Date: 8.5.2019
Location: Church of Agios Antonios, Dimitriou Margariti 4, Thessaloniki
As part of the 2nd #SKG Bridges Uprising Art & Culture Festival
Participating artists: Andreas Ragnar Kasapis, and Nektarios Pappas
In the heart of Thessaloniki’s residential center, a small church—a sanctuary now far removed from its former function—borders on the bustling gathering places and city institutions, such as the central library, Makedonikon cinema, Navarinou square, and the universities.
The church of Saint Anthony, patron saint of those experiencing mental illness, functioned a century ago as an asylum, where the “insane,” as they were commonly called, were led for redemption from demons and fears. The oddments from the copper chains have disappeared along with the patients' cries, covered not by "divine mediation" and exorcisms but by the relentless demands of urbanization.
Starting from the site itself, contemporary visual artists Andreas Ragnar Kasapis and Nektarios Pappas, were invited—one century later—to create two new in situ installations. They each interact with the memories and history of the space, as well as specific elements of consciousness and its absence. At the same time, their works seek to comment on the loneliness and cruelty that the mentally ill experience and the taboos that keep these people still marginalized.
Visual and sound landscapes, drawing on shifting origins and references, create a series of abstract motifs that embrace neighboring buildings and activate psychotropic processes in an attempt to reconcile the past with the present, the memory and its disruption. At the same time, the listener's ability to identify the source of a sound is directed to unexpected sequences, where fragments of the unconscious meet human perceptual processes and function as a mystical litany for psychic relief. This rhythmic synchronization of the body's organic processes and its internal frequencies with the external rhythm of the installation refers to what is widely called entrainment, aiming to guide audiences—through the intangible waves of sound and images— into a drifting harmonization with therapeutic resonance.
Cinematographer Konstantinos Hatzinikolaou documented the conception and production of the works in the artists' studios, as well as the event at the church of Saint Anthony.
Video