OVERLAY DISPLAY | ATHENS 2007

About This Project

Through a collaborative project, I came up with an individually designed synthesis linked to the project The Paradigm Alexandros Iolas (Filoppapou group). At this stage I did an installation of four analog, medium format photographs printed in photographic paper of the size 35cmx50cm each. The photographs are accompanied by a text authored by Verpeilt Brigate, in Greek and in English. It was exhibited in the Transleat me-project, Platform-Translation (the phase of this multicultural project in Athens), curated by the artist Zoi Pappa, in the independent showroom Aiolou 48-50, Athens, from 14/11 to 14/12/2008.

Keywords and terms: recuperation, re-appropriating location, ex industrial, private and public space, transforming identity, reenacting, modernization, missing glamour

The main point of my intervention Overlay and Display, in Marwa Arsanios’ work is the idea of recuperating and re-appropriating the removed curtains from Carlton Hotel, and using them both as actual and symbolic limit between private and public space, as well as an artifact characterizing modern monuments created during the post-war/post-fordist era of the two Mediterranean cities. I photograph three different locations around the city of Athens, which in my opinion, are directly connected to the curtains, each one of them in its own special way: the textile factory of AIGAION in Phaliro, an original place of manufacturing curtains, and nowdays an industrial reck, the Alexandros Iolas Vila located at Agia Paraskeyi, a failed museum and modern building mostly in the same concept as Carlton Hotel, representing luxury and reach bourgeois life, a late “Parthenon” symbol of modern art, the Tsalavouta field, an empty field and green space, which while being private according to low, is in use by the locals as open space, located in the ex industrial area at Peristeri, now novo residential area. The last space is converted from green “paradise” and shelter of birds and animals of the city -according to the specific habits of the residents- in a landfill, a storage space, as well as car and truck parking. Although the curtains overlay by their nature, in this case they reveal the transforming identity of the three different city areas of Athens, reenacting these three locations, emphasizing their specificities. The works are acompanied by the helarious text of the Verpeilt Brigate. Athens, November 2008

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