a-letheia

sculpture / learning site
documenta 14, Athens, Greece

2016 – 2017

In 2016 I was invited to join the aneducation team of documenta14 as an artist. Formally employed in the informal position of an artist in the context of public education provoked a series of questions and learning trajectories regarding the role and function, positionality and possibilities of an artist as a team member. Responding to this invitation through practice strongly resonated with the curriculum of documenta14’s complex organism dynamically emerging between Kassel and Athens. Navigating often juxtaposing and always overlapping agencies and workloads of the artist and team member over the duration of one year allowed for a dreaming up and the manifestation of the two interdisciplinary art projects: Narrowcast House, in Kassel and A-Lethia, in Athens.

Aletheia is a Greek word meaning truth, frankness, or sincerity. It is the opposite of lethe, which means forgetfulness. Relating truth to not-forgetting, the neologism “A-Letheia” suggests “a truth,” something drifting between remembering and forgetting. Acknowledging Athens periptera (kiosks) as local memory nods the project responded to the gradual and systemic disappearance of the kiosks in Greece.

Situated between two inactive kiosks located in the neighborhoods of Psyri and Kypseli, A-Letheia invited residents, local artists, and organisations to reimagine common ways of using public space. Exploring the ongoing erasure of architecture and memory in the city manifested in a collaborative series of interventions, installations, walks, workshops, concerts, screenings, theatre shows and events. Conceiving a long lasting process that might see the kiosks resist the erosion of time A-Letheia became one of the few documenta projects leading to self-organised citizen initiatives demanding for the work to remain after the closure of documenta Athens.

Further links:

a-letheia documenta 14

Links to collaborations and events:

a-letheia: giant steps
a-letheia: a-dash
a-letheia: karagiozi kiosk
a-letheia: same page different corner
a-letheia: brass walk
a-letheia: my neighbourhood kypselli 
a-letheia: steki
a-letheia: kethea in action
a-letheia: imrpovised micro theatre 
a-letheia: echo of echoes
a-letheia: kiosk ksoik