Project Info
ΙΝ PRESENTIA
Installation: July 15 – September 2
Performances: September 1 & 2
Promachonas Agiou Georgiou (St. George’s Bastion)
Medieval City of Rhodes
IN PRESENTIA deals with the Asia Minor Catastrophe through the notion of grief and our encounter with the sea. Combining light, the movement of the sea and sound, the work serves as a silent remembrance that seeks to tenderly restore back to life what remains precious in our present.
The work is comprised of a visual and sound installation and culminates into two performances that will take place within Promachonas.
The Hall of St. George’s Bastion, an enclosed, stone and secure architectural space with a curved roof, provides the necessary framework for the unfolding of the work. Its curvature acts as an embrace, while the skylights in the roof, offering view corridors of elevation and communication, illuminate its darkness.
At the space’s entrance, the fountain of Heron welcomes the visitors, bathed in the light that pours down from the one and only uncovered skylight. The fountain recalls the cycle of life and perpetual flow.
18 Notes on a Grief, a modular work that develops across a sequence of metallic showcases, introduces the visitor to the darkness of grief, offering at the same time a conduit for reaching our inner self. The light reflections on the last metallic component lead like a gateway to the visual installation.
A large-scale design, drawn with a metallic paint over stripes of handmade paper, instigates a poetic space, like the imprint of a sea relief that transforms through the reflections of the light. Coarse, raw salt lays scattered on the floor and follows the undulations of the work, evoking the foam of sea currents. The natural salts from the stone walls of Promachonas, after patiently absorbing the humidity of the space, are developing like natural expansions of the work.
The space's skylights penetrate both the roof dome and the floor. In the visitor's encounter with the work, the light, this time arriving from the depths of the space, invites their gaze to seek the end of the depth and face the bottom of the sea.
The discreet sound of water drops is transferred into the hall, through microphones placed in the bowels of Promachonas and at places where centuries-old stalactites have been morphed, creating this way an idiosyncratic rhythm. Promachonas is indeed instilling. This unique hourglass – an ancient device used to measure the passage of time – sensitively displays the flow of time, referring to the changing and indeterminate rhythm of personal time.
The grief’s space and time are interrupted, reversed and expanded to the depths of our memories and the overflow of our emotions. The light, ever present even as a slight reflection, is transforming with us and keeping us attached to life’s realm. Grief, as a personal path of accepting loss, gifts us the salt of life.
The work invites the visitor to wander within its premises and listen to it carefully. The installation works as a music score for the two distinct sound performances that will be presented at the end of the exhibition.
IN PRESENTIA is performed and presented as a joint work by the two artists.
With the kind support of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Dodecanese.
Created by: Christina Nakou (visual artist), Anna Pangalou (classical singer, sound performer). Collaborators: Dimitirs Pantelias – Paninos Damianos (lighitng design)
Promachonas Agiou Georgiou, Medieval City of Rhodes, July 15 – September 2, 2022.
Exhibition opening: July 15, 20:30 – Free admission
Performaces: September 1 & 2, 20:30 – Reservations are required
Exhibition opening hours: every Sunday & Tuesday, 9:30 – 17:00 – Free admission
Sponsors: MITSIS HOTELS, DODECANISOS SEAWAYS, HELLENIC SALTWORKS S.A., VAP REFRESHMENTS Communication Sponsors: ERT South Aegean, Lihnari 91.4, Tharri TV
The production is realised as part of the 2022 program of “All of Greece, One Culture”, a series of events organised by the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
Detailed information and seat reservations at https://digitalculture.gov.gr
CURRICULUM VITA
Christina Nakou studied painting, mosaic, and sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts. She has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions, as well as art projects, in Greece, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Austria, and Italy. In addition to her body of work in painting, she has thoroughly researched the ancient mosaics across the Mediterranean region. Her work focuses on materiality and its process as a technique, while proposing an interpretation of mosaics as a documentation of time fragments. Her most recent work was presented in 2021 at the archaeological site of Ancient Messene, in the form of a dialogue with the ancient monuments. As of 2013, she has been exploring the notion of the sea as a locus. Between 2009-2019, she designed and implemented original artistic educational programs for children and teenagers for the Benaki Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Embassy of Norway in Greece, accommodation facilities for unaccompanied refugee minors (ΕΕΑ Grants), the Hill School, Art Athina, among other institutions. Her books are published in Greece by Agra Publications.
Anna Pangalou is a voice soloist/performative artist of dark dramatic timbre, exploring the boundaries of classical vocal practices with the new forms created by experimental sound practices. She has studied classical singing in Cannes, Vienna, Rome, and Athens. She has received awards and scholarships, among others, by the Onassis Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the International ‘Dimitri Mitropoulos’ singing competition. She has appeared as a soloist in Greece, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Egypt, Turkey, and the United States, performing Opera, Lied, Oratorio, New Musical Theatre, and Contemporary Music. She specializes in avantgarde and experimental contemporary music (Alvin Lucier, “So you,” documenta 14, 2017/ Open Day, Onassis Stegi, 2012-2020/ Dimitris Kamarotos, “Suspended,” Prometheus Bound, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, 2020-2021). Further, contemporary composers have written works for her voice. In the recent years, her forays into soundscapes and acoustic ecology, with a focus on water and its various forms, have been presented as projects/compositions at sound installations. She seeks co-creating with artists and thinkers from disparate fields, exploring new paths of perception as an art form.