the indian tomb

A site-specific ausiovisual installation by COMOTIRIO @ AK38 Project Space

🍀🍀🍀⚰⚰⚰🌊🍀🍀🍀

Armatolon & Klefton 38, 114 71 Athens

29-31.03.2024

In 1959, German director Fritz Lang's film "Das Indische Grabmal / The Indian Tomb" is released. In 1955, Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis writes the song "Ilissos": what’s the name, what’s the name of the river, I love you, I love you (my little secret). On March 19, 1960, the indoor sports hall of Panathinaikos team at Alexandras Avenue is inaugurated, the first indoor hall ever constructed in Greece, commonly known as "The Indian Tomb". On March 17, 461 AD, Saint Patrick dies having identified the shamrock with Trinity. In the 1st century the shamrock gets associated with luck and Panathinaikos adopts it as its emblem since 1918.

In 2024, Ilissos still flows under the Avenue, with greens, clovers and birds flooding its well-buried riverbed. In the same year and in frantic Bollywood rhythms, COMOTIRIO, committed in highlighting places of historical interest by pairing them with artistic events, interacts with the urban legend of the indoor stadium and the wider area. Two mixed-media sculptural installations reveal unseeable elements of the space, which, as an underground stadium -narrow, with multiple levels and steep descending stairs- was nicknamed as "The Indian Tomb" because it reminded of the homonymous film’s catacomb scenes.

promo video