“Welcome to the Mediterranean, welcome to the Aegean Sea, ‘the sea next to us’, our sea, as Plato called it. I understand it is an ‘oxymoron’ to say that while being in the heart of Brussels, the heart of Europe, but, believe me, that’s how I feel. And I am sure you will feel the same when you start wandering around this exhibition which welcomes us today at the hospitable Bozar Museum.”

With those words the Greek Minister of Culture and Sports, Panos Panagiotopoulos welcomed last Thursday at the city centre of the Belgian capital the Belgian and Greek people who crowded the museum to be present at the opening of the exhibition “Nautilus: Navigating Greece”.

The exhibition was organized in a few months time by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, in the framework of the Greek Presidency of the European Union, but already made an impression in Brussels, both for the inventive way with which the space of the museum is used, but most of all for the highly imaginative and daring way with which it combines more than 90 precious Greek ancient objects selected from 29 public Greek museums and a private one, with 24 paintings of important Greek contemporary artists.

“The exhibits,” Mr. Panagiotopoulos pointed out, “are objects of art with an open horizon, an open mind, overflowing with the joy of life, the boldness of exploration and the quest of new knowledge.

The sea is a thing unique and permanent for us, Greeks. Travels with us, co-exists with us, with our roots, since our primitive origin. The sea is a central point in all different adventurous phases of Greek History, in each historic era. For us the sea is a material of the Greek substance and its universal view.”

Earlier, on Thursday morning (23.01.2014), a big number of Belgian reporters from print and electronic media went to Bozar Museum for the press conference of the exhibition.

The exhibition “Nautilus: Navigating Greece” will remain to Brussels until 24 April 2014.