Androulla VASSILIOU, EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Mulilingualism and Youth opens in the presence of several MEPs the exhibition 'Faces of Cyprus', the lifelong work of the Chypriote photographer Doros PARTASIDES, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

statement

exhibition

VASSILIOU, Androula (CY, EC)

Faces of Cyprus: extracts from the opening of the exhibition by Androulla VASSILIOU, EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Mulilingualism and Youth

SOUNDBITE (English), Androula VASSILIOU, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, If I knew that art expands the individual need of expression of the artist, although I appreciate that need without we would not have any artistic outcome. I would rather think of art as the means for every modern society to progress and for every person to search and grasp deeper philosophical routes of life.

SOUNDBITE (English), Androula VASSILIOU, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Art invites and at the same time challenges the need for change and reform in society while activating imagination and up grading it to an important mental human activity. This exhibition which I have the pleasure of opening this evening is the result of an excellent work of a Cypriot artist of photography who by this particular collection, not only has a lot to offer at personal and society level, but it aims to touch another dimension that of finding the lost soul of a whole generation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Androula VASSILIOU, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, The faces of Cyprus is an exhibition of a life time, the photographer captures with his lens of his camera the various faces of Cyprus from his childhood until today. His models are people of the street, ordinary people who hide in their face expression the agony of a whole society.

SOUNDBITE (English), Doros PARTASIDES, photographer, This project started some years ago with a simple idea: to show off the real people of Cyprus. I wanted to express the elements of daily life and the special characteristics which help make Cypriots Cypriot.