Benaki Museum Shop

Since its establishment, the Benaki Shop has functioned as a dynamic space that curates and promotes the applied arts in Greece, uniting a vast creative community that until then acted individually. For decades, the Shop has been a pioneer in conserving and revitalizing Greek craftsmanship, seeking the "peak" of manual techniques and showcasing objects that are distinguished for their authenticity and technical perfection. Particularly in ceramics, the Shop was instrumental in research for young creators, and in supporting their emergence. Ghika Gallery shop was thereby established as an exhibition space for artists. Additionally, with the ‘Material Quests’ series of exhibitions, the Shop presents items of unique technique and special artistic inspiration that do not fall into the classic categories.

Through such unique approaches, the Benaki Shop emerged as a platform dedicated to the emergence of new expressive forms arising from the osmosis of traditional techniques within craft and design. By supporting the Athens Design Forum, the Benaki Museum Shop will present part of its invaluable archive of ceramic works, in an attempt to expand dialogues around Greek ceramics.

In the ADF Benaki Shop exhibition, handmade ceramic pots by renowned creators interact with contemporary objects produced through digital technology and newer unconventional media and materials. The cohabitation of “old” and “new,” articulates an updated aesthetic language that interrogates the long-established borders between crafts and design and challenges the role of memory and spontaneous manual expression in creative translations.