This piece is trying to capture the feeling of returning to a place you have left. The way memories resurface and mingle with the often changed reality. The feeling of liminality, as if your body itself half-belongs in a dream, while you try to grasp the facts of your surroundings. This piece is about Athens and my struggle to embrace change while holding on to the warmth of the past. 

A couple of people asked me recently in separate occasions what drives me when I make. And both times I said, honestly thinking about it every time, that it is the story. I know when something is complete when the story comes together. Most of the time I don't know the story before I start making, although often I have a hint, a word, an image, an item that I want to work with, and I don't stop working until I'm satisfied. And what satisfies me, is the story that connects the dots.

In fact, once I'm satisfied, I usually keep on working. It is exactly at that point that I start working even harder, very intentionally, feverishly, because I see the path and I'm decided to follow it. This is what happened with the sculpted creature here.

I knew I wanted texture, an extra sculptured element. I had a background image that had developed through a process of trial and error until it made sense. There was some space that asked for attention. I added a blob, it looked shiny and interesting, but it was not enough. I already had at that point the general idea of a creature protecting the figure (or at least what I saw as a figure) in the background, so then I intently started working towards making it clear, at least to me. And since I had a story, once the image was complete I felt the need to enhance it with a poem, heroic and just a tiny bit cheesy, like a pure heart. 

It is all about reciprocity, loyalty and lawful goodness, in an RPG sense. The dog is the archetypal embodiment of these qualities, but people assume similar roles, especially towards those they feel the need to protect and nurture, which are often children, siblings or peers that are perceived as weaker. Generosity, kindness and care can be contagious, and the last lines of the poem show how strong, trusting relationships can build up from small gestures.

I will protect you

I will protect you

from the thing

that tails you through

wind and rain.

From what finds you

in the sun

and drags you

back below. I will

be the guard

dog, the watcher, the 

catcher, the shield

the amulet, the one

you touched

and did not hurt.

This pocket photobook is part of a larger project that explores the role of repetition in the formation and deconstruction of bias. Repetition in this context will be examined from different angles: A frequently taken route, the spreading of news, beliefs and opinions, an obsessive thought.

Points of departure: Repetition and nominalism. Repetition and mechanization. Repetition as variation. Repetition as progress. The narrative value of repetition and its role in performativity.

The power and the many faces of repetition in connection to the formation of opinion and bias will be explored through different media. This book is the first manifestation, the first topic addressed: Seeking and finding answers through repetition, and the attraction of the familiarity repetition brings.

The first edition of this book is printed in limited numbered and signed copies. Each copy is unique and fully handmade.

The pictures below show the first one of these copies: 48 pages, grayscale, 11x12 (cm), archival paper 100gr (Conqueror, oyster) on archival paper 240gr, (Dali, chamois), chain stitch:

The flip book video shows a color version of the book (physical copy in the making). 

Repetition


 Locked in a series of movements

 in a frame made of gestures

 circling words

 and behavioral loops

 that I had to repeat
        (until I broke through)

 I learned that progress is a spiral

 and that there is no such thing

 as repetition.

 Although I memorize the steps

 I follow the sequence

 I copy and paste

 the half-empty days

 and their dummies for reference:

 A sunset, a beach, a building.

 The pattern is similar but

 there is no identical point in time

 and each repetition brings me closer

 to a still escaping answer.

 But
      even after I quench my question

 I keep going back

 to the comfort of the familiar

 because after all

 I am just a creature of habit.

You can read more about the poetry issues project here.

Poetry Issues #29 is highly influenced by my studies in Experimental Publishing at the Piet Zwart Institute. The work spans six months, a reasonable time to allow the development of different themes, approaches and methods.

Infrastructure

This piece is part of a larger collaborative work, an interactive, infrastructure-related installation soon to be presented in the upcoming xpub group exhibition (27-30 June, S/ash Gallery, Rotterdam). I also like it as a stand-alone piece, so this is how I present it here.

The poem is performative (improvisational reading) and list-based, simulating computerized speech: a form fitting the content.

Ways In and Ways Out

Desperation

"Desperation" was a thought inspired by the COVID-19 times, but it applies to every prolonged instance of trauma, that eventually becomes unconscious, and it takes time, distance and healing to realize its true dimensions.

As a piece, it incorporates elements from the past, such as a mysterious old recording I've been curious about for years and recently retrieved from an old mini-cassette recorder, and a footage of a place very deeply connected to childhood memories. It's more of a poetized thought than an actual poem, and although it's closer to prose I decided to follow the voice rhythm to create the written lines rather than doing it the other way round.

Care

With "Care" I feel that I go back to the roots of my love for art. Music was in the beginning of it all and now it's time to reconnect with it in a manner that feels complete. "Care" was a poem in the making that I had forgotten about for a little while and when I found it again I saw that it was more of a micro-song. It could have taken many forms, and I can definitely hear me screaming the lyrics in a different version, but this is how it crystallized (at least for now). The visuals were also brewing for a while in the background, with ideas revolving around time-lapses and chalkboards.

Metaphors

Metaphors never cease to amaze me. They are often better and conciser at getting the meaning of the most abstract notions across than a simple description of a situation. As flexible molds, they shape and embody our individual thoughts helping us make sense of our experiences in a collective manner. In this piece different metaphors come together to express a sense of womanhood compiled by different experiential states.

  You can read more about the poetry issues project here.

This piece is part of a larger collaborative work, an interactive, infrastructure-related installation soon to be presented in the upcoming xpub group exhibition (27-30 June, S/ash Gallery, Rotterdam). I also like it as a stand-alone piece, so this is how I present it here. (Images and details regarding the installation will follow in another post.)

The poem is performative (improvisational reading) and list-based, simulating computerized speech: a form fitting the content. It makes visible the infrastructural networks that mirror nature in the organic way they form and expand. Despite their efficiency and our continuous effort to advance these man-made systems that sustain contemporary living, our dependence on them often leads to feelings of isolation and alienation, instead of fulfillment and unity. 

The imagery is a raw ffmpeg rendering of a busy city scene (Rotterdam), reduced to flickering pixels and shifting fragments. Buildings dissolve into patterns and this digital breakdown blurs and performs the boundary between technological grids and natural growth. 

Ultimately, Infrastructure invites the viewer to reflect on dependence, identity, and interconnectedness, inhabiting the fragile tension between systemic framework and lived experience.

Infrastructure Infrastructure Infrastructure

roads railways

bridges tunnels

water supply sewers

electrical grids telecommunication

do you communicate?

internet connectivity

do you feel connected?

commodities interrelated systems

services essential to enable sustain or

                                     enhance

societal living conditions

do you feel enabled? do you feel sustained?

do you feel enhanced?

hard infrastructure

physical networks

necessary for the function of a modern

industrial society

roads bridges railways

soft infrastructure

education

statistics

parks and recreation

law enforcement emergency services

Emergency Emergency Emergency

Infrastructure

synonyms

base framework

infrastructure as in foundation

noun strong matches footing groundwork

root support

do you feel supported? who do you support?

do you feel rooted? who do you root for?

Ways In and Ways Out

"Desperation" was a thought inspired by the COVID-19 times, but it applies to every prolonged instance of trauma, that eventually becomes unconscious, and it takes time, distance and healing to realize its true dimensions.

As a piece, it incorporates elements from the past, such as a mysterious old recording I've been curious about for years and recently retrieved from an old mini-cassette recorder, and a footage of a place very deeply connected to childhood memories. It's more of a poetized thought than an actual poem, and although it's closer to prose I decided to follow the voice rhythm to create the written lines rather than doing it the other way round.

With "Care" I feel that I go back to the roots of my love for art. Music was in the beginning of it all and now it's time to reconnect with it in a manner that feels complete. "Care" was a poem in the making that I had forgotten about for a little while and when I found it again I saw that it was more of a micro-song. It could have taken many forms, and I can definitely hear me screaming the lyrics in a different version, but this is how it crystallized (at least for now). The visuals were also brewing for a while in the background, with ideas revolving around time-lapses and chalkboards.

Care

I don't want you to care for me

care is for the hospice of emotions

I want your voice to burn like love

turn away from the care-ful cold

where feelings go to die.

Metaphors never cease to amaze me. They are often better and conciser at getting the meaning of the most abstract notions across than a simple description of a situation. As flexible molds, they shape and embody our individual thoughts helping us make sense of our experiences in a collective manner. In this piece different metaphors come together to express a sense of womanhood compiled by different experiential states.

metaphors

Men
I had three pens lying around.
None of them really worked.

Emptiness
She started counting her ribs. There, in the middle of the forest. When she came back from her walk, she called immediately her doctor: “I need to have an X-ray asap; there’s something wrong with my insides.”

Mother
She was picking the hairs from the floor, one by one, or in tufts, if they were clustered. With a sense of urgency. The same sense of urgency she had when the phone rang. Wired landline. Darting from the kitchen, running down the marble corridor, sometimes deciding within seconds at the kitchen door which phone to run for, the one in the living room (closer) or the one in the bedroom (more private).

Back to hair picking.

She would often go in absurd bowed circles, like a weird alien dancer. She would let you talk and in the middle of a sentence she would fix her eyes on a corner and, already bowing, she would go there straight to pick up the hair.

What does depend upon hair? I often wondered.

Not anymore.

Voltaire
I will not spend another night with you in my life, but we can still text if you like.

You can read more about the poetry issues project here.