Greeting
by Deputy Minister of Culture
Mr. Petros Tatoulis
Shadow
Line
A landscape is identified with its shadows
Harris Kondosphyris
Dido's
Problem
Harris Kondosphyris
Athens-Beijing
Irini Savvani
E
M I G R A P H S (Fragments)
Panos Bosnakis
How
I wrote the Emigraphs
Panos Bosnakis
Incense
Orestes Davias
The
musical circle of emigration versus the circular music
of foreign lands and homesickness
Vassilis Kokkas
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Shadow Line
A landscape is identified with its shadows
An architectural landscape is identified with
and assimilates its shadows. The existence of shadow is
indispensable for a landscape to find a place under the
sun. To be adequately illuminated, so that its scale is
revealed, so that it emerges in human culture.
A short shadow; a long one. Shadows are not the same in
every land; they have a different depth, they spread around
the object; others fill the objects. These last ones are
the most interesting. Shadows born in the light of dawn
or dusk, where landscapes stand against the light, their
outlines clearly visible, full of black material, with
infinite depth. Shadows function as milestones marking
access to the city, to the area of urban symbols. The
Acropolis stands clearly delineated, full of black material,
against the light of sunset on the Saronic Gulf. The milestones
of cities are the archetypes of civilizations, easily
transforming into postcards. The beauty of shadow has
been discovered. The architectural beauty of shadow seems
strangely still, as if it were dust indelibly staining
a building. Light and darkness are inseparable in an eternal
uninterrupted serenity.
The shadowy archetype of a Chinese pagoda becomes the
ark of an age-old civilization, the one that developed
shadow theatre. It is an Orientalist model, mocking everything
that Westerners think China is. A pagoda and its reflection
float against the horizon in front of spectators' eyes,
and the performance begins. Its protagonists are the ten
thousand Chinese expatriates of Athens. Cram-packed in
the ark, they sail across this side and that.
This side and that is a correspondence with many repercussions,
some of them self-evident. This side is the Chinese shadow
theatre and that side is the Greek Karaghioz shadow theatre
with the matchless architectonic simplicity of its stage
set. What is less clear is the great popular culture of
relief panels with their projecting slopes and their narrative
windows, filled with the figurative illusion of reality.
The vacant windows are toothless displays of the panel
icons. They have been profaned! At the same time, this
emptiness of the windows is a measure of the inherent
value of the living images born in the memories of expatriates
as opposed to what the native inhabitants of the metropolis
are able to project on them.
The Ark functions as a filter for images, for windows
which are illuminated; yet, in the furthest recesses,
where light cannot reach, the smooth shadows of all those
expatriates move along in a dreamy light—the shadows of
all those who to the native population seem to have emerged
out of the heart of darkness.
They are unknown to them; they are like them.
Harris Kondosphyris
Lofos Skouze, Athens,
February 2 2004
ΒΙΒΛΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ
1. Απ. Γιαγιάννος-Ι. Διγκλής, Ο κόσμος του Καραγκιόζη,
Σκηνικά, Εκδοτική Ερμής Ε.Π.Ε., 1977
2. Απ. Γιαγιάννος-Ι. Διγκλής, Ο κόσμος του Καραγκιόζη,
Φιγούρες, Εκδοτική Ερμής Ε.Π.Ε., 1977
3. Στάθης Δαμιανάκος, Θέατρο Σκιών. Παράδοση και Νεωτερικότητα,
Εκδόσεις Πλέθρον, 1993
4. Τανιζάκι, Το Εγκώμιο της Σκιάς, Εκδόσεις ¶γρα, 1992
5. Τζόζεφ Κόνραντ, Γραμμή Σκιάς, Εκδόσεις Ερατώ, 1996
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