Since the deconstruction of our large-scale installation Trash Temple at the grassroots artspace Chaosmos ∞, its parts are being scattered out into the city scapes of Athens, challenging the boundaries of public art and street art. But since the lockdown of Greece in early March we are unable to finalize our project to fill the city with a new life of ritualistic sites, hidden oases of silence in the midst of the buzzing metropolis. Instead we created a series of works as a new project to make our imagination flourish in this time of isolation: ‘Find the imaginary spot’.

Trash Temple is a site-specific large-scale installation that was built collectively with golden, empty beer cans found and collected in the culturally diverse neighbourhood of Exarcheia in the centre of Athens. Initiated by the Vandaloop collective, it included collaborations with refugees and local artspaces, international artists and researchers and was exhibited in the local grassroots artspace Chaosmos ∞. Find the spot – Urban Athens was meant to finalize the whole project in bringing the beer cans back to the streets in which we collected them – now no longer in the form of trash but in the form of sophisticated art.

While Athens is well known for its growing artistic scene, it is dealing with huge issues of ecology and the recent eviction of its squats which were the homes of refugees. At the same time there are many abandoned neoclassical buildings that could be used for living or artistic events. Our project was meant to create awareness of these issues, not only between the walls of an exhibition but in the public space for everyone to see.

‘Find the spot’ as a public and urban intervention emerges from the extracted parts of our exhibition that are expanded to the public space, to landscapes, rooftops, taking over abandoned buildings in different neighborhoods of the urban space of Athens. It merges future potentials and hybridity with functions of public art, creating a bizarre ecological perspective.

Image I: Tryptophobia - bee-hives made of beer cans occupying an abandoned neoclassical building in the district of Metaxourgeio

Image II: Urban Temple - sun disk made of beer cans on the rooftop in the district of Exarcheia, in the background the Lycabettus, one of the three hills of Athens

Image III: Extraterrestial - satellite dish made of beer cans on the rooftop in the southern suburbs of Athens

Add

Find the spot – Urban Athens