Charlotte Dover, The Lonely Column, 2024
Charlotte Dover, an undergraduate History major at the University of Calgary, has been awarded first place in the 2024 photo competition organized by the West Coast Consortium of Hellenic Studies Programs.
This year’s photo contest, titled “Fragments of Greece,” invited undergraduate participants to submit images from anywhere in the world that capture the essence of Greece through a fragment of an object. Each image represented a part that suggests the whole idea of Greece or Greekness. Dover’s winning photo was entitled The Lonely Column. Dover took the photo during her visit to Corfinio Cathedral in Italy as part of the 2024 Religion Studies in Central Italy Group Study Program.
Dover describes her photograph as capturing a column, the last one standing in what could be considered a graveyard of ancient fragments. The column towered above the rest, standing proud and distinct, while also invoking the idea of Greekness. The column stands out from the cathedral behind it, whose grounds it calls its home. The cathedral is in every way an Italian building, one you might expect to find in Rome, whereas the column feels distinctly Greek, like a traveler who made its home in Corfinio.
“I was inspired to take this photo when the group I was with was granted access to the grounds of the cathedral in Corfinio. Normally the area is locked behind a set of gates. We were told that the cathedral keeps all the ancient columns and fragments locked up there, so that they were protected from theft and vandalism. In contrast to all the other ancient fragments and columns laid out on the ground, the massive column that remained standing immediately caught my attention and I knew that I needed to capture it in a photo,” said Dover.
“Charlotte Dover’s striking photograph of a Greek column near the Cathedral of Corfinio in Abbruzzo, Italy plays on the connection between the volutes and curves of the stone capital, which mimic natural vegetal forms, and the branches of the tree behind it. At the same time the relationship between the column and the (Italian) Christian sanctuary behind it suggest both the spread of Greek culture beyond mainland Greece and the relationship between Greece’s pagan past and Christianity,” said Alexander Hollmann, Professor of Classics at the University of Washington and one of the judges of the competition.
Professor Katerina Lagos, Director of the Angelo K. and Sofia Tsakopoulos Hellenic Studies Center at California State University, Sacramento, observed: “Charlotte Dover’s photo stood out with its crispness of images and complexity of colors. A tree blankets the aged and worn column in a symbolic embrace of a Hellenic symbol. The contrasting blue evokes the splendid deep color of the Greek sky. The photo captured the theme of the competition and drew the viewer in with its richness and depth.”
The West Coast Consortium of Hellenic Studies Programs, which sponsored the competition, brings together a diverse group of faculty members and program directors from universities along the Pacific, both in the United States and in Canada. The Consortium is coordinated by Gefyra (“Bridge”), a partnership between the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture. The mission of the Consortium is to foster collaborations across universities and to create new educational opportunities for students and community members interested in Hellenic ideas, arts, and culture.
To find out more about the Hellenic photo competition, visit https://hellenic.ucla.edu/hellenic-photo-competition-2024/.