Art exhibitions, participatory performances, screenings, installations and temporary interventions in public space, featuring international artists from all over the world
This September, 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture gathers globally renowned artists from Europe to New York and Japan – with an emphasis, as always, on local artistic production – and transforms Elefsina into a meeting point, a space for reflection and open dialogue for creators, visitors and the local community – a centre of visual arts. The painfully relevant installation by artist Athanasios Kanakis from Mandra, on the theme of the disastrous flood in 2017; a project by visual artist Jenny Marketou on water rights and hydropolitics; ten exciting nights of screenings and meetings in an open-air cinema, curated by Marina Fokidis; an exhibition by international artist Mariko Hori, who explores the relationship between language and the city; a lush garden flourishing in an abandoned industrial site; a performance and a temporary work – the end result of a series of participatory workshops – inspired by the rhythms and the shapes of the sea and the journey of the seeds by the EIGHT team. These are just some of the events of the month in the city of Elefsina.
In particular, from 8 September to 1 October, the installation Mystery 166 State of Emergency – more relevant than ever – by artist Athanasios Kanakis is presented at the old machine shop at Filomila 3. The work alludes to the historic, catastrophic 2017 flooding of the western suburbs of Attica, through its imprints of the personal experience of the artist and his family in his hometown and disaster-striken area, Mandra.
From 13 to 24 September, the Elefsina Film Club hosts the screenings of Mystery 73 Cinema Paradise: Industries of Coexistence by curator and art theorist Marina Fokidis. For ten nights, the audience will have the chance to watch groundbreaking works of video art, documentaries and film essays created by 22 globally renowned artists from 12 countries and to engage with the creators themselves in a historical open-air cinema in the city, with a view of the sea. Among the works to be screened are a documentary created in collaboration with the shipbuilders’ association at Gadani, Pakistan, the lost Atlantis by award-winning Ben Russell, the short film by Evi Kalogiropoulou starring Giorgos Mazonakis, which won a prize at the Cannes Festival, the legendary What Are the Clouds? by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the journey of a container from Rotterdam to Los Angeles and Hong Kong by film theory guru Allan Sekula, and much more.
On Saturday, 16 September, from 18.30, the results of the project Mystery 43 School of Waves and Weeds will be presented at the IRIS factory. Exploring the poetic and political interrelations between production, development, parasitism and inertia, the participatory workshops “Together, All Islands Make an Archipelago” and “Seeds and Weeds” showcased local ecosystems and mutual support networks. Through interdisciplinary collaborations between scientists and artists, the EIGHT team put forward educational approaches that trace the rhythms and forms of the sea and the flights of seeds. At the IRIS Factory, a sound walk will be presented, a video-artwork that stemmed from the workshops, as well as a participatory performance open to the public, which will attempt to create an ephemeral intervention with practices and materials that have been used during the workshops.
Simultaneously at the IRIS Factory, Brian Michaels’s Mystery 200 Mythological Gardens transforms an empty, deserted and abandoned space into a lush garden to revive the narrative of ancient Eleusis and ancient Greece as well as their connection with the city’s recent and contemporary history. The garden, the core of the project, will be enriched with activities, soundscapes, performances and screenings curated by Brian Michaels, Sozita Goudouna and Kate Peila. The opening will take place on Saturday, 16 September at 19.00, with a walking performance by Brian Michaels and Andreas Konstantinou, while the dreamy and ironic performance A Crack by Anna Furse will be presented on 1 October.
Also, from 16 September to 1 October, the exhibition of Mystery 42 Futuring Waters, a work created by artist and educator Jenny Marketou, who is based in New York, will be hosted at the Canteen art hub. Through a series of public interdisciplinary and interartistic meetings that took place from last May to June, the artist introduced young people, children and citizens of Elefsina and the wider region to innovative ways to co-shape new potential socioecological futures with water as an active agent in the formulation of civil society and public space. The exhibition – the result of those meetings – includes installations, videos, photographs and artworks made from a variety of organic non-polluting materials, plasticine, fabric, paper as well as legumes, shells and oysters. Mystery 42 Futuring Waters ends on Sunday, October 1, with the presentation of the special publication A Speculative Manifesto for – and from – the Water of Elefsina, the product of onsite interdisciplinary research, featuring texts by the participants of the meetings and a comprehensive manifesto, a written declaration for the water rights of Elefsina, introducing the concept of nature as a legal entity.
In the framework of the same project, on Friday, 22 September at VLYCHA – Ship Graveyard, Marketou organizes a public sculptural intervention titled The Hatchery using tabby, a mixture of shells, oysters, sand, algae and water. The Hatchery proposes a poetic interpretation of underwater habitats inspired by the architecture of oysters: a complex function that involves the purification of polluted waters and ensures the ecological well-being of seawater in an environmentally degraded area such as VLYCHA.
On Saturday, 16 September, the exhibition Mystery 169 If the Wind Blows by the Japanese-born international visual artist Mariko Hori opens at the Elefsina Old Town Hall, with support of the EU-Japan Fest. Inspired by the Japanese proverb “When the wind blows, the barrel maker gets rich,” meaning than any event may lead to an unexpected outcome, the artists walked for a whole week around Elefsina and talked to its residents, asking them what would happen if the wind blew in their city. In tune with the city itself as well as with the current global situation, she attempted to reformulate this proverb by updating it and predicting the dynamics that 2023 Eleusis holds for the future. The new version of the proverb that Mariko Hori puts forth also begins with the words “if the wind blows,” but ends with a different sentence which reflects the modern world and the local character, following the narratives that evolve in-between.
Finally, the flagship contemporary art event of 2023 Eleusis titled Mystery 3 Elefsina Mon Amour: In Search of the Third Paradise, curated by Katerina Gregos, artistic director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST), continues until the end of the month at the spaces of the Old Oil Mill Factory and the X–Bowling Art Center.
Information:
Mystery 166 State of Emergency
Art installation
Dates: 8 September to 1 October
Opening hours:
Wednesday to Friday, 17.00 – 21.00
Saturday & Sunday, 11.00 – 14.00 & 17.00 – 21.00
Venue: Filomila 3 (Karaiskaki & Kanellopoulou Str., Elefsina)
Mystery 73 Cinema Paradise: Industries of Coexistence
Screenings of video art, documentaries & film essays
Dates: 13, 15, 16, 17, 19 to 24 September
Time: 20.30
Venue: Elefsina Film Club (Elefsina coast, Kanellopoulou & Nikolaidou Str.)
Mystery 43 School of Waves & Weeds
Sound walk
Date: 16 September
Time: 18.30
Venue: IRIS Factory
Video screening & participatory performance
Date: 16 September
Time: 20.00
Venue: IRIS Factory
Mystery 200 Mythological Gardens
Dates: September 16 to late December
Time: All day
Venue: IRIS Factory
Opening – Walking performance
Date: 16 September
Time: 19.00
Venue: IRIS Factory
Performance A Crack
Date: 1 October
Time: 20.00
Venue: IRIS Factory
Mystery 42 Futuring Waters
Exhibition
Dates: 16 September to 1 October
Opening hours: Wednesday to Friday, 17.00 – 21.00
Saturday & Sunday, 11.00 – 14.00 & 17.00 – 21.00
Venue: Canteen art hub
Performance-installation The Hatchery
Date: 22 September
Time: 18.30 – 20.00
Venue: VLYCHA – Ship Graveyard & Canteen art hub
Meeting point: Canteen art hub
Meeting time: 18.30
*Walk to VLYCHA
Presentation of publication and end of exhibition
Date: 1 October
Time: 18.00 – 20.00
Venue: Canteen art hub
Mystery 169 If the Wind Blows
Art exhibition
Dates: 16 September to 1 October
Opening hours:
Wednesday to Friday, 17.00 – 21.00
Saturday & Sunday, 13.00 – 21.00
Venue: Elefsina Old Town Hall
