Photography as Performance / “Reframing memory, performances” – Athens Photo Festival 2015 – [6th Edition] Curated by: Nikolaos Stathopoulos, Sylvia Solakidi, Demosthenes Agrafiotis. Hosted at Benaki Museum, Athens.
www.inferno-magazine.comwww.photofestival.grwww.dagrafiotis.comThe title of the exhibition “Photography as Performance / Reframing memory” gave me the idea of this performance. I thought of covering my body with snails, washing my hair inside a carton, spitting small marble balls from my mouth, blowing milk on a pot with daisies, filling a balloon with iodine and pop it, being naked and dirty. I thought of hybrids, time, space and how I can visualise childhood memories on my body. Parasites grow where time goes slow like in childhood memories. Children like to hide things in their pockets, hide themselves and spit, seeing rainbows. Like snails.
Penelope Delta (1874-1941), whose stories have been familiar to generations of Greek children portrayed the Museum’s founder, Antonis Benakis by recalling his childhood exploits “After all his pockets were always filled with so many treasures. You could find everything inside! Balls, pebbles, twines, and sometimes a piece of chewed gum, and, above all, the glass triangle that had fallen from the chandelier of the church and made many beautiful colours as you put it in the sun. Τhe entire wealth was inside Antoni’s pockets”.
Photos by Maria Tzanakou.