2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture presents the visual art and research project Mystery 15 The Living Museum, by the visual artist and Emeritus Professor of the School of Architecture of the NTUA, Vana Xenou. The major retrospective exhibition, opening to the public on Sunday 30 March, is hosted at two emblematic locations in the city: the renovated IRIS factory and the Archaeological Site of Elefsina, revealing its dual identity, between the sacred and the industrial, initiation and oblivion.
The multidimensional artistic intervention combines research methodology and archival composition, artistic practice, and design approaches that explore the historical and contemporary identity of Elefsina. The central reference point is the artistic and theoretical work of Vana Xenou, focused on Elefsina, which, through a thirty-year journey, has been tested and presented in various spaces, cities, and countries, complemented by new artistic creations. Through a combined intervention, the city is revealed as a living museum, as a place of constant initiation, where the past is not a static narrative but an active process of transformation.
In this context, the concept of loss is transformed into creation, giving new meaning to the cultural palimpsest of the city, new semantic and symbolic extensions to its historical and mythological dimensions. Elefsina, as the largest sanctuary of the ancient world and as a modern industrial area, carries a complex identity that makes its space a continuous field of cultural reflection.
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.
As Vana Xenou states: “In philosophical terms, initiation represents the fundamental change in the existential condition: the initiated is someone different after the initiation; initiation introduces them to the human community and to a world of spiritual and educational values. Those initiated in Elefsina experienced something beyond and above their individual fate.”
Mystery 15 The Living Museum is a living field of exploration between history, memory, and the contemporary identity of the city, guiding the visitor on a mystical journey.
