Reflections on the ‘non-project’ of the Memory Group, Metochi Study Centre, Summer 2024

The ethnographer as an artist and/or the artist as an ethnographer,[1] engages in processes of observation, comparison and interpretation, discovering new methods of learning and unlearning, knowing and unknowing. In this exploration, one might experiment with the idea that “art is our survival mechanism on both an individual and collective level”.[2]  The following text reflects on the work in progress and installation/performance of the Memory Group analysed from a personal point of view. After a short presentation of the theoretical framework on which our work was based, a description is given as well as a brief analysis of the group’s installation/performance. Additional thoughts on further development of this ‘non-project’ can be found at the concluding remarks.

The group’s initial inspiration sparked from the concept of reconnecting with nature through memory and art’s possibilities of learning and unlearning. How do memories materialise in everyday life, in the present? What is our positionality and responsibility towards our environment, nature and the Other(s)? The question of learning and unlearning through nature and the ways with which some level of harmony can be reached between humans and nature, refers to the concepts of trust and contact, humanity, unity into ourselves and with our environment.[3]

 Gradually, during our installation/performance, we realised that what we can learn through art is one’s connection with the ‘inside other’. As the art critic and historian Hal Foster highlights, the political truth is situated in the ‘inside other’ and ‘here and now’, not somewhere outside of us.[4] On this basis, we attempted to collect memories coming from lived or narrated experiences of our participants-interviewees that relate to the notion of ‘belonging’ and with which they connected songs/artistic expression defining their/our identities.

Memory Group was a name coined by the curatorial team of our ‘non project’ during our stay at Metochi Study Centre, Kalloni, Lesvos, in July-August 2024. The term ‘non-project’ is used as a method defining a working process which was not based on a rigidly pre-defined and pre-designed project. It started developing on the main notion of ‘belonging’ experimenting on the cognitive role of art. The cognitive value is something that we chose to look into, on the basis that we could possibly learn or even unlearn by experiencing a work of art, as it always remains open to meanings. The artistic/ethnographic impact of our Encounter is still, in progress.

The work of art is being produced and reproduced in continuous and repetitive ways through the different and unique perceptions of the viewers/participants and there is a multiplicity of meanings attributed to it, that are open to interpretation. The uniqueness of a work of art is integrated into the context of a tradition, as it reproduces certain cultural values. The historical role of the artist and revolutionary, is to point out a momentum “here and now” and to detach it from the ‘continuity’ of history, altering the sense of temporality.[5] According to Walter Benjamin, the authenticity and uniqueness of the work of art and the originality of its existence in a specific spatiality “here and now”, defines its “aura”. Its authenticity is always the result of reproduction and repetition, at the moment where one is experiencing the work of art.[6] Similarly, according to contemporary approaches of ‘affect theory’, as the feminist scholar Sara Ahmed claims, ‘affect’ does not concern emotions that pre-exist between the artists and the viewers, but it is an interchangeable feeling that circulates among the bodies and is being produced anew every moment on a specific context. In this sense , the notion of “here and now” in art’s reception, ideally produces a kind of world-changing materiality.[7]

The multiple ways to perceive a work of art, link to Roland Barthes’s concepts of the openness of meanings and of intersubjectivity (“in relation to”) on the interpretation of art. According to Barthes, there is a vast difference between seeing/hearing and looking at/listening to something; perceiving the world around us through our senses, is happening in a creative and reciprocal manner. The meaning is being shaped in terms of relationality, as it’s not something that pre-exists; consequently, the interpretation of art has no limits, since the meaning is not being imposed by the author\artist.[8] Following or re-inventing “indigenous forms of knowledge” in art practice, offers ways to confront and defy “the western form of thinking” [9] that is being imposed on our ways of thinking and way of living, as if there was no alternative. Procedures of knowing/unknowing (“performativity of knowledge”) through the multiple ways of sensing and engaging with the world around that art practice offers, contribute to preserving and prospering “human sensory perceptions, which have evolved”[10].

 Entering the ‘space’ of the Memory Group

The group’s installation/performance took place in the library room of the Metochi Study Centre (‘Bibliotek’). During our fieldwork outreach the previous days, we had met locals from Lesvos of all ages and discussed with them, focusing on issues concerning their own definitions of local identity. The majority of them, unfortunately, apologized for not having been able to come over and participate at the event, due to the day and the time that it took place. It was afternoon in the middle of the week. Our installation/performance was set as follows: The participants were entering the room from an open door decorated with a scarf which kept the entrance half-hidden and were asked to sit around the tables in the middle.[11] They could also take a look at the books on Lesvos history and culture, on the tables at the side, read the text on the white board in both Greek and English – see the picture below – or listen to this text being played on a loupe and watch the pictures taken during the group’s fieldwork that were shown on a screen. On the tables at the centre, there was a bag full of stones, a white bedsheet on which words alluding to the notion of ‘belonging’ were written down in both English and Greek, tree leaves, a bowl of water, markers and plates of raisins and olives. We were cleaning the stones throughout the session by spilling a bit of water on the tree leaves and wiping them, before offering them to the participants. We were posing questions that we, as well, were supposed to answer: “What means ‘home’ for you?”, “What would you take with you if you were obliged to leave your home and/or what would make you feel like home in a new place?”, “Which song reminds you of ‘home’?” etc. The participants-interviewees were writing down their answers on one of the stones of their choice, answering to the main three questions that we were posing. At the end, a few of them kept their stones.

We looked for traces/aspects/multiple views of identity, using symbolic communicative ways, such as asking the participants which objects would make them feel comfortable and they would take with them if they were obliged to leave their home/homeland. The terms of “memory” and “home” were used questioning the (im)possibility of returning back to the roots and (re)defining both metaphorical and real sites of belonging.[12] The symbols of semi-dead tree leaves, stones and olives[13] reveal a point of connection between ‘natura morte’ and our ‘non-project’s’ ceremonial characteristics-traits: “Is nature protecting us or are we protecting our nature? What can we learn through nature?”[14] were phrases taken from the narration that was playing on a loupe on the background of the picture’s slideshow.

Archiving can be used as a metaphor for identity shaping and reshaping. A kind of a ‘native archive’ emerged, which is depicted on the photos from the event that show books about Lesvos and its cultural history and traditions on the tables used as benches for the exhibition.[15] Also, pictures playing on a loupe on the screen showed empty old rooms/buildings/villages taken from our last fieldwork outreach; spaces that could be ‘filled with’ memories. An abandoned building captured our interest due to the missing parts inside and out of it, as it gives the freedom to re-create it/re-construct it as a whole by one’s own imagination, motivating creativity and the multiplicity of interpretations that an artwork can offer; meaning is being created “in relation to”, “here and now”. Like a hybrid ceremony, the symbolic-performative act of cleaning the stones with freshly watered tree leaves, was a kind of preparing them before offering them to the participants. It corresponded to the idea of getting rid of the burden of silence and oblivion, by liberating/expressing oneself through drawing, narrating and singing about the roots/origins. We created an archive of stones – stones: πέτρες/λίθοι vs oblivion: λήθη; the words in Greek sound exactly the same: [líthi], in spite of the different spelling; the meaning attributed to them in this specific context is the opposite of oblivion – symbolising stories waiting to be told and to resist oblivion, using memory as a rereading of History and the past.

 Singing/photography/video shots on what reminds the participants-interviewees of ‘home’ and individual and/or collective narrations of what really means ‘home’ to them, constituted ways to communicate and exchange emotions and experiences, like for instance, the translation of ‘home’ in their mother tongue, ‘the smell of corn’, or ‘I learn that home needs to be me’. Their answers varied from individual definitions attributed to the notion of ‘home’ to the individual/ collective memories expressed through a familiar song which allude to the familiar sounds leading to the recognition of habitat (“appropriation of space”) or “recognized noises” which are often interrupted in everyday life by noise pollution. [16] By asking the participants-interviewees to respond to their experiences and memories of ‘home’ – the making of their identities – through drawing or singing, we expected them to actually attribute their own meanings to the notions of local identity and belonging (nativeness, locality, tradition).

Creating “new forms of relations”? A work (still) in progress

In a space where the materiality of memory and the cognitive value of art are expressed, one of our principal goals was to examine how the notion of ‘belonging’ articulates with memories and identities and how they come into dialogue with each other “here and now”, through narration, photography, singing and written text; not only by expressing oneself, but also by creating and causing to happen. 

Frames such as environment, specific time and place, pose the crucial questions of being ‘in relation’ with the Others, “here and now”, considering and preserving nature. How can we reactivate/’resurrect’ the idea of coexistence and of constructing a world where respect, tenderness and equality towards our natural environment and towards each other will reign? What could we learn through our senses? Visual material (photographs and videos) taken during fieldwork outreach by the Memory Group, added to the newly made artistic works by the interviewees-participants, constitute a new ‘archive’ in progress that is being created inter-subjectively, through this provisional Encounter. Nostalgic memory artistically transforms on a collective and intersubjective level into singing. Exchange and circulation of emotions (‘affect’) throughout the audience/participants’ bodies, functions as a healing, as for example, according to affect theory, we do not only feel with our minds, but also with our bodies. Through learning/unlearning processes, the functioning of material memory (memory of memory) works as an antidote to oblivion and as a symbol of the concretization of identity and reveals the continuous interplay between remembrance/forgetfulness.

Can this work in progress help us to imagine the world differently? Can we imagine continents without borders? How can this installation/performance or several traits of it develop from now on? Political meanings of justice and equality can be transmitted through works of art, since both their making and interpretations do not presuppose or include hierarchies
or definitive rules and fixed meanings. Art as an “instrument” of knowledge can pose questions regarding the borders of Europe by imagining/creating “new forms of relations[17] and by offering ways to remain critical towards eurocentrism and European xenophobic policies. How do European borders’ policies receive the wandering ‘anonymous’ bodies? This non-project could develop by challenging Encounters with the participation of locals and migrants, insisting at the notions of locality/insularity. Inhabiting Lesvos, observing and experiencing interactions and mobility in everyday life, show that this island at the edge/borders of Europe, even though it feels like a passage, it also seems like a border of doubtful reception for those who are in search of ‘home’, haven and belonging.

*All pictures were captured by the Memory Group and the curatorial team members

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[1] Hal Foster, “The Artist As Ethnographer?”, in The Return of the Real: The Avant-garde at the End of the Century, MIT press, 1996.

[2] Quoted in Lucy Cotter, (ed.) Reclaiming Artistic Research. Hatje Cantz, 2019, p. 29.

[3] Similar approaches can be viewed for instance in Joseph Beuys’ installations/performances How to explain Pictures to a Dead Hare and Olivestone. The dead hare as a symbol of resurrection represents ‘dead nature’ (‘natura morte’) and olive oil is considered as a product of history (stone) and peace (olive). See Beuys’ installation Olivestone, 1984, that was part of the project “Defense of nature”, presented at the International Fair of Contemporary Art in Paris – It was also shown at the Museum of Industrial olive-oil production in Lesvos, 2009 – and Beuys’ performance/ Installation How to explain pictures to a dead hare, 1965.

[4] Foster, “The Artist…”

[5] Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History” or “On the concept of History” (1940), in (ed.) Hannah Arendt, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken. 2007 (1968).

[6] Walter Benjamin, “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” (1935), ibid.

[7] Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Edinburgh University Press, 2004.

[8] Roland Barthes and Roland Havas, “Listening” in Barthes, The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art, and Representation, trans. Richard Howard, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985, p. 245-260.

[9] Quoted in Cotter, Reclaiming…, p. 25, 28, 29.

[10]See Joseph Beuys’ interview on “How to explain Pictures to a Dead Hare”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo47lqk_QH0&t=617s&pp=ygUsQmV1eXMgSG93IHRvIEV4cGxhaW4gUGljdHVyZXMgdG8gYSBEZWFkIEhhcmU%3D.

[11] Sitting around the table and ‘waiting’ for the participants to take part at the performance, was inspired by Marina Abramovic’s performance The Artist is Present, 2010: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/964.

[12]Inspired by Mike Kelley’s artworks about memory and (not) returning back ‘home’: Fortress of Solitude, 2017 and Educational Complex, 1995.

[13]Inspired by Joseph Beuys’ Olivestone and How to explain pictures to a dead hare? (see above).

[14]Inspired by Artavazd Peleshian’s short film The Seasons of the Year, 1972.

[15]Inspired by Christian Boltanski’s artworks on archiving: Archives, Reserve of the Dead Swiss, Archives du coeur, Eyes.

[16]Barthes, “Listening”, p. 246, 247.

[17]Jacques Rancière, The politics of aesthetics: the distribution of the sensible, trans. Gabriel Rockhill, New York: Continuum, 2006, quoted in Anke Coumans, “Art as Encounter”, in (eds.) Jeroen Boomgaard and Rogier Brom Being Public. How Art creates the public, Amsterdam: Valiz, 2017.

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Inspired by Luisa Passerini’s project “Bodies Across Borders: Oral and Visual Memory in Europe and Beyond” (2013-2018).