold proposals.
• Culture must be linked to all aspects of contemporary life, so long as it is high art, incorporates metaphor, and seeks to change, redirect and transform everything we find unbearable around us.

Our watchword: Contemporary, innovative and exemplary creations for contemporary, discerning and active citizens.

PURPOSE-AIM

• To display and maintain a landmark monument | The tower remains open due to the cultural activities, welcoming both the local community and the visitors to the island, in contrast to the other (around 40) towers of Naxos.
• To upgrade the social and cultural life of the island | The Festival programme gives the residents of Naxos the opportunity to become acquainted with notable representatives of the intellectual and art world and their creative output.
• To support cultural tourism | The institution of the Festival created a steady demanding audience, while strengthening cultural tourism in the island interior, with positive consequences on the local economy.
• To protect the broader natural environment | Many important Naxian monuments—the archaic temple of the goddess Demeter, the cave monastery of the Kaloritsa Virgin, and others—may be found within a range of a few kilometres from the tower. While continuing the effort to link the monuments with pathways, we also seek to protect the region and create a model of benign cultural and environmental development.

Our purpose is not to create yet another Festival but to organise a restless, flexible institution, open to the cultural issues and demands of our time. An institution whose identity is located in the creative interaction of the arts and their representatives, within the specific thematic axis selected for each occasion.

Within this framework we are developing partnerships with various Greek and foreign cultural vehicles, forging solid ties of communication, all of which are necessary to inscribe Naxos onto the contemporary cultural map.

HOW WE BEGAN

In a land where not only individuals but ideas travel from the moment of their birth, it would be difficult to consecrate the security of immovability. However, transporting objects requires another systematic, actual and theoretic support. I am of course, referring to museum items, which, exactly like people, and ideas, also need the freedom to take occasional recourse in flight. They need a change in climate, an escape from the impressions they absorb every day, a change of companions and interlocutors. Indeed, I believe that not only their physical, but their mental health as well, unequivocally requires regular summer holidays, the summer sun, the coolness of the sea, the camaraderie of the island. Especially in locations where both a friendly welcome and high quality standards are assured, the Bazeos Tower on Naxos, for instance, with the companionship of the people who animate and serve it.

Angelos Delivorrias
Professor, University of Athens
Director, Benaki Museum
July 2001

“Naxos, isle of the towers; the Bazeos Tower, its history. A monastery in the past; monks, seasonal changes, a pottery workshop, clay artists, soil cultivation, country folk, livestock-breeders with their animals, the people and their land.” As the recipient of the land and of its heritage, the legend of Venetian Rule in the Aegean, I wanted to seek its present-day equivalent, essentially making the most of tradition, rather than contemplating the past and reproducing it. I could not imagine a better beginning than the Benaki Museum exhibition and the cultural activities framing it. May we have a pleasant journey through space and time.

George-Marios Vazeos
Economist
Vice President of the Cultural Organization AEON
July 2001

In the beginning was the word and the word is space. And space becomes image, music, movement, contact, exchange. And exchange brings about nature, voices, sounds, verses, walls, stones, houses, bodies, human beings, children, games. It was as a game that the very idea of the Festival was born, it evolved as a game and, now, it is taking place as a game and will continue here with you. A game on a real stage, the stage of time, a game beginning this year with a tribute to Georgios Cheimonas.

Stelios Krassanakis
Psychiatrist-Drama Therapist-Director
Artistic Director, Naxos Festival
July 2001