HETEROTOPES - mOther
The photographic exhibition “HETEROTOPES – mOther” by Helen Mesadou, curated by Fotis Kagelaris, opens on Friday, November 29 until Sunday, December 8. This exhibition explores a foucauldian heterotopia that challenges conventions, presenting a comprehensive study of the Mother figure, of anxiety, death, and pleasure, all of which at the same time, bears life.
The event is part of the Athens Intersection cultural program, which brings a variety of artistic initiatives to the Athens Commercial Triangle with the coordination of Georg Georgakopoulos and APART Art Research & Applications, in collaboration with Friends of Trigono Athens (F.O.T.A.) and CHEAPART.
Anguish
bodies striving to detach from one another. To castrate each other, one as the phallus of the other. A plea for boundaries, while at the same time being defined by the lack of them.
The bodies are not naked—they are clothed with expectation, not for an optimistic future but for a healed past.
Mouths sealed in the pain of separation. The anguish is internal; no cry is allowed. The body becomes the altar of the unheard, a resonance chamber of the unutterable that strives to become words after centuries of silence, violence, and pleasure. Silent, like the pain of Laocoön, like Irma’s throat in Freud’s dream.
The gazes are blind, lost in the petrified motion of the bodies; the body is the gaze—a stone world, testimony of fleshly guilt: Med(u)sa- Mesad(ou) gazes at herself in the mirror.
Eleni Mesadou walks the path of great masters like Witkin, Molinier, Arbus, Nebreda, Mapplethorpe, Serrano, who elevated otherness as the very nature of humanity. She brings forth both darkness and light. She reveals the allure of destruction, the ruin as foundation, rupture as value. Photography as therapy does not reject the suffering part; it allies with it, urging it to act in favor of creation.
The entire body of work is the Mother, the phallus of the Mother—uncastrated, primitive, nightmarish, honey-flowing.
The entire work is a foucauldian heterotopia, abolishing convention, belonging nowhere, yet everywhere—a choreography of anguish and anguish, of death and pleasure, that, however, bears life.
Une danse macabre of relentless tenderness.
Curated by/ text: Fotis Kagelaris
aica
Performance program in the context of the exhibition “HETEROTOPES – mOther”
30/11, 20:00 "Nest 01", Athina Kanela
1/12, 20:00 "Memory", Athanasia Tsopanargia
7/12, 20:00 "Eyes to the sky", Semi Alegria
8/12, 20:00 "CAMERA OBSCURA", Angeliki Manta
Set design: Maria Darmou, Sofia Panagiotopoulou
Eleni Mesadou is a photographer, living and working in Athens.
She studied Textile Engineering at the University of West Attica and later attended the Artisanal Pattern Making program at the "Veloudakis" fashion school. Her interest in photography grew in early 2020 when she attended "Pragma Photography" school, where she was recognized for her sensitivity and unique perspective. Determined to further develop her artistic vision, she continued her studies and completed the Master's Program in Photography Research and Methodology at the University of West Attica in 2024.
Eleni has showcased her work both in Greece and abroad. She has curated the exhibitions: "La Petite Mort" [2023] as part of the "Back to Athens International Art Meeting," "Abstract Machines" [2023] within Cheap Art, "Koto-ba" [2022], and "Sinthome" [2024], as part of the Open Street Fair "Local Infection of the Cosmopolitan." Most recently, she curated the exhibition "The Thing" [2024] as part of the "Back to Athens International Art Meeting," continuing to explore new forms of artistic expression.
Opening: Friday, November 29, 2024, 19:00
Duration: 29.11 – 8.12.2024
Hours: Daily 18:00 – 21:00, Sat. Sun. 17:00 – 21:00
25 Apollonos, Plaka Mitrópoli, 105 56 Athens
Coordinated by: Georg Georgakopoulos
APART / F.O.T.A. / CHEAPART
www.apart-network.gr
www.cheapart.gr
https://athensintersection.blogspot.com
