We Are All Made of Stars, 2011-2018

During the 1990s and 2000s, our civilized world experienced a remarkable economic growth that was unfortunately followed by an unprecedented systematic demystification of human values. The economic crisis that started in the late 2000s marked the peak of this process, the end, and the subsequent gradual decline.

It is indispensable to remember that both during periods of rise and fall, certain social groups are simply destined to remain isolated due to a complete lack of representatives in the media. They do not represent Power and Money; therefore, they remain forgotten and abandoned. They are drug users, lonely people without relatives, poor, unemployed, mentally and/or physically disabled. They are small children dependent on adults, people of the LGTB communities, prostitutes, old, ugly (whatever the media would mean by using this word), overweight, immigrants, foreigners and strangers in all the possible meanings. They are all kinds of ethnic groups that suffer from discrimination.

These are only some of the millions of examples that exist and live among us. We know them, we see them, we meet them on the streets through our quotidian social activities but we ignore them. We are all members of uncountable minority groups but we keep on struggling to fit into a large and accepted one: the group of “normality”.

People should give themselves a chance to understand how they pass through this material and immaterial world in order to find a balance between matter and spirit.

We Are All Made Out of Stars is an attempt to re-mystify humanity at all the different levels of our societies.

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'Aurora with Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel in Stockholm, Sweden', 2012. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Panos Balomenos

Aurora was born in 2010 in Helsinki, Finland.
Princess Victoria (born in 1977 in Stockholm, Sweden) is the Crown Princess of Sweden. Olof Daniel Westling (born in 1973 in Örebro, Sweden) is named Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland after his marriage to the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden in 2009.

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'Konsta with Dalai Lama in Lauttasaari, Helsinki, Finland', 2012. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 50,8 x 40,6 cm. Photo Panos Balomenos

Konsta was born in 2011 in Helsinki, Finland.
The 14th Dalai Lama (born as Lhamo Dondrub in 1935 in Taktser, Tibet) is the current Dalai Lama. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

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'Jouni and Riitta with Cesaria Evora in Espoo, Finland', 2012. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Jouni Hahle (born in Espoo, Finland) is a physically disabled person living in Espoo, Finland and Riitta is his girlfriend.
Cesária Évora (born in 1941 in Mindelo, Cape Verde - died in 2011 in São Vicente, Cape Verde) was a Cape Verdean popular singer.

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'Kaiko with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, North Korea', 2012. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Kaiko was born in 2007 in Helsinki, Finland.
Kim Jong-un (born in North Korea in 1983) is the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).

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'Yannis Boutaris with wild bear in the nature near Bulgaria', 2013. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Yiannis Boutaris (born in 1942 in Thessaloniki, Greece) is the current Mayor of Thessaloniki, Greece. In 2012 he was chosen as 'the best mayor of the world' for the month of October by the City Mayors Foundation, based in the UK. He is one of the founding members of the Drasi party and Arcturos ecological organization.

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'Voula, Capra Aegagrus and Aki Kaurismäki in Bari Attikis, Greece', 2013. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 50,8 x 40,6 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Voula (born in Agrinio, Greece - died in 2015 in Athens, Greece) was a person who suffered from Alzheimer disease.
Capra Aegagrus is a widespread species of wild goat that symbolizes Satanism in many different cultures and Freedom in the mountainous area of Crete in Greece.
Aki Kaurismäki (born in 1957 in Orimattila, Finland) is a screenwriter and film director.

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'Panos with Laurie Anderson and Bertel Thorvaldsen in Ørstedsparken in Copenhagen, Denmark', 2013. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

A portrait of the artist posing with Laurie Anderson at Ørstedsparken in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Laurie Anderson (born in 1947 in Illinois, USA) is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician.
Bertel Thorvaldsen (born in 1770 in Copenhagen, Denmark - died in 1844 in Copenhagen, Denmark) was a remarkable Danish sculptor.
Ørstedsparken is a park in the centre of Copenhagen, Denmark, full of beautiful sculptures. It is also known as a meeting point among homosexuals for occasional sexual encounters.

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'Myrtis and Pablo Pineda in Athens, Greece', 2013. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Myrtis is the name given by archaeologists to an 11-year-old child from ancient Athens, whose remains were discovered in 1994-95 in a mass grave during work to build the metro station at Kerameikos, Greece. The name was chosen from common ancient Greek names. The analysis showed that Myrtis and two other bodies in the mass grave had died of typhoid fever during the Plague of Athens in 430 BCE. Myrtis' skull was in an unusually good condition and Greek orthodontics professor Manolis Papagrigorakis requested help from Swedish specialists to recreate her facial features.
Pablo Pineda (born in 1974 in Málaga, Spain) is an actor and the first student with Down syndrome in Europe to obtain a university degree.

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'Margaret Thatcher and Amy Winehouse in London, U.K.', 2013. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 50,8 x 40,6 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Amy Winehouse (born in 1983 in London, England - died in 2011 in London, England) was a singer and songwriter.
Margaret Thatcher (born in 1925 in Grantham, England - died in 2013 in London, England) was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. She is known as the Iron Lady, a politician that was never widely loved.

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'Doris Lessing with Emmy Storms and José Mujica in London, U.K.', 2014. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Doris Lessing (born in 1919 in Kermanshah, Persia - died in 2013 in London, England) was a novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007.
José Mujica (born in 1935 in Montevideo, Uruguay) was the President of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. He has been described as "the world's 'humblest' president".
Emmy Storms (born in 1988 in Katwijk aan Zee, Holland) is a violin soloist.

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'Basil with Tarja Halonen in Bregenz, Austria (Lake Bodensee)', 2014. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 33 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Basil was born in 2011 in Helsinki, Finland.
Tarja Halonen (born in 1943 in Helsinki, Finland) was the 11th President of Finland serving from 2000 to 2012.

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'Steve Reich performs live Clapping Music for Drossoula on Lefkas Island, Greece', 2014. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 50,8 x 40,6 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Drossoula (born in Lefkas, Greece, died in 2022) was a very central folk figure in the village of Agios Petros on Lefkas Island, Greece particularly interested in all the various forms of performing arts.
Steve Reich (born in 1936 in New York City, USA) is a composer who, pioneered minimal music in the mid to late 1960s.

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'Maria and Vaggelitsa with Malala Yousafzai in a Café in Glyfada, Athens, Greece', 2015. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Maria (died in 2015 in Athens, Greece) and Vaggelitsa are two women living in Glyfada, Greece, who suffer from intellectual disability.
Malala Yousafzai (born in 1997 in Mingora, Pakistan) is an activist for female education and the youngest ever Nobel Prize laureate.

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'Naná Chatzí with Carmen Martínez at Bouzoukia in Thessaloniki, Greece', 2015. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Naná Chantzí (born in Thessaloniki, Greece - died in 2015) was a transsexual that has worked as a prostitute.
Carmen Martínez was the symbol of Spain's economic woes in 2014 at the age of 85. She was evicted by the Spanish Police because her son could not pay his debts.
Bouzoukia are nightclubs that feature popular music performed live in Greece. The word derives from the plural of the main Greek instrument "bouzouki".

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'Tuija with Róisín Murphy at the Cottage in Helsinki, Finland', 2015. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Tuija Kuchka (born in Helsinki, Finland) has worked for the Helsinki City Museum ?s Kluuvi Gallery and owns the most beautiful garden of Itä-Pakila, an allotment garden with small summer cottages in Helsinki, Finland.
Róisín Murphy (born in 1973 in Arklow, Ireland) is a singer-songwriter and record producer.

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'Paola Revenioti at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium', 2015. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 50,8 x 40,6 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Paola Revenioti (born in Greece) is a trans artist, poet, photographer, publisher and activist that has made a living as a prostitute.

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'Rafaella in her car with Stephen Hawking in Athens, Greece', 2015. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo Julia Weckman

Rafaella (born in Greece) is a trans woman fascinated by the theories developed by Stephen Hawking. In the past she was forced to work as a prostitute to make her living.
Stephen Hawking (born in 1942 in Oxford, England, died on March 14 2018 in Cambridge, England) was a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.

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'3 Rozas (Roza Boynik with Roza Eskenazy at Roza Luxemburg Platz metro station in Berlin, Germany)', 2016. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo by Michail Galanakis

Roza Boynik was born in 2009 in Helsinki, Finland.
Roza Eskenazy (born in mid-1890s in Constantinople, Turkey - died in 1980 in Athens, Greece) was a famous Jewish-Greek singer of rebetiko and Greek folk music, whose recording and stage career extended from the late 1920s into the 1970s.
Roza Luxemburg (born in Zamo??, Congress Poland, Russian Empire - died in 1919 in Berlin, Germany) was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist, anti-war activist and revolutionary socialist of Polish-Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen. She was captured and executed by the Freikorps troops (government-sponsored paramilitary groups consisting of World War I veterans). Her body was thrown in the Landwehr Canal in Berlin.

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'Jon Gnárr welcomes Amoun on Kos island in Greece', 2016. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 50,8 x 40,6 cm. Photo by Panos Balomenos

Jon Gnárr (born in 1967 in Reykjavík, Iceland) is an actor, comedian and politician who served as the Mayor of Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, from 2010 to 2014.
Amoun is a Syrian blind woman who arrived in Kos island in Greece in 2015.

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'Despoina with Kunkush and Ignatios at the fishmonger on Tinos island in Greece', 2016. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo by Michail Galanakis

Despoina is a fishwife from Tinos island in Greece.
Kunkush is a refugee cat that has flown more than 2.000 miles to be reunited with his Iraqi family in Norway, after getting lost on the island of Lesvos in Greece.
Ignatios is a pensionate from Lesvos island who has created a shelter for homeless animals. He found Kunkush while its family was relocated to Norway.

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'Eastern cougar with an embracing couple of skeletons at the cave of Alepotrypa in Greece', 2016. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm. Photo by Panos Balomenos

The eastern cougar, also known as panther or puma, was removed from endangered species list in 2016. The US wildlife managers confirmed its extinction after a four-year review.
The embracing couple of skeletons was found by archaeologists during excavations at Xagkounaki place near the Alepotrypa cave in 2013. The couple was buried roughly in 3.800 BC, according to the C14 dating method.

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'Opri Verta with Yoko Ono in New York, U.S.A.', 2018. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 40,6 x 50,8 cm

Opri Verta was born in 2016 in Helsinki, Finland.
Yoko Ono (born in Tokyo February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art, which she performs in both English and Japanese, and filmmaking. She was married to English singer-songwriter John Lennon of the Beatles from 1969 until his murder in 1980.