I commissioned US-born Crete-based artist Alexandra Manousakis to create a piece of art for my apartment in Athens based on her “aliens” series. She’s painted them on plates, mugs and vases, as well as on large pieces of canvas.
Her art is whimsical and playful but this series with the alien surrounded by Greek elements (the souvlaki, the sokofreta, the Cretan word “χαρώτο,” has provoked a lot of existential dialogue amongst a lot of us who have come and gone this summer.
Hyphenated Greeks who were born elsewhere— Canada, the USA, Australia… but all of us gravitating to Hania year after year.
There are some of us whose parents were born here and we spent our childhood summers here. There are others who have no ancestral connection but were attracted by the energy of the place.
Regardless of the background or lineage, we all feel like we belong in this place. To some (like me) it’s the family connection and the familiarity of the people, places and things I’ve experienced coming here year after year for most of my life.
While to others it’s a feeling of comfort that they feel with the new situations they are creating and the people they happen to meet here.
Eventually, it begins feeling like HOME.
Until that moment we feel like aliens. It could be something someone says… like being called an “Amerikanaki, or maybe something we experience that is so foreign and unfamiliar to us that we would never experience back home. Even though we feel like we belong here, we are immediately reminded that we’re aliens.
I remember growing up as a kid in Pittsburgh going to “American” school and interacting with “non-Greek” neighbors. Even though I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, I was often made to feel like a stranger– or an alien.
In the cafeteria my food that I brought from home was always different than the other kids. I remember trying to explain what “dolmades” were to kids at the table who insisted on calling them little cigars.
Even as a young adult, I was always “the Greek” to my American friends.
The question arises– and the reason why Alexandra’s art has provoked so much thought and discussion amongst those of us who understand it– Where is home? Where do we belong? Has this dual heritage of one foot in Greece and another in the United States given us both a blessing as well as a curse of never really belonging fully in one place?
