"I was born the year the Turks invaded Cyprus. It was all black back then. I grew up in my father's grocery store on Imvros, among spices, dried red peppers and okras threaded on small ropes. I kept my Greek nationality". Musician Stelios Berberis came to Greece in order to study economics and learn traditional music under Domna Samiou. When he finished his studies he came back to Constantinople.
"As a young man I worked at a traditional woodcarving laboratory in Athens with a good salary of 20,000 drachmas per week, but I stayed there less than a year, because they didn't care much about the details. I got a job at another lab for 6,000 per week, where they didn't like mindless working. I preferred earning less money and learning more about the job. Today's young people make something and want to immediately make money out of it; they don't care about learning by other people's experience".
"The houses here are in competition about which one of them has the most beautiful paintings on its frontage. We make them by scratching the wall, that's why we call them scratches. There are special plasterers who do this job and there is some kind of rivalry among them. They don't all have the same talent, but they do share love for their craft".
"Some time ago I was introduced to a 70year-old woman. When she held my hand she said: What is this ring that you're wearing? I like it very much. Would you wear a ring like that? I asked her. Definitely yes, she answered. Old women usually wear brilliants and golden jewels, but she had a strong personality and was attracted by the titanium ring".
"The priest in my village, Plikati of Ioannina, used to paint icons. I made a Virgin Mary with his help, which I later showed to my hagiography teacher Nikos Stratoulis, in Athens. When he saw it he asked me: What do you want to be, a painter or a hagiographer? I was confused; I didn't know what to answer. What if he didn’t like my answer and told me to take a hike? I told him that I wanted to become a hagiographer in order to please him. He looked at me with a satisfied look and told me: Come again on Monday and wear some old trousers, so you don’t get dirty on the scaffold. Who knows where I would be now, if I had told him I want to be a painter".
"I asked which the most southern place in Europe is and they told me about south Crete. I was looking for a nice place to live, where it would be warm and sunny all year. I was dreaming of a home away from the city, which would be near a natural spring and surrounded by trees. The first house I found had no electricity, only a fireplace in the corner. I had to light a fire every morning in order to make a coffee, but later I bought a camping gaz from the village's store".
“I began taking pictures of the island in 1987. Back then I was living in Athens and I wanted to prove to everyone I knew that Lemnos is a very beautiful island and that it was unfairly described as a barren land inhabited only by soldiers”.
Director Dimos Avdeliodis, creator of unique movies about life in the mastic villages of Chios, amongst which “The tree we used to hurt” is a sensitive and modest artist. He believes that the beauty of his homeland is not only hidden in images and photographs, but in the relationship between people and nature as well.
“I’ve been photographing people visiting the island for 44 years. Back in the old days no more than 10 tourists per day came from Rhodes to Symi. The last couple of years, however, thousands of them come to visit. They stay for an hour and they leave again by boat. I hurry up to have them photographed as soon as they reach the harbour and instantly print the photos. I place the photos on benches for them to see as they leave and buy them as souvenirs. I also get some help from my son Michalis, who is a photography school graduate. Since he was 8, he has been hanging pictures on tenters with me”.
