Ballance of Terror - The Debris of the World is the New Monuments
The exhibition borrows its title "Balance of Terror", from the notorious cold war phrase of the same name and is used in the artworks as an allegory, which attempts to comment on the complex condition of our world in flux. Social unrest, economic upheavals, political conflicts, civil wars and border changes are setting up a troubled and uncertain environment for people all over the world.
The Equilibrists Of Memory “ depict portraits of black-veiled figures that balance on their heads a totem made up of the debris of what remains of what>span class="s2"> was once a memory of a culture, a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging, a piece of homeland. These ambiguous assemblages in a form of a totem–headpiece symbolize the debris of humanity that emerge as the new monuments; their materiality passes away while in the realm of collective memory their substance remains intact. The head-portraits are covered, their identity is concealed, their names unknown, yet they seem strangely familiar to us, like archetypal images emerging out of the darkness of a world that does not reveal itself.
At the center of the portraits there is a sculptural piece titled "Epitaph, (still in progress, 55x35x18 cm) a funerary stele made of rosemary, a plant native to the seaside regions of the Mediterranean and North Africa. The rosemary plant throughout the ages has had a symbolical meaning in eastern and western cultures and is still regarded today as the funeral flower signifying respect and remembrance for the departed. The stele bears an ornamented inscription in the form of dedication to the Unknown Others, the thousands of refugees lost at sea and washed up on the shores of the Greek islands. The rosemary stele is an “Epitaph” that stands as a tribute to the human struggles for survival and freedom.
The exhibition also includes two video projections of a dead calm sea opposed to a rough, stormy one as an allegory referencing the theme of world balance.
Research archival material, texts and images that inspired >span class="s1">e works are also presented at >span class="s1">e exhibition.