SOUTH BY SOUTHEAST Re-orienting the collection

'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.