Mystery 15 The Living Museum, the emblematic exhibition by Vana Xenou that highlights Elefsina as a living museum and a timeless urban sanctuary, continues at IRIS and the archaeological site of Elefsina until Saturday 31 May. Public guided tours with Vana Xenou will take place on 17 May and 24 May at 19:00.
This multidimensional project — a combination of research methodology and archival synthesis, visual art practice, and design approaches — invites the viewer to experience the transition from melancholy to vision, from a ruined present to a place of spiritual awakening.
Evocative creations, such as the dominant sculptural Persephone – The Maiden, the large-scale titular painting, the installation Eleusis featuring 26 bronze sculptures, Emerging Gaia, The 20 Columns, Nystis, the 15 Marble Inscribed Slabs, The Ancestors – and The Ancestors in the Depths of Mythical Thought – across these two venues, shape affinities and continuities. The real and the mythical, descent and emergence, death and transmutation, the sacred and the initiatory, lead to an experience of initiation.
The research focuses on the long journey of the Elefsinian Mysteries, highlighting the historical and mythical fragments that make up the physical, cultural, and anthropological essence of the city. The spectacular or large-scale sculptures exhibited in spaces of heavy symbolic importance both within and beyond the borders, together with evocative new works, spatial constructions, landmarks, and architectural designs, do not propose a static reading of the city. On the contrary, they invite the viewer to experience the transition from melancholy to vision, from a ruined present to a place of spiritual awakening. The proposed spatial constructions and landmarks connect time nodes from different periods, offering the visitor – the contemporary flâneur – an experiential journey.
