Complaint by the former president of the Cultural Center of Patras: “Tragic transfer – Rare folk art exhibits are at risk” – 2024-04-07 22:16:00

Under unacceptable conditions, without even protocol and qualified personnel, the Municipality of Patreon is carrying out the transfer of the exhibits of the Folk Art Museum from the halls of the Old Municipal Hospital, where it was housed until today. While at the same time it turns out that the Museum had been “locked” for a year!

The lens of the “Peloponnisos” newspaper, despite the entry ban, entered the space and conveys images that insult the cultural history of the city and demonstrate the miserable conditions under which the Museum’s rare material is kept and transported: The cart, which is cultural monument, it is covered in dust, loaded with… garbage, while one of its wheels is broken and stuck with… paper tape!

“TRAGIC CONDITIONS OF TRANSPORTATION”

THE Giorgos Panagiotopoulos, former president of the Cultural Center of Patras, who owned the Museum, speaking to “P” he complains regarding “tragic transport conditions, without a receipt and delivery protocol, without proper people who are knowledgeable regarding the subject matter and without respect for archival material.”

In fact, Mr. Panagiotopoulos sounds the alarm:

«Rare exhibits related to the Folk Art and History of our City are at risk of being destroyed. And most importantly, he doesn’t know what his future fate will be.”

As he explains in “P”: “The Museum has been under-functioning for the past few years, until last year it was completely closed.
And as a highlight of its discredit by the Municipality of Patreon is the way it was transferred from the old Municipal Hospital due to its renovation.

Loaded with garbage and choked with dust, the historic cart of the Folk Art Museum

The Folk Art Museum of Patras must to continue its operation, because it is an educational-tourist area for students, citizens and visitors of our city” emphasizes Mr. Panagiotopoulos and adds:

«The Municipality has a legal and moral obligation to the hundreds of members of the Cultural Center of Patras, who during regarding 40 years collected and maintained the exhibits of the Museum.

As and to the many donors who entrusted the Museum with their collections and memorabilia. A place suitable for the housing and operation of the Folk Art Museum of Patras must be found immediately.”

However, according to the information he received from the responsible deputy mayor Apostolos Aggelis, a part of the exhibits will be transferred to a hall of the Technical High School and another, to a hall in Veso Mare.

THEY ABOLISHED THE MUSEUM COMMISSION

The Conservator of Works of Art, museologist and writer, Xenophon Papaefthimioureveals to “P”, that the Cultural Organization under the tenure of Katerina Geropanagiotis, nouns abolished the Folk Art Museum Committee of Patras, of which he himself was a member: “Despite our persistent efforts, the Committee was never convened to consider Museum matters.”

At the same time he notes that following the corona virus period, the Museum was under-functioning in the halls of the Old Municipal Hospital, while it stopped working a year ago!

Broken and taped together, the cart wheel!

In fact, he points out that it is among the rare exhibits the printing house of Theodoros Koukouraswhich is of great historical value: “THE anguish it’s us whether the exhibits will be transported and stored properly and what happens next. Will they be reused and in what area or will they be thrown away in a warehouse? What is required is that it be used as a single wing of the City Museum, whose operation has been proposed by the Society of Achaean Studies, in order to highlight the newest culture of Patras”.

HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM

We remind, that the Folk Art Museum of Patras was founded in 1977 by the Cultural Center of Patras and housed in a neoclassical building in the center of the city. In December 1983, it acquires a new home in the Skagiopoulio Youth Garden, in a building granted to it with a utility loan, by the Skagiopoulio Foundation.

The museum objects – collection of the Folk Art Museum – they capture the mode of production of pre-industrial society, with references to rural life, rural activities and urban traditional occupations.

It is introduced material from traditional workshops: Weaving, Printing, Sawmill, Waxworks, Shoemaker.

The exhibition material, the Library and the photographic archive of the Folk Art Museum they preserve our cultural heritage and are a center of education and creation.

The Cultural Center of Patras granted its museum collection to the Municipality of Patras and since June 2013, when it was inaugurated, it was housed in the Hansen rooms of the Old Municipal Hospital of Patras, receiving a large number of visitors, mainly from schools through educational tours and workshops.

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