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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Incense
Harris Kondosphyris' suggestion that I "dress"
his Athens-Beijing work with scents was an intriguing
challenge for me, because I had never imagined that the
map of modern art would include paths leading to the magical
world of plants and their hidden powers.
I decided to use a mixture of resins and wood which, when
burned, create responses or stimulate ideas appropriate
to what, in my opinion, the first section of his work
represents. As an accompanying fragrance to his concrete
sculpture depicting a dreamlike or imagined world, I used
many different materials, primarily myrrh, a resin that,
according to legend, was born of the tears of the falcon-headed
sun god Horus. In the Indian healing art of Ayurveda,
myrrh revitalizes the spirit and allows suppressed emotions
to be manifested. In Sufism, the mystic Islamic belief
and practice, burning myrrh creates the inner peace that
is necessary for the seed of the divine word to be sown
in the heart of man. When burned as incense, myrrh has
a rather heavy scent, with strong earthly tones, which
is why it is always combined with other resins or substances.
I chose the "tears" of mastic, which have been
burned as incense for centuries, to foster feelings of
optimism and self-confidence; it is also believed to have
the power to awaken the reserves of energy that are hidden
within us.
The gates to the inner world of wonders -at least according
to the practices of shamans living in the Himalayas, but
also to the teachings of the Chinese Taoists - are easily
opened by the aromatic smoke that rises up when juniper
branches and berries are burned or when their powder has
been stirred into the mixture. The red resin of the eucalyptus
tree was added because it exorcises evil spirits, or so
some people believe, and purges the mind of negative thoughts,
permitting the properties of the red and white sandalwood
to act. Their burning shavings, with a sweet, balsam-like
fragrance, project into the mind images of pleasure from
the Orient and liberate the soul from the bonds of fear,
helping to relieve man of his loneliness.
For the second section, with the polished blades of modern
Athenian reality experienced by migrants, things were
much simpler: I used fenugreek, a spice that can be found
in Greece but is particularly popular in many Asian countries.
It is easy to identify its characteristic strong aroma
in places frequented by migrants, since it is one of the
main ingredients in the curry powder with which they usually
flavour their favourite foods, so expressing their nostalgia
for the past and sweetening the present.
Orestes Davias
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