Constellations Exploding Anew

When George Seferis visits Cappadocia in 1950, some three decades after he himself left as an immigrant from Vourla in Smyrna, his birthplace, he is impressed by the fragments of previous civilizations he found there. He visits the frescoes he finds in the cavernous churches, sensing the fragility of a place that has been a refuge for many cultures in times of war and persecution, recording his observations in the form of a diary. Instead of focusing on the clash of cultures and hostilities, he seeks answers in the figures of the frescoes and in the figure of the popular craftsman who captures ‘with clumsiness, but also with all the coolness of spontaneous gesture’ an authenticity that may have been lost in religious iconography through its gradual standardisation. The collective, and in his case personal, trauma creatively gives way to the observation of a source of human strength that points to the common root of existence outside of ethnic divisions.

How can the creativity found in these forms of spontaneous and symbolic production be translated into the present? Are folk art production and its echoes a vocabulary capable of incorporating historical and social resonances? Could folk art correspond to a sense of identity rooted in the primordial and the universal, as opposed to national identity?

The group exhibition Re-exploding Constellations traces the interactions and divergences between two cultures meeting within an existing geographic context, while extending beyond it through the narratives of the materials themselves and the connections proposed by the participating artists. Through six installation-artworks, the artists present their own interpretations drawing on the study of styles, traditional art forms, material and immaterial rituals, historical and anecdotal narratives.

Parallel activities
Folktale workshop for children by Filia Dendrinou (4/7 at 11.00)
Guided tour of the exhibition with the curator and artists (4/7 at 18.00)
Narration of folktale by Filia Dendrinou (4/7 at 19.30)