24h sing song

A 24h on site installation in the Garden of Villa Iolas 

in collaboration with the Municipality of Agia Paraskevi

Dimokratias 6, Agia Paraskevi, Athens

24.09.2018

Iolas has passed away but his myth keeps on living. His Villa, after having been stripped, stands sealed· it is said that it was with sledgehammers and containers that the treasures, the golden doors and knobs were removed, transported, looted. In the Garden with the former grandiose statues only fragments stand today, scattered, broken, proud. Witnesses of past dark actions, doomed to remain silent, in lethargy. The 24h installation envisaged the Garden as a spatial projection of magical and supernatural thinking. Absence, ellipse and reduction were restored on the marble column complex by temporary sculptural additions. Stergiou and Veneri combined their skills to visualise the invisible and to create a mise-en-scène of devotional objects and metaphysical powers.

Naira Stergiou used decorative memorial materials and incense in a poetic way. Her shiny pieces were grave gifts and offerings to the Goddess of Memory. The animae-butterflies ornamented the installation, transporting the soul back home. On the inscription one could read the 7th commandement: You shall not steal.

Eriphyli Veneri introduced the allegory of the house that is incorruptible and inviolable with an epitaph construction. The idea of the passage from the perishable body to the incorporeal memory, or through a more secular prism, from anonymity to eternity. The lion, a vigilant protector-guard sleeping with open eyes.