Yorgos Efthymiadis | The Lighthouse Keepers – Artist Talk

Join us at the Griffin Museum for a presentation and walk through with photographer Yorgos Efthymiadis, discussing his series The Lighthouse Keepers, part of the exhibition Nuclear Family.

Whenever I travel back to my country, it feels like I come across a shoebox in the back of my childhood bedroom closet, full of memorabilia I didn’t know were there. As soon as I open the box, an inner whisper says “I will remind you of everything.”

There is an instant rush of fond memories of the house I grew up in by the sea and of the maze-like city I moved to when I got older. But mostly, of family and friends: the people that I care for and who have always been there for me since the beginning. The ones I take for granted.

Growing up, so many of us were queer in our seaside town we joked “it must be in the water.” Some have left, many have stayed. Like everyone else, from the proud “mother” of the village who helped most of us come out, to the sentimental ones that are still hanging onto a past that is no longer there, we are struggling in our own way. Loneliness, isolation, decline. Secrets and regrets. But each one a lighthouse keeper. Strong and resilient, fragile and tender, always there to help, guiding each other through life, and reminding me of where I belong.

About Yorgos Efthymiadis

Yorgos Efthymiadis is an artist/curator from Greece who resides in Somerville, MA. A board member of Somerville Arts Council and founder of The Curated Fridge, an independent gallery that celebrates fine art photography, Efthymiadis is a recipient of the 2025 James and Audrey Foster Prize, an awardee of the Artist’s Resource Trust A.R.T. Grant in 2024, a finalist for the 2017 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, and a recipient of the St. Botolph Club Foundation 2017 Emerging Artist Award. This project has been supported by a grant from the Artist’s Resource Trust.