Kostis Velonis | Malvina Panagiotidi
SOUTH BY SOUTHEAST

South by Southeast marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of EMΣT’s collection and its orientation. Drawing on recent acquisitions, donations, as well as existing works in the collection and donations, the exhibition foregrounds a new collection policy, begun in 2021, that looks beyond inherited Western canons and repositions Greece within a wider Mediterranean and south-eastern European cultural geography—one that extends through the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa. In doing so, it reframes Greece not as the periphery of Western Europe, but as a central node in South East Europe and the Middle or ‘Near’ East, a historically entangled region shaped by mobility, exchange, conflict, multilingualism, and layered identities. The exhibition includes 50 artists from more than 20 countries.

The exhibition’s title is a deliberate play on Alfred Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest, signaling a symbolic reorientation away from the long-standing fixation on Anglo-Saxon and Western European cultural paradigms that has marked Greek modernity since independence. Instead, South by Southeast insists on a more complex, plural cartography—one that acknowledges Greece’s strategic geographical location at the crossroads of continents, empires, and belief systems, and its deep historical affinities with the region once known as the Levant. This shift resonates with broader cultural and geopolitical currents, including what has been described recently as a contemporary “turn East” in Greece, reflecting renewed political, economic, and cultural engagements with neighbouring regions.

Every museum collection is, by its nature, incomplete—marked by gaps, absences, and questions that cannot all be answered. In today’s vast and interconnected art world, it is impossible to collect everything. Depth, focus, and coherence become essential: a collection must concentrate in order to illuminate, to make connections meaningful, and to tell stories that resonate within the space it is situated in as well as beyond. Our focus on the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle and Near East, and the Balkans reflects Greece’s unique position at the crossroads of these regions, shaped by historical ties, cultural affinities, diasporic identities and shared experiences. The best collections are not those that encompass everything, but those that hold together, that speak with clarity and purpose. This is our story of South by Southeast —a narrative of connection, exchange, and the rich, entangled histories of our region.