welcome // the festival // program // the emperor's nightingale // 10 stops around china // concerts // blooming of time // workshops
// afternoon zone // exhibitions // audiovisual material // organizing team // sponsors
“I am not coming to understand... I am coming to saturate my five senses. I am not a sociologist -thank God!- or a philosopher or a tourist... China for me is a new meadow where my five senses can graze.”
These are the words told by Nikos Kazantzakis to his friend Liang-Ke on his first trip to China in 1935. All five of the great traveller's senses filled with the spiritual food that the vast country of the East had generously offered. And this food turned into spirit and flowed through his magic pen on paper, so that the sense of magic that had seized him as he lived in the daily life of the Chinese, would stay with us to eternity. That was the experience of a life inextricably knotted to philosophy, culture and traditions of a great people who, at the time of Nikos Kazantzakis' first visit, sought a new road in troubled and difficult times.
This year, Nikos Kazantzakis Museum travels to China, remaining faithful to its objective to transfer the great Cretan's travelling experiences and the images that he conveys in his travel books to the present day, but also to link the culture of the countries he visited with the current reality. Inspired by the book Japan-China, the festival will be dedicated to the country of philosophy, silk and the Great Wall, which Nikos Kazantzakis visited twice. The venture is difficult in difficult times. However, the Museum once more dares to overcome the difficulties, faithful to the principles of the great writer, whose spirit is preserved and imparted to the citizens of the whole world. "Reach what you cannot", Nikos Kazantzakis was saying, and we try to reach far places, hoping that at least our effort would be welcomed by him.
"Travelling... China" festival is organised this year in Heraklion and Myrtia, with entirely original cultural events, aiming to reach out to ever wider audience that is expecting something new from the part of the Museum. This year we are hoping that our collaboration with important artists coming from China to communicate the joy of creation, as they feel it and transform it into art, but also with the China Cultural Centre of Athens, as well as the connection between Greek artists and their Chinese colleagues, will be able to give the festival a particular tone. It is up to you whether the new form of the festival will meet your expectations.
And we would like to believe that the journey will continue...
Michael Taroudakis
President of the Board
