Ντερτι Humanism, recently presented, in exhibition form, in London (June-August 2011, Faggionato Fine Arts), is a venture set out to explore the territory and manifestations of a  ‘different’ kind of humanism, as this is suggested by its coupling with the adjective ‘ντέρτι’. The Greek word ‘ντέρτι’, pronounced almost like the English ‘dirty’, is a folk word of Turkish origin that means ‘worry’, ‘trouble’, ‘anguish’, ‘torment’ or ‘vasanos’. Ντέρτι Humanism is thus a hybrid term that immediately alludes to the relentless, age-old, philosophical, psychological, socio- cultural, historical, economic, linguistic, and artistic conflict and coexistence of the East and West.

The coining of the term is an attempt to codify, through the Greek example (the Greek paralogi so to speak), a larger phenomenon: the presence of a broken, self-ironic, non- heroic and still strangely utopic, a twisted, disordered, melancholic and yet persistent, a paradoxical kind of para-humanism (para-: one that lies next, even though and beyond what has been traditionally understood as ‘humanism’).  With a rather deviating approach to the concept of identity Ντέρτι Humanism looks at the ever urgent problem of coexistence.  In the hopes of further opening the ground for intellectual debate, Ντέρτι Humanism – the film appendix, is a short experience of Ντέρτι Humanism in the area of the filmic imaginary. The Greek Film Archive Foundation, through, both, its history and collections, creates the élan, for this kind of adventure and is cooperating with Ντέρτι Humanism curator Nadja Argyropoulou for its organizing. In all of the Foundation’s available projection spaces, on September 13th (6pm to 2 am the next day) and another 15 days in the Foundation’s gallery, Ντέρτι Humanism – the film appendix, will look into aspects of Ντέρτι Humanism. A book will be published on the concept and its presentations as exhibition, in London and film appendix, in Athens.