Amidst the tragic situation of the catastrophic floods that have hit the country in recent days, the 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture presents, from September 8 to October 1, an art work more relevant than ever, the installation Mysterio 166 State of Emergency by the artist Athanassiou Kanakis in the old machine shop at Filomila 3.

A work that draws inspiration from the catastrophic event of the historic flooding of the western suburbs of Attica in 2017 through the imprints of the personal experience of the artist and his family in his hometown and affected area, Mandra.

Mystery 166 State of Emergency

The project constitutes a fragile monumental topography, subject to constant, threatening vibrations, sensitive to external forces that changes daily, wears out, acquires cracks, parts of it are destroyed. What will be left after the disaster-exposition? How is the space between what we strive to save and what ultimately manages to survive filled? In the state of emergency, everything returns to a single organic matter: the biome, the human material, all a mass that claims to slow down the cycle of its existence.

In Mystery 166 State of Emergency, the climax of an ongoing drama is staged: the outbreak of natural disaster, that very moment of the declaration of emergency, when the remaining natural elements pose a threat to the human, when the intimate space is transformed into a field of threat. The tragic realization of a preordained mass retreat: the painful bifurcation of a holistic ecosystem into the unbearably simplistic opposite pair of “man-nature.” The memory of the trauma of a violent separation, of the feeling that we are truly missing when we are “one”.

Mystery 166 State of Emergency

Information

Dates: September 8 to October 1, 2023

Venue: Filomila 3 (Karaiskaki & Kanellopoulou, Elefsina)

Opening hours:

Wednesday to Friday, 17.00 – 21.00

Saturday & Sunday, 11:00 – 14:00 & 17:00 – 21:00

Free entrance

Coefficients:

Capture / Installation: Athanasios Kanakis

Text: Christina Petkopoulou

Production Run: WILD REEDS

Project coordination: Zoe Moutsokou – Directorate of Contemporary Art 2023 Elefsis

An event of the 2023 Elefsis Cultural Capital of Europe

PRESS KIT

Access to Elefsina

#21km

Just 21 km from the center of Athens, one of the most important holy cities of antiquity, the city of the Eleusinian Mysteries and birthplace of Aeschylus, Eleusis is the fourth European Capital of Culture to be hosted in Greece. It can be accessed in the following ways:

By car or motorbike via Attica Odos or from Athens Avenue, just 25 minutes from the center of Athens

By bus (lines 845 and 871 from Piraeus, 876 from “Ag. Marina” metro station and 878 from Acharnes)

By suburban train (stop “Magoula” and then by bus 863)

By KTEL (line Megara – Nea Peramos – Elefsina, starting from Asomaton square in Thisio)