You are invited to navigate through this "solar system" that was generated from a question about life routes, and led to a universe of stories, memories and associations, found in interviews, postcards and letters. Memories then became activators of conversations, imagination and in the future of space.
Numbers coming from UN reported insidents and can be found in the https://www.un.org/en/ between 2020 and 2023
“You are welcome to walk around the space and the structure, pass through and behind it. It makes an interesting sound doesn’t it? Something between a sea wave and a gentle wind through the leaves.
It wasn’t intended to look this way from the start, but it turns out I concentrate more when I craft things. Very therapeutic process indeed.
It is a simple structure of A4 papers sheets, stitched together slowly, patiently. What people said they think when they looked at it varied between harmonic, balanced, clear, minimal and distant.
There are 171 sheets of paper in this structure, measured after it was complete. 171 blank pieces of paper, blank/ empty/ distant??
171 isn’t a very common number. Or it doesn’t seem to be. It’s not a number we frequently use.
In fact, who remembers that in April, 171 refugees were rescued in the Mediterranean sea by rescue boats.
or....
171 refugees were rescued in the Mediterranean sea by rescue boats.
171 people rescued by emergency’s search and rescue ships landed in Taranto, Italy.
172 people believed drowned in central Mediterranean after three different shipwrecks
173 Refugees detained from a boat by the Myanmar Military
175 refugees to be relocated in Finland
176 migrants rescued off Libya, 110 others turned back
178 Afghan refugees from Pakistan, Iran welcomed by Italy
179 asylum-seekers evacuated by UN refugee agency to Niger from Libya
180 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar vanished in the sea of Bangladesh
181 Afghan Refugees From Pakistan arrive in the Netherlands
182 migrants are allowed to disembark the Ocean Viking in Italy
183 Refugees Resettled from Chad to France with IOM Support
185 Rohingya refugees land in Indonesia’s Aceh
186 migrants carried across English Channel with eight boats
187 Sudanese refugees return to Darfur from Chad
188 migrants rescued ay sea by Turkish Coast Guard
189 refugees evacuated from Libya to Rwanda
190 desperate people adrift in Andaman Sea
191 Migrants Camp Under Bridge In Paris
192 refugees in Uganda camp killed by Rebels
193 refugees in a tanker that run aground in rough weather just outside the port on the Cycladic island of Kea, near the Greek capital.
195 Killed In Israeli Air Strike On Refugee Camp
195 killed in two days of strikes on Jabalia camp
196 Rohingya immigrants landed in Aceh
197 refugees transferred from Greece to Germany
198 migrants and refugees in the Lampedusa hotspot
198 Afghan Refugees welcomed to Abbotsford
199 migrants pushed back by Greece to Turkey
200 refugees die off Tunisia coast in 10 days
200 Afghan refugees transferred from Islamabad to UK
200 asylum-seeking children have gone missing in the UK
A performative experiment adressing the distance between the reported news and the actual events, emphasising on how the media use numbers to present news in a way that causes both shock and eliminates relatability. In a fragile structure, the spectators follow the performer in something that starts as a performative lecture and a typical conversation at the same time. They are presented with the chain of thoughts that led to the experiment and slowly are transported into the list of event that are resited. "It's scary that if you google any number next to the words refugees / immigrants, its guaranteed that an event will appear."
“Maybe we are all prospective migrants. The lines of national borders on maps are artificial constructs, as unnatural to us as they are to birds flying overhead. Our first impulse is to ignore them.”
Mohsin Hamid, www.theguardian.com. August 5, 2008
Borders, boundaries and meaningfull materials
I navigated through the topic of borders through some different angles. By the end of that journey I had realized that I was referring to the border as defined by National Geographic:
“A border is a real or artificial line that separates geographic areas. Borders are political boundaries"
Looking through that scope, I started stumbling across statistics, studies, maps etc. of the numbers of people forced to cross borders and the routes they are following to reach any destination. The well documented refugee routes and maps of the statistics, made me wonder about the journey. How did people travel from on edge of the world to the other? Where did they pass through? How difficult it was?
Collecting Routes means collecting stories. Through face to face discussions that ended up being transcribed into short stories, I didn't gather just the map, but the feelings, the colors, the smells of these very taugh journeys.
THE EXCHANGE OF POPULATION
THE GREEKS OF CONSTANTINOPLE
We are informed that the Exchange of Populations will begin from the Othomans of the Aegean Islands and Crete, most of which are already ready for departure.
Additionaly, the first of the Greek population are awaiting on the coast of the Black Sea.
The Convention in Lausanne mantions that the following people are excluded from the exchange: Firstly the Greek citizens of Konstantinople and secondly the Mouslims of West Thraki. The phrase "citizens of Konstantinople" was interpreted as the people living in the city prior to the October of 1918. Based on the American correspondant, all Greeks that relocated to Konstantinople in the last five years will also be moved, which doesn't necessarily mean a mass movement of the Greeks of Konstantinople
In 1923, the leaders of Europe gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland, to negotiate and finalise the territorial dispute between Greece and Turkey. There, they signed the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations". Although the numbers vary, depending on sources, it is estimated that it envolved around 2 million people.This major compulsory population exchange, or agreed mutual expulsion, was based not on language or ethnicity, but upon religious identity, and involved nearly all the indigenous Orthodox Christian peoples of Turkey including even Armenian and Turkish speaking Orthodox groups, and on the other side most of the native Muslims of Greece, including even Greek-speaking Muslim citizens (Greek Orthodox from Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace, the Pontic Alps and the Caucasus, and Muslims from the mainland of Greece, northen borders and Crete).
THE EXCHANGE OF POPULATION
PERAN, October 14th. (from our reporter). Two steamboats arrived at Kavakia, full of Greeks exchanged from Pontos. These two boats where "Sakaria" and "Veota", and they will await until the news of the first Muslims of Mitilini have departed. On the two boats there were around 2.800 people. The refugees will be transported to Preveza.
NOTICE
The applicant is advised not to make an innacurate or overexcessive declaration as this will be detrimental to his interests
DECLARATION OF PROPERTY
Τhe undersigned requests the joint committee to proceed with the liquidation for my benefit of the immovable and movable property specified below in accordance with The Greek-Turkish Convention of January 30, 1923 on the exchange of populations.
THE IDENTITY OF THE APPLICANT
Collecting Routes means collecting stories. Through face to face discussions that ended up being transcribed into short stories, I didn't gather just the map of the route, but theexperience, the feelings, the colors, the smells of these very tough journeys.
[από Ακσεραϊ – Αθήνα]
«(...) Όταν μάθαμε πως θα γίνει η Ανταλλαγή, η οικογένειά μου αισθάνθηκε χαρά και ανακούφιση, γιατί είχαμε διώξεις από την τούρκικη αστυνομία, ύστερα από συκοφαντίες εχθρών μας ότι ενισχύομε τον ελληνικό στρατό. Οι Τούρκοι, και του Άκσεραϊ και των γύρω τούρκικων χωριών που είχαμε συναλλαγές, δεν ήθελαν να φύγει ο ελληνισμός του Άκσεραϊ. Έκαναν ενέργειες, και στην Άγκυρα ακόμα, να μη φύγουμε. (...)
Η προετοιμασία για την αναχώρησή μας κράτησε πέντε έξι μέρες. Ετοιμάσαμε το γιούκια μας, τα μπαούλα μας, με ό,τι μπορούσαμε να μεταφέρουμε. Κάθε μέρα είχαμε στο σπίτι συγκινήσεις. Μας επισκέπτονταν φιλικές και γνωστές μας τούρκικες οικογένειες και μας παρακαλούσαν κλαίγοντας να μη φύγουμε.
Ξεκινήσαμε από το Άκσεραϊ δεκαεφτά αμάξια με πενήντα άτομα. Περάσαμε από το χωριό Αλάτζα που απέχει δύο ώρες από το Άκσεραϊ. Οι κάτοικοι του χωριού είναι Τάταροι που ήρθαν πρόσφυγες με τους ρωσοτουρκικούς πολέμους. Μας έκαναν σε όλους τραπέζι, επίσης και στους αμαξάδες, και δεν μας άφηναν να φύγουμε. Απ’ εκεί φτάσαμε στο Τας Πουρνάρ που απέχει τέσσερις ώρες από το Άκσεραϊ. Μείναμε εκεί, όπου μας φιλοξένησαν, και την άλλη μέρα το πρωί φύγαμε μέσα σε κλάματα. Μας πρόσφεραν διάφορα τρόφιμα και μας συνόδεψαν ως το Αρίσαμε που απέχει μία ώρα απ’ το χωριό τους. Στο Αρίσαμε μας έκανε το μεσημέρι το τραπέζι. (...) Καθίσαμε εκεί τρεις ώρες, ξεκουραστήκαμε και βγήκαμε πάλι στον δρόμο. Στις 7 το βράδυ φτάσαμε στο χωριό Κουτβερέν. Εκεί φιλοξενηθήκαμε στην καλοκαιρινή έπαυλη του Τοππάς Ζαdέ Χατζή Μεχμέτ μπέη.
Την άλλη μέρα αναχωρήσαμε και κατά το βράδυ φτάσαμε στο Έρεγλι. Μείναμε δυο τρεις μέρες στο ξενοδοχείο του σταθμού, ώσπου να φορτωθούν οι αποσκευές όλου του κόσμου στο τρένο. Μπήκαμε στο τρένο, χωρίς να πληρώσουμε ναύλα, γιατί στο Έρεγλι πήραμε διαβατήριο της Ανταλλαγής. Φύγαμε από Έρεγλι στις 5 το απόγευμα.
Περάσαμε από το σταθμό Πουλκουρλί που απέχει 14-15 χιλιόμετρα, από δύο τρεις σταθμούς μικρούς που δε σταματήσαμε καθόλου και ύστερα φτάσαμε στο Ουλούκισλα. Νομίζω ότι απέχει από το Έρεγλι 45-47 χιλιόμετρα. Στο μεταξύ νύχτωσε και δε διακρίναμε τίποτα. Κοιμηθήκαμε κι όταν ξυπνήσαμε το πρωί, καταλάβαμε ότι φτάνουμε στα Άδανα. Έκανε ζέστη στο τρένο και ιδρώναμε. Κατά τις 11 π.μ. φτάσαμε στο σταθμό Γένιζε, που απέχει μία ώρα από τα Άδανα. Μείναμε εκεί μια ώρα περίπου, για ν’ αλλάξουμε μηχανή.
Καθώς κατηφόριζε το τρένο προς τη Μερσίνα, βλέπουμε από μακριά να πρασινίζει κάτι, σαν λίμνη.
Ρωτάμε:-Τι είναι αυτό;
-Η θάλασσα, λένε.
Πρώτη φορά βλέπαμε θάλασσα, και μας φαινόταν περίεργο(…)»
A small experiment of making a conversation about a topic by creating a fictional story through a found object. The goal was not to focus necessarily on the written words of the source but the first question that would come up to the person with whom I was having the conversation. I have noticed that the instict most women mothers had when I translated the postcard was to ask about the mother.
[from Akseray – Athens]
"(...) When we found out that the Exchange will take place, my family felt joy and relief, because we were persecuted by the Turkish police, following slanders by our enemies that we were supporting the Greek army. The Turks, both of Akserai and the surrounding Turkish villages with whom we traded, did not want Akseray's Hellenism to leave. They took action, even in Ankara, so we wouldn't leave. (...)
The preparation for our departure took five or six days. We prepared our yukia, our trunks, with everything we could carry. Every day we had emotions at home. We were visited by friendly and familiar Turkish families and begged us crying not to leave.
We started from Akseray seventeen cars with fifty people. We passed by the village of Alantza, which is two hours from Akserai. The inhabitants of the village are Tatars who came as refugees during the Russo-Turkish wars. They made food for everyone, including the coachmen, and wouldn't let us leave. From there we arrived at Tas Pournar, which is four hours from Akserai. We stayed there, where they hosted us, and the next morning we left in tears. They offered us various foods and accompanied us to Arisame, which is an hour away from their village. At Arisame, they made us a table at noon. (...) We sat there for three hours, rested and hit the road again. At 7 in the evening we arrived at the village of Koutveren. There we were hosted in the summer mansion of Toppas Zade Hatzi Mehmet Bey.
The next day we left and in the evening we arrived in Eregli. We stayed two or three days at the station hotel, until everyone's luggage was loaded onto the train. We entered the train, without paying a fare, because in Eregli we got an Exchange passport. We left Eregli at 5 pm.
We passed by Pulkurli station, which is 14-15 kilometers away, two or three small stations that we didn't stop at all, and then we arrived at Ulukisla. I think it is 45-47 kilometers from Eregli. In the meantime it got dark and we couldn't see anything. We slept and when we woke up in the morning, we realized that we were reaching Adana. It was hot on the train and we were sweating. At 11 a.m. we arrived at Genize station, which is one hour away from Adana. We stayed there for about an hour, to change engines.
As the train descended towards Mersina, we see something green in the distance, like a lake.
We ask: - What is this?
- The sea, they say.
For the first time we saw the sea, and it seemed strange to us(...)
[από Κέσι – Νίκαια]
«Τη θάλασσα μόνο είχα μπροστά μου και την έβλεπα για πρώτη φορά. Κι ήρθαν οι βάρκες μια μέρα να μας πάρουν. Μ’ έπιασε φόβος και λιποθύμησα. Η συννυφάδα μου με χτυπούσε στο πρόσωπο και μου φώναζε: “Τι φοβάσαι; Τι θα πάθεις; Εμείς δεν είμαστε μαζί σου;”. Πήγαμε στο βαπόρι. Τα πράματά μας με βίντσι ανέβασαν και έβαλαν στο αμπάρι. Ανεβήκαμε κι εμείς. Πολλοί άνθρωποι απ’ όλη την Ανατολή. Ήταν γεμάτο. Να πούμε: μια οικογένεια εδώ κάθεται, άλλη εκεί κάθεται. Παρέες, παρέες, πέντε έξι κάθονται μαζί. Εμένα μ’ έπιασε η θάλασσα.
Έπιασε και τα παιδιά μου. “Τα παιδιά σου, καλέ, πεθαίνουν” μου φώναζαν. Πήγαινα να σηκώσω το κεφάλι, έπεφτε. Δεν μπορούσα να τα δω. Υποφέραμε. Ούτε να φάμε ούτε να πιούμε μπορούσαμε, άμα ήρθαμε γρήγορα στον Άι-Γιώργη. Εδώ ήτανε δύσκολο. Κόψανε τα μαλλιά μας... Από το λουτρό σαν βγαίναμε, φορούσαμε καθαρά ρούχα. Τα άλλα τα βάζαμε στον κλίβανο. Εδώ μας έδιναν φαγητό πρωί, μεσημέρι, βράδυ. Τσάι, μπακαλιάρο, σούπα, ελιές και ό,τι άλλο.
Τρώγαμε καλά, ψωμί μπόλικο. Μετά ό,τι περίσσευε, “να ρίξομε και στα ψάρια”, λέγαμε και το πετούσαμε στη θάλασσα. Εδώ ήρθε ο άντρας μου και μετά μας έβαλαν πάλι στο βαπόρι. Μας πήγαν στο Βόλο. Κι από κει με τρένο στα Φάρσαλα. Εγώ όμως εδώ υπόφερα πολύ. Στα βαπόρι έχασα τα πράματά μου. Έμεινα και γύρευα τα πράματά μου, και τα παιδιά μου τα είχαν βάλει στο βαγόνι. Έχασα και τα παιδιά μου. Μπήκα κι εγώ στο τρένο, μα σ’ άλλο βαγόνι. Φώναζα κι έκλαιγα. Ζητούσα τα παιδιά μου, μα τίποτα. Κι όταν κατεβήκαμε απ’ το βαγόνι, βροχή, βροχή, σαν σκοινιά έπεφτε το νερό. Άνοιξαν οι ουρανοί, κατακλυσμός. Και μια ώρα έχει από το σταθμό για να πάμε στα Φάρσαλα. Έτσι, με βροχή, και τα παιδιά μου δεν τα ηύρα. Έκλαιγα, φώναζα σαν τρελή σ’ όλο το δρόμο. Τέλος φτάσαμε στα Φάρσαλα. Μας έδωσαν από μία σκηνή να τη στήσομε πού; Στα χωράφια, μέσα στη λάσπη, πάνω στο νερό. Εγώ όμως είχα μια χαρά που βρήκα τα παιδιά μου. Σαν ησύχασα απ’ αυτά κι είδα πού βρισκόμασταν, μαζί με τους άλλους αρχίσαμε τα κλάματα και τη βουή. Πού να πλαγιάσομε;
Πού να κάτσομε; Πού να σταθούμε; Ξημέρωσε κι ήμαστε ακόμη στο πόδι. Πήγαμε τότε όλοι, κάμαμε παράπονα και μας άνοιξαν την εκκλησία. Από τις κακουχίες και τα βάσανα αρρώστησε το παιδί μου. Κάθισα πάνω του: “Παναγία μου, όλα τα έχασα και την κόρη μου θα τη χάσω;”. Τρεις τέσσερις μήνες καθίσαμε στην εκκλησία. Το παιδί μου στον ένα μήνα έγινε καλά. Μετά μας κάμανε παράγκες σε ένα μέρος όπου η ομίχλη δεν σηκώνεται... Οι ντόπιοι φωνάζανε: “Οι πρόσφυγες έρχονται, εδώ πέρα να μην μπαίνουν”. Και κλείνανε τις αποθήκες τους, και κλείνανε τα σχολεία τους, και κλείνανε τα καφενεία τους, και κλείνανε τα σπίτια τους. Να μην πλησιάσομε, να μην αγγίζομε πάνω τους, στην πόρτα τους, στους τοίχους των σπιτιών τους. Δεν ήμασταν άνθρωποι εμείς, ήμασταν μικρόβια».
Το ταξίδι
Μου σφίγγει ο καημός, σα θηλιά το λαιμό
και μες στην καρδιά με δαγκώνει σα φίδι.
Παράξενο θέλω ν’ αρχίσω ταξίδι,
χωρίς, μα χωρίς τελειωμό.
5
Το δρόμο μ’ αργά να τραβώ, να τραβώ,
αλλά πουθενά και ποτέ να μη στέκω,
ψυχή να μη βρίσκω, ή πάντα να μπλέκω
με κόσμο τυφλό και βουβό.
Να νιώθω τριγύρω πλατιά ερημιά,
10
κλεισμένα τα σπίτια, τα τζάκια σβησμένα,
ψηλά να μη φέγγει αστέρι κανένα,
και κάτου γυναίκα καμιά.
Ε! ίσως σε τέτοιο ταξίδι αν βρεθώ,
ατέλειωτο, έρμο, σ’ αγνώριστη χώρα,
15
δε θα ’χω περίσσια λαχτάρα σαν τώρα,
Αγάπη, από σε να χαθώ!
Απρίλιος 1883 *Κωστής Παλαμάς
I invited my grandmother to sit with me in this setting with a greek coffee. We sat opposite of each other at her tiny round table, with coffee, water and an envellope.
We sat quiet for a while, and then I offered her the envellope. She opende it and took a look at the two postcards inside.
The journey
My grief tightens, like a noose around my neck
and it bites me in the heart like a snake.
Strange I want to start a journey,
without, but without end.
5
The way slowly I take, take,
but nowhere and never to stand,
soul cannot find, or always to be in trouble
with people blind and dumb.
To feel wide wilderness all around,
10
the houses closed, the fireplaces extinguished,
let no star shine high,
and no woman at all.
Huh! maybe on such a trip if I find myself,
endless, barren, in an unknown land,
15
I won't have too much longing like now,
Love, let me perish from you!
April 1883 *, Κ. Palamas
[from Kesi – Nikaia]
"I only had the sea in front of me and I was seeing it for the first time. And the boats came one day to take us. I got scared and fainted. My daughter-in-law was hitting me in the face and yelling at me: “What are you afraid of? What will happen to you? Aren't we with you?" We went on the boat. Our things were winched up and put in the hold. We went up too. Many people from all over the East. It was full. Let's say: one family is sitting here, another is sitting there. Groups, groups, five or six sit together. The sea caught me (sea sickness).
It got my children too. "Your children are dying" they were shouting at me. I was trying to lift my head, it was falling. I couldn't see them. We suffered. We could neither eat nor drink until we came quickly to Ai-Georgis. It was difficult here. They cut our hair... We wore clean clothes when we came out of the bath. We put the rest in the oven. Here they gave us food morning, noon, night. Tea, cod, soup, olives and everything else.
We ate well, plenty of bread. Then whatever was left over, we would say, "let's throw it to the fish" and throw it into the sea. Here my husband came and then we were put back on the boat. They took us to Volos. And from there by train to Farsala. But I suffered a lot here. I lost my things on the boat. I stayed and looked for my things, and my children were put them in the wagon. I lost my children then. I also entered the train, but in another carriage. I was shouting and crying. I asked for my children, but nothing. And when we got off the wagon, rain, rain, the water was falling like ropes. The heavens opened, a deluge. And it's an hour from the station to go to Farsala. So, with rain, and I didn’t find my children. I was crying, screaming like crazy all the way. Finally we arrived in Farsala. They gave us a tent to set up where? In the fields, in the mud, on the water. But I was happy to find my children. As soon as I calmed down from this and saw where we were, together with the others we started crying and making noise. Where should we lean?
Where should we sit? Where should we stand? It was dawn and we were still on our feet. Then we all went, complained and they opened the church for us. My child fell ill from the hardships and sufferings. I sat on him: "My Virgin Mary, I have lost everything and I will lose my daughter?" We sat in the church for three or four months. My child got well after one month. Then they made us shacks in a place where the fog doesn't rise... The locals were shouting: "The refugees are coming, don't come in here". And they were closing their stores, and they were closing their schools, and they were closing their cafes, and they were closing their homes. Let us not approach, let us not touch them, at their door, on the walls of their houses. We weren't humans, we were germs."
-"I am wondering what his mother said", she comments.
-"What if she was sitting in a similar setting and received this letter. Do you want to imagine the story?"
"Let me get my glasses", she said and returned with a puzzled face, "These are not in Greek!".
"I know", I responded.
"But I know where they are from", she continued.
"What can you tell me about them?", I asked.
"Well, I wasn't born yet but I know my father-in-law fought when we sent army there. What does this one say?"
"He writes:
12 April 1921, Monday
My dear Mother,
There are still some things to attend and conclude here, and I have decided to extend my visit, but I believe my absence won't last long, especially because of my nerves. Tomorrow I will go to Onshat where I will stay for one or two days. I would love to go to Aiddin and Broune but I don't have time.
I am kissing you all,
Your Fillipe
(send address in the center of Athens)
[από Ερίκιοϊ – Αθήνα]
«Έφυγε το βαπόρι καμιά φορά. Μας έβγαλε στη Χίο. Ψιχάλιζε. Τι να κάνουμε, όλες οι πόρτες ήταν κλειστές. Συνεννογιούμασταν πως η Χίος δεν ήταν τόπος για ν’ ακουμπήσουμε. Πήραμε από ένα ψωμί, ο καθένας νοιάζουνταν για τον εαυτό του. Μπήκαμε σ’ ένα μπακάλικο να ψουνίσουμε. Πήραμε το ’να, τ’ άλλο. Βγάλαμε να πληρώσουμε∙ ο μπακάλης δεν έπαιρνε τις παγκανότες, έλεγε: “Δεν περνάν αυτά τα λεφτά, δεν τα θέλω”. Τι να κάναμε, αφήσαμε τα πράματα και φύγαμε. Όμως βγήκαμε, βρήκαμ’ έναν αξιωματικό, αστυνόμο, θα σε γελάσω, κι είπαμε τι μας σύμβαινε. Φάνηκε πρόθυμος και μας είπε: “Ελάτε δω, πάμε στο μαγαζί” κι εκεί είπε του μπακάλη: “Δεν μου λες σε παρακαλώ, γιατί δεν τα παίρνεις αυτά τα λεφτά;”. Τότε γύρισε σ’ εμάς: “Βάλτε τα στην τσέπη σας”, μας είπε, “πάρετε και τα ψούνια. Θα σ’ τα πληρώσω εγώ” είπε του μπακάλη. “Δεν ντρέπεσαι, δεν βλέπεις το κακό που πάθανε; Δεν λες πώς τα φέρανε κι αυτά ως εδώ;”. Πήραμε τα ψώνια κι άρατες (άφαντες).
Έλα όμως που ψιχάλιζε και βράδιαζε. Στραφήκαμε στα περιβόλια, κάτω από τα δέντρα∙ εκεί δεν θα βραχούμε πια. Ξημερώσαμε. Σταμάτησ’ η βροχή. Κουβαριασμένες η μία κοντά στην άλλη. Το πρωί τα μάσαμε πάλι και δρόμο, κάποιος έλεγε θα πάμε στην Κρήτη. Τι να σου πω; Και το καλό το θυμάσαι και το κακό πολύ! Πολύ καλοί άνθρωποι στη Σούδα. Μόλις μας είδαν, μαγείρεψαν σούπα με κρέας και μας μοίρασαν. Όποιος είχε τενεκεδάκι, πιάτο, κουβά, έπαιρνε και ψωμί και πήγαινε στους δικούς του, όποιος δεν είχε έτρωγε κει δα.
Ύστερα μας πήραν όλον το κόσμο με κάρα και μας πήγαν στα Χανιά. Όλους όσους βγήκαμε από το καράβι. Εκεί έγινε μια επιτροπή από γυναίκες κι άντρες και μας μοίρασαν, μας στέγασαν, όπου υπήρχε άδειος τόπος. Εμάς όλους μας βάλανε σ’ ένα καφενείο του μπιλιάρδου∙ ήταν μιανού που ’χε φύγει στην Αμερική και το επιτάξαν. Εκεί πια θαρρείς πως ήμαστε μικρά παιδιά και παίζαμε σπιτάκια∙ η μια έπιασε τη μια γωνιά, τη χώρισε με καρέκλες, η άλλη την άλλη, κι άλλη πήρε το τραπέζι του μπιλιάρδου και το ’κανε κρεβάτι.
Μια γειτόνισσα μας έφερε σφουγγαρόπανο και κουβά να καθαρίσουμε μας πήρε στο σπίτι της να λουστούμε. Ξέρεις πώς ήμασταν; Μας έφερε πιρούνια, πιάτα, το ’να, τ’ άλλο. Μείναμε οχτώ μήνες. Η επιτροπή μάς έφερε σκεπάσματα, κουβέρτες, ρούχα που μάζευε από εράνους. Ήταν πολύ καλός κόσμος, μα δουλειά δεν είχε, τι να κάνουμε... Πλέκαμε νταντέλες, κάναμε μπουτουνιέρες∙ ψευτοδουλειές. Παίρναμε λίγα, δε μας φτάναν.
Ήρθε ο καιρός να μαζευτούν οι ελιές, τέλος πάντων. Γύριζαν οι χωριάτες όπου ήταν μάζωξη από πρόσφυγες και τους λέγαν: “Άντε, θα μαζέψετε ελιές, θα φάτε, θα πιείτε και θα πληρωθείτε”. “Άντε, θα πάμε”. Μπήκαμε στα κάρα και πήραμε δρόμο∙ ήταν μακριά, φτάσαμε νύχτα. Ούτε φως, ούτε τίποτα∙ ξέρεις τα χωριά. Τι να κάνουμε, αν αγαπάς. Μας χώρισαν σε δυο μερίδες∙ οι μισές σ’ ένα αφεντικό κι οι μισές σ’ ένα άλλο. Η βρωμιά τους δε λέγουνταν, οι πολιτείες τους ναι, μα τα χωριά! Μας βάλαν να φάμε, τι να το κάμεις το φαΐ∙ από πάνω περνούσαν τα γουρουνάκια και τα σκυλιά.
Πήγαμε να κοιμηθούμε∙ εκεί ’ταν χειρότερα από κει που φάγαμε. Βγήκαμε στο δρόμο∙ τι να κάναμε; Ανάψαμε ένα δαδί και πήγαμε ως το αφεντικό∙ ήταν αδύνατο να μείνουμε σε εκείνο το δωμάτιο. Βρωμούσε τόσο πολύ, που βαστούσαμε αδιάκοπα τη μύτη μας. Πω, πω, πω! Και στ’ άλλο ήταν τα ίδια και χειρότερα∙ μας βάλαν κλαδιά από ελιές για στρώμα.
Εμείς πήραμε δρόμο. Φεύγαμε ποδαρόδρομο∙ πού τα κάρα! Τ’ απογεματάκι φτάξαμε στο καφενείο. Θαρρώ πως το χωριό αυτό το λέγαν Κίσσαμο. Πέρασε κάμποσος καιρός∙ ήρθε άλλο αφεντικό, να μας πάρει να μάσουμε τις ελιές στο Μετόχι, ήταν όξω από τα Χανιά. Πήγαμε όλες μαζί, μας δώσαν δυο κελιά της εκκλησιάς (…) μας δώσαν ό,τι είχαν.
Όλοι οι περαστικοί μας λέγαν: “Να ’ρθείτε και στο δικό μας το χωριό”. Μαζεύαμ’ ελιές∙ σ’ ένα μήνα πήραμε κάμποσο λάδι για μεροκάματο, τρώγαμε καλά. Μας καλούσαν στα χωριά∙ εκεί στρώναν αμέσως το τραπέζι για φαΐ. Δε σου βγάζαν ούτε καφέ, ούτε γλυκό. Βγάζαν τυρί, ελιές, βρεχτοκούκια στο πιάτο∙ ό,τι είχε ο καθένας, φασόλια, μπακαλιάρο. Άλλες περίμεναν στην πόρτα να μας πάρουν, να μας πάνε αλλού∙ και κει ίδια δουλειά γινότανε. Παίρναμε δυο τσιμπιές και τραβιούμασταν. Μας γέμιζαν τα μαντίλια μας με μύγδαλα και σταφίδες. Φύγαμε από τις ελιές, πήγαμε στο καφενείο του μπιλιάρδου πίσω. Καθίσαμ’ ένα διάστημα, ψευτοδουλεύαμε πάλι νταντέλες και μπουτουνιέρες.
Για να μη μαζεύεται ο κόσμος χωρίς δουλειά στις πολιτείες, είχε βγει ένας νόμος να μην αλλάζουν τόπο∙ έπρεπε να σε καλέσουν. Πολλοί πήγαν στη Θεσσαλονίκη∙ τους δώσαν εκεί χωράφια και σπίτια. Δε ξέρω πώς έγινε και γράψανε στην Κρήτη, στην επιτροπή, πως το τάδε και το τάδε πρόσωπο σας καλνά. “Θέτε;”. “Θέμε”. Ερχούμαστε εδώ. Βρήκαμε άλλους σε αποθήκες, δεν ξέρω τι. Η μάνα μου η συχωρεμένη δεν ήθελε να πάμε στη Θεσσαλονίκη. “Τι θα κάνουμε κει; Χωράφια εμείς θα δουλέψουμε; Θα μείνουμε”. Αδέρφια, άντρες, όλοι ήταν αιχμάλωτοι. Πήγαμε στη Θήβα, εργαζόμασταν στα καπνά.
Τρώγαμε, πίναμε, πληρωνούμαστε το καλοκαίρι. Σαν έπιασε ο χειμώνας −κάνει κρύο πολύ στη Θήβα− μάσαμε λεφτά∙ μπορούσαμε να νοικιάσουμε ένα σπίτι δύο οικογένειες μαζί. Συνεννοηθήκαμε∙ είπαμε να περάσει ο χειμώνας και πάλι θα ’ρθουμε να ξαναδουλέψουμε.
Ήρθαμε εδώ, εγώ κι έν’ άλλο κορίτσι. Είχαμε συγγενείς στην Αθήνα, μέναν στου Αλεπουδέλη το εργοστάσιο. Πήγα, τους βρήκα. Ψάχνουμε να νοικιάσουμε σπίτι. Που ’ναι η Ανθίππη; Φαίνεται, πέθανε κι αυτή. “Γίνεται συνοικισμός», μου ’παν, «και πριν τελειώσουν τα σπίτια, μπαίνουν”. Φύγαν οι μισοί απ’ το εργοστάσιο, με τη σκέψη ότι αν τους διώξουν από τα νεόχτιστα σπίτια να μπορέσουν να γυρίσουν πίσω στο εργοστάσιο. Πήγαμε∙ βρίσκουμε την εξαδέρφη μου, είχ’ ένα σπίτι μισοτελειωμένο. Κοντά μέναν πολλές πατριώτισσες. Ήταν ένα σπίτι πάρα πέρα, αυτό που έχω.
Γράφω στη μάνα μου: “Πήραμε σπίτι στον Πειραιά κι ελάτε γρήγορα”, τους έγραψα πως το σπίτι είναι μισοτελειωμένο, χωρίς πόρτες και παράθυρα και μπαίνει όποιος πρόσφυγας προφτάξει, κρεμά ένα άδειο σακί στο άνοιγμα της πόρτας, μπαίνεις μέσα, κάθεσαι κι έτσι το κυριεύεις.
Κοιμόμουν στη γειτόνισσα, δεν μπορούσα να μείνω μόνη μου∙ το πρωί πήγαινα, έβρισκα το τσουβάλι πεταμένο κι άλλους μέσα. “Φύγετε, είναι δικό μου” τους έλεγα. Μερικοί φεύγαν, μερικοί μέναν. (…) Δίπλα μου κάθουνταν μια γριά που είχ’ ένα γιο στρατιώτη του Πλαστήρα∙ τη μέρα πιάναμε κουβέντα, μίλαγε ελληνικά. Είχε ένα χιτώνιο κρεμασμένο του στρατιώτη. Την παρακάλεσα και μου το ’δωσε και το κρέμασα μέσα στο σπίτι, έκανα πως μιλώ με τη γριά και έλεγα πως έχω δύο αδέρφια στο στρατό του Πλαστήρα, το βράδυ θα ’ρθουν. “Δεν πειράζει”, τους είπα, “θα μείνετ’ εσείς στη μια γωνιά κι εγώ στην άλλη”. “Βάι, ογλούμ”, (αλίμονο, γιε μου) είπε η γριά μάνα, “πήγαινε να βρεις τον Αντρέα και πες πως αυτή έχει δύο αδέρφια στρατιώτες”. Μιλούσε τουρκικά. “Εγώ με δύο κορίτσια σε μια γωνιά, κι αυτή με δύο παλικάρια στην άλλη, δεν γίνεται”. Συμφώνησαν, φύγαν και πήγαν παρά κάτω. Έν’ άλλο πρωί ήρθαν δυο νταήδες με τα χέρια στις τσέπες∙ κοιμήθηκαν και παρουσιάστηκαν το πρωί. Αν δεν ήταν ένα παιδί, της κουμπάρας μου αδερφός, που βγήκε στη μέση κι είπε: “Δε μου λέτε, τι θέτε σεις εδώ, στρέψτε τη πλάτη σας”, θα το ’χανα το σπίτι. Από κείνο το παιδί το ξέρω το σπίτι αυτό. Κι είμαι δωναδά μέχρι τα σήμερα».
Αυτοί δεν είναι οι δρόμοι…
Αυτοί δεν είναι οι δρόμοι που γνωρίσαμε
Αλλότριο πλήθος έρπει τώρα στις λεωφόρους
Αλλάξαν και των προαστίων οι ονομασίες
Υψώνονται άσυλα στα γήπεδα και στις πλατείες.
5
Ποιός περιμένει την επιστροφή σου; Εδώ οι επίγονοι
Λιθοβολούν τους ξένους, θύουν σ’ ομοιώματα,
Είσαι ένας άγνωστος μες στο άγνωστο εκκλησίασμα
Κι από τον άμβωνα αφορίζουνε τους ξένους
Ρίχνουνε στους αλλόγλωσσους κατάρες.
10
Εσύ στους σκοτεινούς διαδρόμους χώσου
Στις δαιδαλώδεις κρύπτες που δεν προσεγγίζει
Ούτε φωνή αγριμιού ή ήχος τυμπάνου·
Εκεί δε θα σε βρουν. Γιατί αν σ’ αφορίσουν
Κάποιοι —αναπόφευκτα— στα χείλη τους θα σε προφέρουν
15
Οι σκέψεις σου θ’ αλλοιωθούν, θα σου αποδώσουν
Ψιθυριστά προθέσεις, θα σε υμνήσουν.
Με τέτοιες προσιτές επιτυχίες θα ηττηθείς.
Τεντώσου απορρίπτοντας των λόγων σου την πανοπλία
Κάθε εξωτερικό περίβλημά σου περιττό
20
Και της Σιωπής το μέγα διάστημα, έτσι,
Τεντώσου να πληρώσεις συμπαγής.
Μανώλης Αναγνωστάκης
The workshop in public space brought me back to the original archiving and searching of the history of the building and subsiquentelly the neighbourhood. Keeping the walking from the previous experiment and the historical references I asked my audience to take a walk along side the canal opposite our school. They were given old photographs and were asked to
"find the spot of your photograph and thry to observe what was and what is"
All participants would start looking together while they walked from one bridge to the next, pasing others who found their spot, look for the spot together, wonder.
An attempt on walking though time or with time, trying to place different moments of memories in the space where they happened and happen to observe elements of time passing.
It was very interesting to observe what happened to the space when 13 bodies where wondering, looking and at the end framing something in front of something else.
Could this be a bizzare view for someone who doesn't know what is happening?
But what did they get?
These are not the roads…
These are not the roads we have come to know
A different crowd now creeps into the boulevards
The names of the suburbs also changed
Shelters are erected in the stadiums and squares.
5
Who is waiting for your return? Here the descendants
They stone foreigners, they attack effigies,
You are a stranger in an unknown congregation
And they excommunicate foreigners from the pulpit
They curse the foreign tongues.
10
You in the dark corridors get lost
In the labyrinthine crypts that he does not approach
Not a voice of wild beast or sound of drum;
They won't find you there. Because if they excommunicate you
Some will—inevitably—pronounce you on their lips
15
Your thoughts will change, they will pay off
Whispered intentions, they will praise you.
With such accessible successes you will be defeated.
Stretch yourself by discarding the armor of your words
Your every outer covering unnecessary
20
And of Silence the great space, so,
Stretch to pay solid.
Manolis Anagnostakis
[from Erikoy – Athens]
"The boat left at some point. It took us out to Chios. It was nibbling. What to do, all the doors were closed. We agreed that Chios was not a place to rest. We took a loaf of bread each, each taking care of himself. We went into a grocery store to do some shopping. We got this and that. We went to pay; the grocer wouldn't take our money, he said: "This money won't go through, I don't want it". What to do, we left the stuff and left. But we went out, we found an officer, a policeman, I am not sure, and we said what was happening to us. He seemed willing to help and said: "Come here, let's go to the store" and there he said to the vendor: "Please tell me, why you don't take this money?". Then he turned to us: "Put them in your pocket," he told us, "and take the groceries. I'll pay for you," and then to the vendor, "Aren't you ashamed, don't you see the terrible thing that happened to them? Can’t you see, it’s a miracle they managed to bring even those here?" We took the shopping and we run.
But outside it was purring and it was getting dark. We turned to the orchards, under the trees; there we shall no longer get wet. We got up early. The rain stopped. We were huddled close to each other. In the morning we were on the road again, someone said we were going to Crete. What can I tell you; you remember the good and the bad a lot! Very nice people in Souda. As soon as they saw us, they cooked meat soup and distributed it to us. Whoever had a tin, a plate, a bucket, took bread and went to his family, whoever didn't, ate here.
Then they took us all in carts and took us to Chania. All of us who got off the boat. There was a committee of women and men and they divided us, housed us, where there was an empty place. They put us all in a billiards café. There, we were like little kids playing house; one took one corner, divided it with chairs, another the other, and another took the pool table and turned it into a bed.
A neighbor brought us a mop and a bucket to clean and took us to her house to bathe. Do you know how we were? He brought us forks, plates, this and that. We stayed eight months. The committee brought us covers, blankets, clothes that they collected from fundraisers. They were very nice people, but they had no jobs, what could we do... We wove lace, made boutonnieres, silly jobs. We got a little money, it wasn't enough.
The time came to gather the olives, after all. The villagers would go around where there was a gathering of refugees and say to them: "Come on, you will pick olives, you will eat, you will drink and you will be paid". "Come on, we'll go." We got into the carts and set off; it was a long way, we arrived at night. No light, no nothing; you know the villages. What to do. They divided us into two portions; half to one boss and half to another. I can’t describe the filth, their cities yes, but the villages! They made us food, what to do with the food; the pigs and the dogs were passing over it.
We went to sleep; it was worse there than where we ate. We went out into the street; what should we do? We lit a torch and went to the boss; it was impossible to stay in that room. It stank so much that we kept closing our noses. Oh oh oh! And in the other one it was the same and worse; they put olive branches for a mattress.
We decided to leave and we took our way. We left on foot; no carts to be seen! In the afternoon we arrived at the cafe. I believe that this village was called Kissamos. Some time passed; another boss came to take us to pick the olives in Metohi, it was outside of Chania. We all went together, they gave us two cells in the monastery (…) they gave us everything they had.
All the passers-by said to us: "Come to our village too". They gave us flour, we kneaded bread and baked. We picked olives; in a month we got enough oil for a daily wage, we ate well. They called us to the villages; there they immediately set the table for food. They didn't bring you coffee or sweets. They put out cheese, olives, brechtokukia on the plate; whatever everyone had, beans, cod. Others were waiting at the door to pick us up, to take us elsewhere; and there the same work was being done. We'd take a couple of bites and we'd be hooked. They filled our handkerchiefs with almonds and raisins. We left the olives, went to the billiards cafe back. We stayed for a while, we were working on laces and boutonnieres again.
A law had passed that forbade people to relocate, so people without jobs wouldn’t fill up the big cities; they had to call you. Many went to Thessaloniki; they were given fields and houses there. I don't know how it happened and they wrote in Crete, to the committee, that this and this a person is calling you. "Do you want?" "We do". We are coming here. We found others in warehouses, I don't know what. My forgiving mother did not want us to go to Thessaloniki. "What are we going to do here? We will work the fields? We will stay". Brothers, men, all were captives. We went to Thebes, we worked in tobacco plantations.
We ate, we drank, we got paid in the summer. When winter came - it is very cold in Thebes - we gathered money; we could rent a house for two families together. We agreed; we said let the winter pass and we will come back to work again.
We came here (to Athens), me and another girl. We had relatives in Athens, they lived in Alepoudeli, the factory. I went and found them. We were looking to rent a house. Where is Antippie? Apparently, she died too. "There is a settlement," they told me, "and before the houses are finished, they move in." Half of them left the factory, thinking that if they were evicted from the newly built houses they would be able to return to the factory. We went; we found my cousin, she had a half-finished house. Many patriots lived nearby. It was a house far away, the one I have.
I write to my mother: "We got a house in Piraeus and come quickly". Then I wrote to them that the house is half-finished, without doors and windows, and any refugee who arrives comes in, hangs an empty sack in the opening of the door, you go in, sit down and that's how you take it over. I slept with the neighbor, I couldn't stay alone; in the morning I went, I found the sack thrown and others inside. "Go away, it's mine" I told them. Some were leaving, some were staying. (…)
Next to me sat an old woman who had a son who was a soldier from Plastira; during the day we would chat, she spoke Greek. She had a soldier's tunic hanging. I begged her and she gave it to me and I hung it in the house, I pretended to talk to the old woman and said that I have two brothers in the Plastira army, they will come in the evening. "It doesn't matter", I told them (new people in the house), "you will stay in one corner and I in the other". "Woe, oglum," (woe, my son) said the old mother, "go to Andrea and tell him that she has two soldier brothers." She spoke Turkish. "Me with two girls in one corner, and her with two boys in the other, it's not possible". They agreed, left and went further down. Another morning two bullies came with their hands in their pockets; they slept and presented themselves in the morning. If it wasn't for a boy, my maid of honor's brother, who came out in the middle and said: "Come on now tell me, what are you doing here, turn your back", I would have lost the house. I own this house from that person. And I am still in it to this day."
A small experiment of how to share a story visualy and then create a conversation out of it. We sat (two people) at a table with tea and started talking about the story I had found and at the end it created a responce from my co-conversor to talk about their route.
Inviting to have a tea and share a book was a simple task. But for this experiment the book is empty. We are sitting next to each other, I serve tea and start talking about the story, starting from a picture put on the first page and a sketch of a moment, then a second and a third. SLowly the story unfolds and is connected with the object.
In the end we close the book and I offer it to tutor, thanking her for listening. And then something unexpected happen.
She started sharing her experience connected to the story and a conversation bursted.
A conversation with Emily Huurdeman where she mentioned that through my different experiments what seems to be a common ground is time passing and attempts to observe that passing in space. But what is missing is the duration of it. "Until now you have fragements, and you find ways though fragments to see fragments of time. But you talk about the passing of time which is continuous, endless and present"
am a walker. I walk. It grounds me. It slows me down. It gives me time to see. It allows me to look. “Why don’t you take your bike?” . I walk before I sat to right all this.
I never wear a watch. It annoys me. I can hear it ticking on my hand. I can’t keep it on my wrist. I can’t get used to it on my hand. I can’t write with it on my hand.
I like to stop. I stop looking at something and turn my face to something else. I lean back at the chair I am sitting on. I lean back on the wall I am standing in front of. My gaze moves around and up. “Looking at the floor won’t take you anywhere!”
I like to stay. I stay in a position for some time. I stand. I sit. I position my feet flatter. I pause my walking. I pause my thoughts. “A pause dances.” The pause of the movement is as strong as the movement. The pause.
I am always late. I rush. I run. I need to stop but I shouldn’t. I stop. I pause. Now I am late. “Being late will set you back.”
I am me. I am the person from a noisy big city, from the center of it.
I am the girl who runs with her mother and her sister through a crowded street to get to an appointment. We are always in a rush to get somewhere. We walk through legs, trousers, skirts, boots, sandals, shopping bags, fruit stands, the traffic next to us, the noise of the venders, a constant sound of mumbled talking, maybe rain, always evening, always lights and car horns, a constant pulling of my hand to go faster. It feels like we might catch the time and we won’t be late anymore. As we are crossing everyone in our path fast, they suddenly stop moving, everything pauses and only our time is running. And then we reach the door. And everything unfreezes, and we are back in reality, mum rings the bell, the elevator takes us up and far away from the world running full speed again.
I am the girl who plays through Athenian arcades while her father is working the kiosk of newspapers and cigarettes on the street. I run through suits, shoes, briefcases, the jewelry store, the toy store, the noise of the entrance, the heat outside, the cool inside, the people in a rush. They have a purpose, somewhere to be, up, down, outside, inside. I am not in a rush. It feels like I am in the frozen time now, and everything else is running, passing, crossing. People who know me say hello, strike my hair. Dad calls my name and I am not frozen anymore. He is going home, we are going home.
I am the woman who walks in that street. I am the person who passes through that arcade. Now it’s another street, with different vendors, with less noise, with faces. Now it’s another arcade, with closed shops, vacant offices, empty spaces. Now there is no crowd to run through. Now there is no rush around. I walk with a new lens and a different speed. I walk the streets, I cross the arcades through the buildings, I can see the rush, I can hear the noise, I can smell the rain, the heat. The toy store owner repairing the wooden train, the jeweler standing by his door, the difference on the marble floor where most people would step, the darkness and the silence, everything seem to be echoing what was once through what is left.
I wonder if it is still there. Is it just a mental cinematic trick nostalgia and memory play with my head?
I wonder about the moment that everything freezes. Do I watch the time or am I in the time that froze? Do I watch the time or am I in the time that speeds?
I wonder about the different times. One is the time you run, one is the time you pause, one is the time between then and now, one is the time from then to now. Are there more than the layers we have tried to measure?
I wonder about the grasping of time. Ungraspable things are fascinating. Can I grasp more than a glimpse? Can I keep more than a moment?
I wonder do we actually keep moments. Is a memory a moving image or a still one?
I wonder about slowing down. I wonder if slowly pausing is what I am looking for. Is there a way to see the past, the present, the future there where you stand?
I wonder can we take the time to have some time?
Belarie Zatzman Staging History: Aesthetics and the Performance of Memory Belarie Zatzman Staging History: Aesthetics and the Performance of Memory Belarie Zatzman
Artistic Production in a Migration Context
CATHRINE BUBLATZKY
(from the book Handbook of Art and Global Migration)
The empty house was the assesment experiment concluding the first year of MA Scenography. At this point with the collection of stories there was a need of staging the experience less than staging the stories.
Walking through the neighbourhood around school there is a collection of places where it seems like time stands still. I am refering to older structures or places still standing between the new ones, keeping some memory of the past in them.
An example of that is an old house in the farm space just across from our studio space at Pastoe. It used to be the house of the owner of a laundry factory on this land. Now standing closed and empty seems to have paused in time, more or less like the collected stories and memories of this collection.
My mind has been busy with time, time that slips off my hands, that is ungraspable, invisible, omnipresent but also temporal and, for some, nonexistent.
I have been thinking about how time passes through space and how can that be perceived or experienced. Can you freeze in a spot and observe time passing around? Can you move so fast with time that you become it and then you feel it? Is there a way to walk through a space and witness its time, what was there through what is there? Something interesting appears in the notion of the now that is always already the past when we try to think about it. I try to grasp it, to keep its duration alive even after it passes. I wonder what happens if we don’t think of time as the universally accepted linear passing but as a parallel existence of past, present and future in the here and now.
Through the experiments and the experiences I create, I attempt to find ways for the audience to wonder with me. Placing time in the foreground and taking the time to sit with it, observe and think could be some of my methods. During this journey of finding out my scenographic practice, time has played the role of the tool and of the subject. I take time to observe things, to make things; I use it in a way that holds more in the duration of it than the actual end result. I attempt to approach spaces through their time by investigating the traces of history, memory, nature, human passing through it, and by staying, taking time to look, and placing them hand to hand with the now. “I don’t have time. How could you have time? And then who has time? Where is time? But it passed. But it’s still here. But it passed.” That back and forth situation between what is and what was and where do we, in the here and now, exist between those things sounds philosophical, existential and vague but it is exactly what lights up my mind.
Dueling between the identities of a researcher and an artist, I aspire to be an investigator that asks questions and wonders. How do moments pass, how do memories linger, and how both leave an indelible mark on the world we inhabit? Each attempt to address an audience with a work is a reflection on the tension between permanence and change, inviting the viewer to consider how the spaces we move through are shaped by the temporal forces that shape us. It’s a personal inquiry, somehow always present but now revealed about that thing around us that is endless but passing, that isn’t about what is lost but what has been gathered and the force these gathers offer me.
Alkmini Damianakou from 03/12/2024 until 15/12/2024
Staging History: Aesthetics and the Performance of Memory
The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Volume 39, Number 4, Winter, 2005, pp. 95-103 (Article), University of Ilinois Press
Old houses is a way of noticing time passing through urban space. It is also very linked to temporality in my mind, thinking that for someone this was a home and now it is a closed house.
Connecting that to the stories of displacement and what they left behind an idea immerged.
What if we could see, read, experience that time passing in multiple levels, now, before, somewhere else and here?
On this question I created a tiny book with three stories, one of the closed house I was in front of, one from the collection of memories of this semester and one of my closed house, the one from my life.
The audience was introduced to the book in a small talk before the experiment. Then three pairs of two were made.
Each pair was given a book and two seats in front of the closed house (red umbrelas were also next to the seats - it was a rainy day).
In each pair there was a reader and a listener, one would read outloud to the other, and they could change roles at any time.
"Share the stories with the person next to you, the space around and in front of you and you"
(the audience wasn't informed about the connection with time, only the connection with memory, real and fictional and spacial associations)
The week in Terschelling came in a moment when I was consumed with archival research. The Utrecht Archive had offered everything it could and I had a ton of information about our studio building, but still no making aspirations. So I entered the island with no plan.
Terschelling was presented as a "research retreat" where we either park our research for a week and take a break or find inspiration and let the research take off. For me it felt like maybe a week of vacation. Maybe I should stop looking at things through the written traces and explore.
I am a walker. When I need to think I walk. Also when I want to see I walk. Walking keeps me grounded, slows things down, allows you to be late. And as the island was a struggle with the wind, I decided to find my route and walk it. Close to where we were leaving there was a road, kind of a straight one going to the beach. It passed through a small forest, and some low sand dunes and entered the endless beach of the northen sea. That was my first route. That same road streched all the way to the other side of the island and the dike. Imagine a line crossing vertically an island and you could walk it.
That line that cut the island in two was my newest adventure. I decided to walk it straight and continusly until I got tired. I left the house after breakfast and walked until the intersection with my route. I turned left and staring heading for the dike. The wind was blowing so strong that sometimes I would float rather than walk. It would move the grass around like there was an invisible hand strocking it every nw and then. I walked straight on the path until the stairs. Climbing the stairs and standing on the edge of the island felt a little on top of the world. And then the wind pushed me back and reminded me I had one hour walking from that side to the other. Crossing the fields, passing the houses, I arrived to the little forest. Here, the wind was filtered by the trees. I could still feel it but lighter. The trees were absorbing the noise. And then slowly from the noise of the wind to the noise of the sea.
That day I returned at the house and tried to remember the route I took, the feeling, the difference of walking in different soil, the smells. I documented or I tried to document all of those things on a map, my souvenir from the island
The suitcase
Wendy Morris
LUCA SCHOOL OF ARTS, KU LEUVEN
"The suitcase stands empty in the studio. The thousand letters once crammed into it have been sorted by date, logged, read, some typed up and others photographed. Muriel Leysen, the owner of the case and its contents, died in Johannesburg in the 1970s. The father of the artist has been guardian of the suitcase for over forty years. Following his death the artist brought the case to Belgium. Now, in January a new letter has arrived. This one is from Muriel.‘The Suitcase’ is a waystation in Wendy Morris’s ongoing investigation into the role that letters might play in an artistic research practice."
ESCAPED ROUTED AND WAITING ROOMS, ISCP, NEW YORK
exhibition Jully 30th to September 26th 2014
"In Escaped Routes and Waiting Rooms, Foundland investigates personal stories of mobility and migration around Syria, a place where freedom of movement is strictly restricted due to its ongoing civil war. I two newly created installations, a Syrian family's dinner table is restaged to depict a schematic map of a family where most of its members have migrated from the country over time. The work reveals intimate family momemnts and history set in a ravaged country where millions of people are displaced. Also included in the exhibition is a tent and a video installation modeled in actual tents used in Za'tari camp in Jordan, one of the largest Syrian refugee camps in the world. "
"Constantinopoliad is a handmade book, read collectively by the audience inside of a sound installation. A response to the archive of the poet Constantine Cavafy, the work is inspired by the blank and torn out pages in Constantinopoliad, an epic, the journal the teenage Cavafy began when he and his family fled Alexandria; by lost and missing archives through time; and by the ghosts, both erotic and historical, that visit the older Cavafy in his poems."
At that point I was revisiting Bark, the book of Georges Didi-Huberman about visiting the nazi consentration camps. His keen eye observes and detects how different and the same is a site that from a prison has become a touristic attraction. He walks though the camp with an interogative gaze always aware of the history that surrounds him but also the calmness that seems to conseal it.
One of his phrases triggered doughts about the approach of memory in a very factual almost archeological point of view:
"to look at things from an archeological point of view is to compare what we see in the present, which has survived, with what we know to have disappeared"
This time the archive was made not just searched. In a decision to not share the actual route,withthe rest of us as it was 2 hours long, and everyone was exausted, I decided to share than in the studio. I placed the map on metal stairs, and placed tracing paper on the steps. In a small performative gesture I would unfold the paper up the stairs, while the audience would take off their shoes and walk up the stairs on the tracing paper.
An attempt to take a memory of a time and a space and transport it in another time in another space using the existing elements of the new space in favour of the experience (aircondition, metal stairs with tecture ect)
This project reminded me a little the way I approached the stories when I first found them. I tried to figure out the places mentioned and find pictures of them and of other events at the same period of time. Then I tried to connect them to tell a visual story that could be read without words.
What I am missing from this project and I am looking for in mine is a way to embody the story, to be placed not in a glass box but in front of the spectator for him to engage with.
We walked in the theatre and after the ticket check-in we were given one written instruction: "take a sit next to someone you don't know". Then we walked through the old building of the ITA theatre, towards the new, and up some stairs. We entered a big dark and tall room with around 30 small round tables. Each table had a small table light, a portable radio and four chairs, placed 2 by 2 opposite each other. Two books were also placed on top of the tables, one on each side.
I chose an empty table and later a gentleman joined on the opposite side. We had some time to talk, he was a french professor. A little bit before the performance started another person sat next to me. The lights went out and I realised most tables were full. The makers walked in and sat on their own table. The performance started with music from the radio and the first phrases of the book. They slowly progressed through the story while we were following, unfolding and discovering the hidden magic of the book. One part finished and then the second one was a tiny booklet we could keep. At the end a box was revieled. There where two tiles inside the box, we were asked to hold them and try to imagine the houses the had come from. During the performance a small analogue projector was projecting pictures on a wall and music or sounds were forming a soundscape depending the moment of the story.
What interests me on this art work is that Wendy Morris is using letters not just to collect answers but as a main performer. The method has turned into the performative action by revising old letters and combining new ones.
She mentions:
"To communicate the reflections gained through the research period I was after a kind of writing that was not only about an artistic practice but that was also an integral, creative part of that practice. The formation of the publishable written work needed to be closer to the way the films were created: drawing by drawing. In the films the animated sequences accumulate and are ordered and reordered until they gel into a desired shape. The format of letters as thoughtpieces, each with a different but related subject, allowed for a similar kind of construction and accumulation."
Every part of this performance I felt I was walking through the storytelling. Immersed in the journey of the poet, it was as if our table was the only one in the room and we were reading the book.
The audience experience had less to do with the total research the artists did on the archive of the poet and more to share the story in a relatable and informative way. They touched topics like gay sexuality in the 1920's and the political tensions between Greece and Turkey at the same period, without screeming about them but more focusing on the storytelling and allowing the audience to choose where to pause their minds on. The scenography involved both the setting of the space and the space created inside the book.
This is for me one of the most influensial performances I have seen. It made me realise how I would like to communicate my research with the audience. They created a small universe in that space where we were allowed to travel with the poet and through the soundscape and images get transported to that time, almost like floating next to him.