Upcoming events
This section lists all events taking place at the Hellenic Centre. As a leading cultural organisation, we offer a dynamic programme showcasing the best of art and culture from Greece and Cyprus. Whether you're new to Greece or already an enthusiast you’ll find something to enjoy, be it music and dance performances, exhibitions, insightful lectures, or film screenings. In addition to our own programme, we host numerous events organised by our Member Societies, which represent various groups within the Greek diaspora in the UK.
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Exhibition
A Different Kind of Pop: Giorgos Ioannou’s Works 1960s – 1970s
At The Hellenic Centre between 08 Oct – 19 NovFree entry
Marking the centenary of the birth of Giorgos Ioannou (1926–2017) this exhibition is the first significant presentation of the artist’s work in the UK. Focusing on works produced between the late 1960s and 1970s – a period shaped by the Greek military dictatorship – these distinctive works explore the political undercurrents that emerged in Ioannou’s practice during that time. Although exceptionally prolific in Greece, Ioannou’s work remains relatively unknown in the UK. This exhibition introduces his striking paintings to a wider international audience, highlighting his passion for democracy and human rights.
More about this event
Member Societies' Events
Power Politics: Thucydides to Trump. The Exercise of Power Internationally through the Ages
at The Hellenic Centre on 22 Sep at 19:00
Free entry | Booking required via secretary@hellenicsociety.org.uk
What international, ethical or legal constraints have societies tried to place on raw power, and with what success? This event will explore these questions, drawing on our panel’s expertise in international relations, both ancient and modern.
Talk
Sofia Mitsola in Conversation with Alyce Mahon
at The Hellenic Centre on 01 Oct at 19:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
Join artist Sofia Mitsola and Alyce Mahon, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Cambridge, for a conversation spanning Mitsola’s art practice, ancient mythologies and the coquettish nature of her work. The conversation marks the launch of the monograph, Sofia Mitsola: Sisterly Affections, published by DCV. In collaboration with Pilar Corrias.
Exhibition
Revisiting: Fernweh, or Nostalgia for Unknown Lands
at The Hellenic Centre between 08 Oct – 07 Nov
Free entry
What does it mean to long for a land you have never known? Borrowing its title from the German word Fernweh – a longing for distant places – this exhibition gathers 15 international artists and 17 artworks from the Irene Y. Panagopoulos Collection, exploring Greece both as place and idea, where past and present meet through the act of looking.
Talk
In Conversation: Andrew Wilson with Dimitris Ioannou and Kostas Stasinopoulos
at The Hellenic Centre on 15 Oct at 09:30 Breakfast 10:00-11:00 Talk & Q&A
Free entry | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
Join us for a breakfast reception, followed by a conversation and Q&A discussing Giorgos Ioannou’s expansive artistic practice and methodology. The talk is led by independent critic, historian and curator Andrew Wilson, who invites Kostas Stasinopoulos, Director of Exhibitions and Programmes at KYKLOS, and Dimitris Ioannou, artist, the son of Giorgos Ioannou, to engage and reflect on Ioannou’s work.
Talk
In Conversation: Irene Y. Panagopoulos, Katerina Hadji & Dr. Nayia Yiakoumaki
at The Hellenic Centre on 16 Oct at 09:30 Breakfast 10:00-11:00 Talk & Q&A
Free entry | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
Join us for a breakfast reception, followed by a conversation hosted by the Director of the Hellenic Centre, Dr. Nayia Yiakoumaki, with Collector, Irene Y. Panagopoulos, and the curator of the show, Katerina Hadji, exploring the ideas behind the exhibition Revisiting: Fernweh, or Nostalgia for Unknown Lands: the longing for distant places, collecting as a way of understanding the world, and Greece as both place and idea. A Q&A session will follow.
Talk
Spinning Myths, Painting Shadows: Women and the Origins of Greek Art
at The Hellenic Centre on 22 Oct at 19:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
In the first of the lecture series, art historian Gelly Gryntaki discusses the role of women in mythology and ancient societies. She shines a light on the earliest female weavers and ancient female painters for whom evidence still exists, from Arachne and Penelope to Timarete and Anaxandra.
Talk
In Conversation: Christos Dikeakos and Emily Butler
at The Hellenic Centre on 29 Oct at 19:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
This talk offers a journey through five decades of Vancouver-based Christos Dikeakos’ artistic practice. In conversation with curator Emily Butler, Dikeakos reflects on key works that marked his career. His photographs foreground the multi-layered nature of reality and examine the interplay between image, language memory and place.
Talk
Mnemosyne Grove: Photography, Memory and Time | Georgia Metaxas in Conversation with Dr. Marta Weiss
at The Hellenic Centre on 05 Nov at 19:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
Combining her family archive and photographs produced in Ithaca and Palairos, Greek-Australian artist Georgia Metaxas’ publication Mnemosyne Grove (Perimeter Editions, 2024) traces connections between land, migration and storytelling. This conversation with Dr. Marta Weiss, Senior Curator of Photographs at the V&A, will explore the ongoing project’s themes and its new directions.
Talk
Greece’s Gender Divide: Femicide Through the Lens
at The Hellenic Centre on 19 Nov at 19:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
How do films and the media shape our understanding of violence against women and what does it distract us from? This all-female panel brings together former Judge Betty Iliadou, Dr. Tonia Kazakopoulou and Dr. Afroditi Koulaxi to examine how coverage of femicide, centered on victimanhood and emotional spectacle, can distract from political and legislative failures and even shape judicial verdicts.
Member Societies' Events
In the Greatest Role of Life. A Presentation of the Work of the Cypriot Actor, Writer and Journalist Vasilis Panayi
at The Hellenic Centre on 23 Nov at 19:00
Free entry | Booking required via 07960797435
or info@omilos-eksipiretiton.gr
Continuing on its unwavering path of promoting Greek culture through a multileveled spiritual work, Omilos Eksipiretiton presents the work of Vasilis Panayi, an accomplished Cypriot actor, writer and journalist, who lives and creates in London. Join us for this unique event!
Music
Piano Recital with Costas Fotopoulos
at The Hellenic Centre on 26 Nov at 19:00
£15/12 concession | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
Costas Fotopoulos takes us on a journey through some of the most beautiful and exciting music ever written for the piano, ranging from Baroque classics to exquisite Romantic works and culminating in a fiendish transcription of Stravinsky’s electrifying Firebird Suite.
Talk
Greek Tragedy Upside Down: Electra and Medea Through the Lenses of Contemporary Queer and Feminist Theory
at The Hellenic Centre on 28 Nov at 15:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
Join award winning director, choreographer, performer and dramatist Mayra Stergiou and multi-award-winning, published artist, writer and researcher Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh as they delve into how approaching tragedy through the queer and feminist lenses disrupts inherited hierarchies of gender, power, time, and authorship embedded within the classical canon.
Talk
The Uses of Oppression: Greek Newspapers in the Ottoman Empire 1830-62
at The Hellenic Centre on 03 Dec at 19:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
Marina Sakali, Lady Marks, discusses her book The Uses of Oppression, with Dr Şükrü Ilıcak (Αssociate Professor, University of Athens), following the development of the Ottoman Greek press from its birth in 1830 until 1862, employing the vivid reflections of its editors, correspondents, advertisers, commentators, and readers as a lens through which to view the everyday lives of this generation of Ottoman Greeks.
Talk
Michael Anastassiades In Conversation with Writer and Curator Emily King
at The Hellenic Centre on 10 Dec at 19:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
The designer Michael Anastassiades in-conversation with writer and curator Emily King. Discussing Anastassiades’ recent exhibitions at the Melas Martinos gallery in Athens and the Taka Ishii gallery Tokyo, Anastassiades and King explore the process of design, in particular its fundamentally iterative nature.
Talk
Proofs of the Impossible: Three Greek Women Painters,1821–1960
at The Hellenic Centre on 17 Dec at 19:00
£5/£4 concession, free for members | Booking required via Humanitix or 020 7487 5060
In the second lecture of the series, art historian Gelly Gryntaki explores three Greek female painters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, women’s roles, political and social conditions, and the general difficulties they faced in becoming artists: Eleni Altamoura, Sofia Laskaridou, Thalia Flora-Karavia.