Mystery 15 The Living Museum, the emblematic exhibition by Vana Xenou that highlighted Elefsina as an open museum and a timeless urban sanctuary, successfully completed its cycle.
The exhibition was presented from March to July 2025 at IRIS and within the archaeological site, attracting around 1.500 visitors from both Elefsina and other cities. Additionally, educational tours were organized for six schools in Elefsina, involving 250 students, along with three open public tours that drew significant participation.
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.
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.
Evocative creations—such as the commanding sculptural figure 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, Ancestors, and Ancestors in the Depths of Mythical Thought—shaped connections and continuities across the two exhibition sites.
The real and the mythical, descent and emergence, death and transmutation, the sacred and the initiatory converged to offer an experience of initiation.
With the support of the Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attica.
The project Mystery 15 The Living Museum is realised in the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0” with funding from the European Union – Next GenerationEU.
