📚📚Οn the occasion of the publication of her latest book "Synthetic Hormone" (Κastaniotis, 2025), lawyer, writer and a founding member of the the network of Greek women writers against gender-based violence "Her Voice", Katerina Papantoniou, spoke to Reading Greece about the way the book renegotiates the politics of embodied experience, lived gender-based violence, and trauma, and, by extension, the politics of female desire and memory, as well as, more generally, about the political potential of gender in literature.
"Women’s writing overturns the certainties of the patriarchal world and challenges the authoritarian, anti-democratic, fascist movements that are rising globally, abolishing public goods, fundamental rights, identity and gender policies, even withdrawing “disturbing” books."
Katerina I. Papantoniou was born in Athens, where she lives and works as a lawyer. She studied at the Law School of the Democritus University of Thrace and at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Since 2010, her short stories have been published in newspapers and magazines. She is the...
BOOKMORPHS: Artists’ Books from Greece & the UK, is an interactive exhibition held at The Hellenic Centre in London bringing together a diverse selection of artists’ books by 44 visual artists from Greece and the UK. In an era defined by digital immediacy and dematerialized culture, BOOKMORPHS reasserts the physical, conceptual, and performative dimensions of the book as an artistic medium.
BOOKMORPHS: Artists’ Books from Greece & the UK, is an interactive exhibition held at the Hellenic Centre in London that brings together a diverse selection of artists’ books, book works, book-art objects, ephemera, and journals by 44 visual artists, curators, publishers, and theorists from Gree...
🏛The Parthenon, free of scaffolding for the first time in decades
The scaffolding, installed along the west side of the 5th-century BC temple for conservation work some 20 years ago, has been removed, allowing an unobstructed view of Athens’ famous landmark.
As Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni pointed out, we have not had the opportunity to see the Parthenon "free" of scaffolding for at least two generations, since these structures were erected on the west side twenty years ago. In fact, as she said, we haven’t truly seen the Parthenon completely "clear", as it is today, for at least 200 years. "It is an amazing sight, because we are used to seeing the Parthenon surrounded by scaffolding, and it is wonderful that passers-by, Greeks and visitors alike, can enjoy this view from many different corners of the city".
As the Minister added, this a view that we will not be able to enjoy for much longer than a month, because unfortunatelly scaffolding is necessary, as work will have to continue on the west side; however, as she explained, the new scaffolding that will be installed is lighter and more aesthetically compatible with the monument. More importantly, it will only remain in place until the summer of 2026, at the latest, eventually leaving the Parthenon completely "free" of scaffolding, at last.
"People who climb the Sacred Rock say that it is like seeing a completely different monument. There is great enthusiasm, which moves and pleases us very much", added Mendoni.