Stories Around the Fire

A poetic performance and ritual procession at the Garden of the National Observatory of Athens, presented within Servare Intaminatum.

Stories Around the Fire
Poetic performance / ritual procession
Garden of the National Observatory of Athens / Hill of the Nymphs, Athens
Presented within Servare Intaminatum, curated by Dimitris Trikas

Nine chthonic figures, nine voices, and many stories about the Earth and the beings that live upon it. Narrations, laments and invocations formed a ritual procession through the Garden of the National Observatory of Athens, on the Hill of the Nymphs, a place perhaps still inhabited by the ancient presences that gave it its name.

The procession culminated in a poetic performance shortly before nightfall. Speech, movement, sound and embodied presence created a temporary field of attention, between ceremony, reading and collective apparition.

The performance was based on texts drawn from issues of FRMK. The event image, a ritual incense burner from Mexico dated to the 5th–7th century CE, was also drawn from the visual material accompanying the current FRMK issue dedicated to performance.

Participants: Lina Velliou, Katerina Iliopoulou, Lenia Zafeiropoulou, Yiannis Isidorou, Panagiotis Ioannidis, Efstathia P., Christos Siorikis, Niki Chalkiadaki and Theodoros Chiotis.

The event took place within the framework of Servare Intaminatum, an exhibition and public programme bringing together 22 visual artists, 6 performance groups and more than 25 speakers.