WORTHY of RESPECT – THE 14 SHADES of the VULVA, or, NEITHER GOD, NOR MASTER, NOR SPOUSE | ATHENS, CHALANDRI,2025

About This Project

Materials various readymades: ties, sink, faucet, assorted kitchenware, soil. Dimensions variable (approximately 0.80m x 0.40m & 0.80m x 0.80m x 0.60m). This is a sculptural installation in two parts. The first is located in the main exhibition space. The second is located in a public space, in the small green area at the intersection of Potamou, Kalamá, and Fóskoulou streets.

After several losses, mainly human lives, but perhaps more so social and human values, we live alongside the “ruins of demolitions of all kinds.”

In the first part, I present a collection of ties, tied and shaped in a rather paradoxical way, forming the female human organ, the Vulva. Through a curiosity about gender difference, I researched the etymology of the word. I ultimately discovered that the word “Aidoios” in ancient Greek was an adjective and means “the worthy of respect”. 1 As female genital organs – responsible and accountable for every mammalian life on the planet, as the entry and exit of our species, for you and for me, for us – have long since lost the value of respect and are considered filthy, vile, foul-smelling, and generally worthy of rape and commercialization and certainly not of respect, here I attempt to reverse the image of the respectable tie, symbol of modern patriarchy, symbol of proper masculinity in the modern era into an androgynous image. On a second level, these ties themselves as objects of use reflect and testify to the socio-temporal stratifications of the modern era. The patterns, various styles, and colors speak of the respective cultures of formal events. The ties belong to the collection of my late uncle Stelios L., a famous figure from another era, the era of the post-dictatorship period.

The second part of the installation consists of objects from the hearth, placed on the ground. Household, collected from the personal spaces of people who died, people who lost their homes due to the invasion of funds, and finally, people whose lives were torn apart in one way or another, suddenly and perhaps unfairly. The 14 shades of the Vagina awaken us from the slumber of human arrogance towards nature; they emphasize and magnify the arrogant distortion of the political animal. They curse those elements of our civilization that demolish the values of the common good. Should the river take them?…

The meaning and history of the word: Aidos (pudency). Giorgos Papazachariou Date: 27/01/2023. The phrase “Aidos Argeioi,” which in simple Greek means “Shame on you, Argeioi (men from Argos),” is used derogatorily as a reprimand to groups of people when they say or do shameful things. Less commonly, the phrase is also used as an individual reprimand. This phrase, which we first encounter twice in Homer’s Iliad, refers to all Greeks and not only to those originating from Argos. As they called the entire army of the Achaeans ‘Argives’ and ‘Danaans.’ The first to shout it was Stentor in his effort to encourage the Greeks to show courage in the fight against the Trojans, after Achilles’ withdrawal from battle. With the same phrase, Ajax reproached the Argives when, frightened and disheartened, they allowed the Trojans to threaten their ships with burning. A learned borrowing from ancient Greek, ‘aidós’ comes from the verb ‘aidéomai -oumai,’ meaning to respect, feel shame, or forgive. But what is aidós? It has nothing to do with guilt or remorse; it is moral conscience, respect for unwritten laws, honor, and self-respect. It is not related to the shame or fear someone feels when others perceive that they are not conforming to the demands of their community (this feeling was expressed with the word ‘aischýne’). It is the shame felt towards internalized values, the code of honor, and the voice of judgment. The cognate word ‘aidoio’ (vulva) etymologically comes from the adjective ‘aidoios,’ which means ‘worthy of respect, respectable.’ This adjective is also attributed to Zeus (Aidoios Zeus – Zeus as the god of mercy). Similarly, ‘Anaidis’ refers to someone who does not show respect. ‘Aidestimologiotatos’: used to address a married priest with a degree from a Higher School, and ‘Aidesimotatos’: a married priest without a degree. The value of ‘aidos,’ which restrained a person and made them capable of living harmoniously with others, corresponds to today’s concept of social conscience. Social conscience is the awareness of a code of internal and social behavior, that is, the perception of principles, values, and social institutions. These make coexistence, understanding, and interaction possible, while at the same time limiting hostility, arbitrariness, uncertainty, and detachment. However, it is established when all citizens (both rulers and the ruled) behave according to this code. Source: The ‘Words’ are included in the Books – Diaries of Giorgos Papazachariou “Traveling with Words” 2020 – 2024, published by the Taksideutis editions, which we share with the permission of both the publisher, Kostas Papadopoulos, and Giorgos Papazachariou. (Retrieved on 25/6/2025 from the link: https://www.kamini.gr/aidos/) Other links: https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%B4%CE%BF%CE%AF%CE%BF%CF%82 https://old.eyploia.gr/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=2027 https://www.eleftheia.gr/enimerosi/gnoriste_to_swma_sas/anatomia_aidoioy/