Queensland exhibition explores Ionian migration stories to Australia 

In Australia, Chrysanthi Zantioti discovered two bundles of letters aft her mother’s decease – 1 written “from Nick to Popi” and different “from Popi to Nick,” revealing the aboriginal correspondence of a mates whose lives were shaped by migration from Kythira.

Her father, Nick, had archetypal near for Australia, where an uncle ran a café successful a small town successful Queensland. Popi aboriginal followed him, and the mates joined successful 1955. Their daughter, Chrysanthi Zantioti – present an creator and co-curator of the accumulation “NOSTOI | Homecomings: Stories of the Ionian Island Diaspora successful Queensland” – reflects connected the region betwixt anticipation and reality.

“She whitethorn person romanticized that journey,” she says of her mother, successful an interrogation with Kathimerini. “She had seen Hollywood films successful Athens and whitethorn person imagined her departure arsenic a country from a movie, with her beloved waiting connected the different broadside of the world.” Instead, Popi arrived successful a distant town “that didn’t adjacent person a sewage system,” where she aboriginal survived a flood, “clinging to a enactment while the water carried distant her shoes and clothes.”

Zantioti says her mother’s story reflects a broader migrant experience, particularly for women. “At slightest my parent knew my father, adjacent vaguely. Other women arrived to wed men they had lone seen successful a photograph.”

She adds that galore were “awaited, dressed arsenic brides, and joined disconnected to the antheral waiting for them,” highlighting the gendered world of migration often overlooked successful humanities narratives.

According to Zantioti, her mother, when she saw radical leaving Kythira, would say: “I cannot look astatine the sea, due to the fact that I cognize they will not travel back.” That was until she, herself, left.

The story of Zantioti’s parent captures the essence of what the accumulation astatine the RD Milns Antiquities Museum astatine the University of Queensland successful Brisbane seeks to illuminate: the lives of radical who emigrated to Australia from the Greek islands of Corfu, Paxos, Lefkada, Ithaca, Kefalonia, Zakynthos, and Kythira successful the 19th and 20th centuries.

Popi’s beingness successful Queensland became 1 of adaptation and quiescent resilience. She learned English by speechmaking newspapers, built friendships locally, and maintained Greek traditions astatine home. “She loved Australia,” Zantioti says, “but kept Greek regular beingness live wrong the home.” Even soon earlier her death, she was speechmaking “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” successful English.

The household ran a café adjacent to a cinema, portion of a wider signifier among migrants from the Ionian islands who worked successful hospitality and helped present Greek nutrient civilization to determination Australia. 

“In small provincial towns, similar the 1 we lived in, there were pubs – places mostly frequented by men. Greek cafés offered something different: a space where an full household could go. And we were unfastened from dawn until midnight,” she says. Gradually, Australian customers besides began to get to cognize Greek food.

With humor, she recalls children returning location and telling their mothers that “the Greeks devour worms,” having ne'er seen spaghetti before.

Curator James Donaldson notes that migration from the Ionian Islands to Queensland expanded aft World War II and the 1953 earthquakes, with Kythira and Ithaca particularly represented. The accumulation brings together implicit 80 objects and testimonies exploring themes of travel, love, home, and identity.

For Zantioti, the task is profoundly personal. “I wanted radical to spot faces, villages, lives – not conscionable Mediterranean images.” 

“I archetypal visited Kythira astatine the property of ten; we travelled connected the vessel ‘Patris’,” she says, noting that her begetter wanted his children to yet spot the spot they had heard astir for so galore years.

“Before helium died successful Australia, helium said helium wanted to beryllium buried connected his island, together with his mother. Both of my parents longed to return,” Zantioti says. “Only when they visited Kythira did they truly smile.” 

“NOSTOI | Homecomings: Stories of the Ionian Island Diaspora successful Queensland”, presently connected amusement astatine the University of Queensland’s RD Milns Antiquities Museum, runs until the extremity of 2027.