Echoes and Object Alliances

Inspired by discussions around the archaeological imaginary, this work explores how we look at sculptures of human figures in a context where they are not portraying particular individuals, rather proposing imagery that are constitutive of a cultural communality. In this context, I see photography as a tool that can unearth and re-enact imaginary accounts by revisiting and restoring historical or archaeological sightings both in the present tense and for the present moment.

Referencing the concentric assembly of ancient terracotta votive figurines that were discovered around the altar at the sanctuary of Ayia Irini in 1927 (now partly Cyprus Museum, Lefkosia, partly Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm), the work functions as a study on how figures form a constellation and context by staging a physical encounter with them as living objects. Instead of using Tamata – small flat metal votive disks embossed with body parts, brought by worshippers as manifestations of their hopes and wishes to famous icons in Greek Orthodox churches – the work brings together prepared bones from a mid 19th century teaching collection (University College Hospital, now UCL Pathology Collection, London). Representative of their equally anonymous donors, collected without a full record of the person they came from, the constellation of these specimen invites imaginary leaps of origins, directions, materialities and layerings of time.

• https://www.artchaeologyproject.com
• http://nimac.org.cy/archives/7117
• https://www.artchaeologyproject.com/arti...
• http://nimac.org.cy/en-gb/exhibitions/ex...