Dolphin Spectrum started from the Danube riverbed and originates from the East Aegean Sea, the island of Lesvos. A personal journey of movement meets humanity’s efforts for a better living and is accompanied by myths from the past and the need for meaning-making. Seeking the familiar elements of one’s identity, the “dolphin” shows ways of being. Expressions of adaptation and possibly rebellion from oneself.

“Again and again the path from destruction to a new beginning leads through the sea, perhaps most clearly on the island of Lemnos, but also in Leukothea’s leap into the sea and Lykurgus’ pursuit of Dionysus. The Attic etiological writers even thought that the Skira reflected Theseus’ departure for Crete.’ This connection is quite natural for those who live by the sea: so many things disappear into its vastness never to return again; other things wash ashore, bringing unforeseen benefits. The fear of death and happy deliverance, loss, and recovery are closely related. Whenever the sea receives the unspeakable sacrifice, purity and innocence seem to be re-established. And yet there must be consequences: the sea is just; it receives and it gives. The return from the sea was almost stereotypically accompanied by the image of the most beautiful, the nimblest, the most nearly human of all the inhabitants of the sea-the dolphin.” p.196, Walter Burkert, Homo Necans (1931)

With this excerpt, I was encouraged to examine the dolphin’s entity historically and especially locally (starting from the Aegean) and to follow the footprints of the myths/stories concerning it. At the same time, I find it very amusing how symbols like the dolphin do not only appear as kitsch illustrations in the marine industry, on holiday brochures, or on ice cream brands, among others but reveal their deep and possibly historical connotations in the social psyche of peoples living close to the wet element. Similar water symbols and deities express how these societies depend on the sea for their survival and, ultimately, how these symbols “emerge’ from the water in order to create meaning. How their ancestors in the prehistoric Aegean gain redemption or “a new beginning” through the occurrence of related myths and recurring rituals.

In essence, the works exist between the spiritual and the very practical.  As tools carried and garments worn in rural areas are still the main axis of reference. In Lesvos, horsemen wear a specific scarf around their waist or neck depending on the type of work and the season. Women also wore scarves to protect themselves at work as well as for aesthetic reasons, while their wide trousers also served as crop collectors (olives, etc.).

Trust explores the multifunctionality of the artistic object and the need to realize itself through its use in the field, in social gatherings, and as a tool for collecting fruits, etc. Silk, a fiber of animal origin, has been specially chosen for its ‘magical’ ability to maintain and balance body temperature and for its durability. The depiction and its performativity explore the importance and the complexity of “trust” in building a community and welcoming to the commons.

Donau saved my life makes a direct, personal reference to the importance of water in the daily life of a wanderer. The swan is decorated with embroidered elements on an old grain sack of my grandmother’s. 

Dolphin Spectrum was launched in 2021 and continues on its journey.

A subconscious representation of reality through language, possibly made by subconscious naivety in the desire to include other life forms or by a nature-created deceptive phenomenon of a dominant predator that in the absolute eyes of humans eventually translates as “nobledeer”.

“jalopeura” in Finnish means “lion”.

It is a compound of “jalo”, meaning “noble”, and “peura”, meaning “deer”.

Jalopeura is a raw linen fabric dyed with indigo and the edges are unfinished, giving it an untamed quality. The word is imprinted with a technique that protects the original fabric from the dyeing process. Thus, the work gives the sense of balancing at the intersection of semantic worlds,  just as the composition of the word itself almost masks its ultimate meaning.

Spoiledgals is the creative duo, Eirini Tiniakou and Zoe Mastrotheodorou (dancer-choreographer) who collaborated in Denmark and Greece.

The work was an experimental performance piece in two parts, Kolyva and Troublemaker. For the creation of the costumes and installations, materials were sourced second-hand or found in nature.

In the theme of the first work Kolyva (which in Greek culture is a wheat-based dessert offered after a funeral to honor the dead), we experimented with the concept of falling and soil, and, the environment of Bornholm influenced the aesthetics and direction of the works substantially (the streets of Bornholm island are littered with discarded car parts). Zoi’s costume was a hand-sewn cotton skirt with straps and paint, a leather hand-stitched top with a gold metal brooch “Ö”; meaning “Island” in Danish.

Troublemaker drew inspiration from the building and its history ( Former Ursulines School of Naxos) and “rebelled” through kinesiology that approached themes like ataxia, womanhood, and loudness. Zoi’s costume was assembled by borrowing a work uniform from a friendly car service/ rental shop and the sound was curated by Suzuki (Vera Chotzoglou) and ACS (Stefanos Koutroulis).

CERN’s (European Organization for Nuclear Research) aboveground laboratory landscape is surprising for its simplicity, its storage, and almost late-communist architectural style, its silent echo, and the feeling that no one occupies the space. Located between the border of France and Switzerland, in the valley below the Haut-Jura mountain range, a truly beautiful landscape, the facility becomes somehow mystical and completely silent. Nothing prepares the visitor for what collides below.

Was it once a green field where cattle came and went? Looking for correlations that contrast with what today’s landscapes reveal, I imagine valleys untouched by exploitative human activity. And a pasture that coexists with the seasons and the animals.

Below the ground, where the main work takes place, there are sketches on the walls of the offices, stickers on the doors with anecdotes and memes that make the notion of an endless universe comprehensible to their temporary guardians; you find family photos of sailing trips in the Mediterranean from the summer of 2003, other memorabilia lying on the desk, yet, the spaces seem empty.

My own souvenir experience required a photograph of where my hypothetical flock of sheep once grazed. And so I begin to intersect the work of the shepherd with the role of the scientist.

The uniform becomes a cape, and the shepherd’s cape becomes a uniform for devotion to the flock, observation of atoms and bursts of matter, body coverings reserved for heavy labor, and superstructures reserved for experiments. The single color of the universe is officially called the “cosmic latte,” a familiar classic beige, perhaps a color of populism often worn by high society.

I can’t help but notice the common trajectories with the life of a researcher (to be more precise with the profile of a non-temple-lab scientist who stumbles between very fluid fundamental thinking and questions about the universe, nature, and the lab/field).

At the same time, I deeply ponder how researchers extend their habitat and human interaction despite their focused practices. How do the herders adapt and find grouping in what they do while their environment – their field of work – continues to be constrained and transformed by human exploitation itself?

Does a cross-fertilization between the one who cares for particles/flocks arise? What are the main tools in their practices? The music of the shepherds’ flute, now disappearing, or the whistle, the sticks used to transport an animal, for observation and navigation. The researcher’s compass and measures, the super machines in the laboratory, and the companion dog.

The project was created during the collaboration of my MA in Art & Science with the Art@CMS initiative of CERN.

Public Opinion consists of 33 photographic prints whose originals date from the late 19th to the 21st century. The prints are embedded with text (parts of each photograph are cut out and text is inserted in their place). 

All the images were either photographed in Greece or referred to people who originated in Greece. The content of the phrases as well as their composition has been carefully considered and is placed based on the “public” assumptions of each photograph. The character of the text is either informative, commentary, sarcastic, or even poetic, and creates a connecting narrative between the images. Some of the interspersed phrases speak of the origins of the material goods and natural resources that build the content of our world and feed it, while others comment on the historical and moral direction of the subjects. The installation was initially arranged linearly as western history/thought unfolds. 

The work is an attempt to create a dialogue between the artist and the viewer on issues related to humanity’s physical and industrial activity and its management as well as the choices of everyday people. 

The issues presented in Public Opinion critically question their very nature and origin. Moreover, the title itself is self-contradictory. What is “public opinion”? What is “objective”? Is “public opinion” inclusive or representative of the ‘public’? Moreover, this work studies the way in which information versus image can be told, suggested, and, most critically, distorted. Finally, it questions the authenticity of beliefs that are unfiltered for common consumption, wishing to reconnect the nature of things with our ability to perceive ‘truth’ and self-contradict.

The work was presented as my BFA thesis at the Athens School of Fine Arts.

I spent my student years in the northwestern suburbs of Athens, in an apartment where the balcony was adjacent to a lemon tree that my grandfather had planted in the 1980s.  As in other neighborhoods, lemon trees are an integral part of the history of the Athenian urban landscape. They remind us of the people who, moving from the countryside to the city, brought lemon tree seeds with them and planted them in their small yards. So was I, opening the balcony door and cutting a lemon for my juices and recipes. One time, when the harvest season was near, I shared the news on social media saying “free lemons – come and get them”. But no one showed up. This raised questions about consumerism and the relationship to “value”. 

So I designed the following action, using these lemons:

Stage 1 – Cleaning the lemons collected from my garden, grating the zest, mixing and grating the zest with sugar, squeezing the lemon juice, mixing the juice with the zest and sugar mixture, and finally, straining the juice. 

Stage 2 – Pouring the juice into a paper cup, adding fresh water, and offering the lemonade in exchange for a personal story, which will be listened to carefully and recorded [vocally] if permission is given.

The aim was to offer a different perspective on the product-currency, individual-collective and personal-non-personal dichotomies in the context of an interdependent society. At Lemonade – Story Exchange, we participated with the aim of listening and communicating with each other and with the public in general. Participants had the opportunity to be heard and the power to turn their story into “currency” and drink the lemonade.

Moving on (to a later 3d stage), the stories after being recorded, were written down and compiled without any editing of the discourse in book form.  The majority of the resulting stories were about love and relationships, while others recounted strange encounters or critiqued the art world.

The action took place outside the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, as part of the “Perform Inter-dependency” project, an international collaboration between the Athens School of Fine Arts, the Kassel School of Fine Arts, and the Zurich School of Fine Arts. The book was later exhibited in Kassel.