Tracing Katraki’s Legacy in the Waters of Aitoliko - Reflections on Art, Community, and Environment

Vanishing Landscapes is a two-year research project culminating in a four-day-on-site gathering (6-9.3.2025) at the fragile lagoon of the Aitoliko (Etoliko). Its starting point and inspiration is the work of the late artist Vasso Katraki, whose early paintings and prints pay attention to the lagoon and the communities who lived from and worked around it—fishing, surviving, hand to mouth (Cover Photo: Airview of Aitoliko, Source: C messier, commons.wikimedia.org).

According to the organizers, “by using the Centre of Engraving Arts – Vasso Katraki Museum in Aitoliko as a springboard, we will explore how an arts institution rooted in land and community can create meaning for the future: from looking back at Katraki’s prints and connecting them to the surrounding environment, to listening to and learning from the human and more-than-human communities that have evolved with the waters, to reflecting on the transforming landscape, so that we can find tools to live together and adapt to our radically changing world”.

Vanishing Landscapes, Visuals Angelina Stavela

Vanishing Landscapes is an invitation to experience the fragile ecosystem of Aitoliko. Its overlapping micro-geographies—the Acheloos and Evinos rivers, mingling salt and fresh waters, neighbouring alluvial forests and salt basins—constitute an ecosystem with a vibrant, multilayered biodiversity, making it a key pit stop for migratory birds. The local geography has held sway over the human imagination for centuries, from ancient myths to epic tales and the national fervour surrounding Greece’s independence from Ottoman rule.

Vanishing Landscapes, Campus Novel in their screening lecture performance “A place like you and me: Composing stories for transregional liminality”, challenge organised order, value judgments, and dominant narratives related to living beings and the environment (left), Yiannis Papadopoulos’ three-day research-based workshop “People descended from Trees and Deer” explores the unique natural characteristics of the Aitoliko area, with a focus on producing materials using printmaking practices (right)

As part of the Vanishing Landscapes project, the organizers have invited a diverse group of contributors—Nuno da Luz, Yiannis Papadopoulos, Campus Novel, Cinema Fulgor (Portugal), Dulcinea Compania, and hiboux ARCHITECTURE—to create a series of site-specific contributions that explore the region’s delicate ecosystem and its cultural contexts. These contributions will take various forms, including a sound walk, a three-day workshop for fine arts students, and a film programme that encourages reflection on rural cinema and the ways in which we can come together around film far from urban centres. This multi-format programme invites both local and visiting participants to explore the fragile yet resilient landscape of Aitoliko, through collective experiences that blend art, ecology, and community.

Vanishing Landscapes is part of the Transformative Territories: performing transition through the arts European cooperation programme, which aims to redefine the significance of arts and transformative practices within our societies. Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, it is supported by the National Bank of Greece, Municipality of Sacred Town Messolonghi, Heinrich-Böll Stiftung Thessaloniki and Institut Français de Grèce.

Messolonghi – Aitoliko Lagoon House (Source: D. Eleftheriadis, commons.wikimedia.org)

Messolonghi – Aitoliko Lagoon Boat (Source: D. Eleftheriadis, commons.wikimedia.org)

Aitoliko, often referred to as the “Little Venice of Greece,” is a town in Aitoloakarnania, Western Greece, located about ten kilometers northwest of the historic Sacred Town of Messolonghi. It is built on a small island in the middle of the Aitoliko-Messolonghi lagoon and is connected to the mainland on both the east and west by two stone arched bridges, each approximately 300 meters long. Historically, the town was known as “Anatolikon” before and during the Greek Revolution of 1821. The first recorded mention was made by the Spanish-Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela in 1153 AD, who referred to it as “Natolikon”, likely a variation of “Anatolikon” (Eastern), because it was the easternmost lagoon islet of the Echinades Islands or possibly due to its location to the east of the Acheloos River.

Aitoliko Lagoon – Flamenco birds (Source: (Source: T. Lachanas, commons.wikimedia.org)

The Messolonghi-Etoliko lagoon is the largest in Greece and one of the largest in the Mediterranean. Because of the geomorphology of the area that has been changed after human intervention in the period of 1960-1995, nowadays the area consists of a system of six separate lagoons that present different natural characteristics. They extend over 15.000 ha while the broader area of the biotope includes coastal ecosystems, swamps, salterns and reclaimed areas which are now used for cultivation. The lagoon is formed between the estuaries of Acheloos and Evinos, is classified as Environmental Park and is protected by the Ramsar Treaty (Source: visitgreece.gr).

Vasso Katraki working at her studio, (Source: etoliko.gr) (left), The debt of Antigone, Stonecut, 103×103 cm (Source: Vasso Katraki Museum – Printmaking Art Centre)

Vasso Katraki (Leonardou) (1914 – 1988) was a major figure in Modern Greek art and printmaking. Born in 1914 in Aitoliko, she studied painting with K. Parthenis and printmaking with Y. Kefallinos at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1936-1940). She was among the students of Kefallinos who created the famous War posters in 1940-41. Soon after, she became involved in the Greek Resistance, illustrating many illegal printed materials of the era with her woodcuts. In 1949, she co-founded the art group Stathmi. Her first solo exhibition (Athens, 1955) marked a decisive shift in her technique, cutting her works directly into stone rather than wood. The development and perfection of this entirely personal technique became an integral part of her printmaking practice.

Her art covers a wide range of subjects, from everyday scenes to mythological allegories, reflecting her social awareness and deeply humanitarian inclinations. Her aesthetics are strongly rooted in Greek tradition, yet she ventured into daring abstract schematizations, which over time grew increasingly intense through the contrast of black and white. During her exile to Yaros island (under the dictatorship of 1967), she expressed herself by painting pebbles with blank ink. Her most mature works, dated after 1970, are large prints featuring clean-cut, monumental forms that she carved into sandstone and printed on white paper.

Vasso Katraki, Inquisition, Stonecut, 100×115 cm (Source: Vasso Katraki Museum – Printmaking Art Centre) (left), Waiting I, 1971, Stonecut (sandstone), 106×76 cm, (Source: Athens National Gallery), (right)

Katraki presented her work in over 20 solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad and participated in group exhibitions and international art fairs, such as the Ljubljana Biennial (1956, 1977), the Tokyo Biennale (1960, 1970), the São Paulo Biennale (1957), and the Venice Biennale (1966), where she was honored with the International Lithography Award, ‘Tamarind’. In 1958, she won 1^st prize in printmaking at the Alexandria Biennale and the Lugano Biennale (Premium ex æquo). In 1965, she became an honorary member of L’Accademia Fiorentina delle Arti del Disegno, and in 1976, she received 1^st prize at the International Exhibition Intergrafik (East Berlin). In 1980, she presented a retrospective exhibition at the Athens National Art Gallery. After her death in 1988, numerous honorary retrospective exhibitions and tributes have been organized in her honor.

(Source: Contemporary Greek Art Institute)

Vasso Katraki Museum – Printmaking Art Centre in Aitoliko

In 1995, the Vasso Katraki Museum – Printmaking Art Centre was established in Aitoliko and opened in 2006, featuring a permanent exhibition of her complete body of work. The engraver bequeathed all of her works to her hometown, which are now permanently housed in one of the museum’s halls. The museum’s second large hall occasionally hosts other exhibitions and events. Additionally, the basement of the museum has been designed to eventually function as a School of Engraving.