Villa De Olmen - Wieze (B)
opening 13 sept at 15h
from 19 sept till 11 oct 2015 on sat & sunday
'Landscape as memory'
__________________________________
Title – AION.2015.KRITI
Production dates –
recording in Crete: 19-23 May 2015
montage: June 2015
print: 25 June 2015
Presentation format –
– Two LCD screens or projectors/beamers
Video 1: Kriti (around Maleme)
Video 2: Zeus (mountains above Aliki & the resistance headquarters)
– optional: print “Destroyed Anogia” (photo made in a restaurant in
Anogia)
Presentation places and dates –
– 1-5 July 2015. D'ART, Artenova, Mechelen (B)
– 13 September - 11 October 2015. Landscape as Memory. Villa De Olmen,
Wieze (B)
Subject (1)Zeus
… It caused Rhea immense pain, as a mother, to hand over her children to Cronus. When she realised she was to bring another child into the world, she went to her parents Uranus and Gaia to ask their advice. 'Go to the island of Crete', they told her, 'where you will be safe from your husband's violence.' Rhea did as they said, and once again she brought a little boy into the world, and hid the child in a lonely, dark cave on Mount Ida to save his life. (from 'Die schönsten Sagen des klassischen Altertums' by Gustav Schwab ed. Richard Carstensen – 1956)
Subject (2)Resistance during World War II
– the mountains above Aliki and the secret harbour near Tsoutsouros
sheltered the Cretan resistance
– kidnapping of General Kreipe: on 23 April 1944, a small group of resistance fighters and some Andartiko kapetans kidnapped the general and
took him to the other side of the island. On that heroic journey, they hid from the furious Germans in Anogia (which was later bombed in an act of revenge), in the cave of Mount Ida. The general was finally picked up by a boat from a beach near Rodakino on 14 May that took him to Mersa Matruh (Egypt)
Concept –
Aion is a Hellenistic deity associated with time, the orb or circle encompassing the universe, and the zodiac. The "time" represented by Aion is unbounded, in contrast to Chronos who represents empirical time divided into the past, present, and future. Thus Aion is a god of eternity, associated with mystery religions concerned with the afterlife, such as the mysteries of Cybele, Dionysus, Orpheus and Mithras.
"To see the ghostly outline of an old landscape beneath the superficial covering of the contemporary is to be made vividly aware of the endurance of core myths." AION.2015.KRITI " has been built around such moments of recognition as this, when a place suddenly exposes its connections to an ancient and peculiar vision of the forest, the mountain, or the river. A curious excavator of traditions stumbles over something protruding above the surface of the commonplaces of contemporary life. He scratches away, discovering bits and pieces of a cultural design that seems to elude coherent reconstitution but which leads him deeper into the past." (from 'Landscape and Memory' by Simon Schama – 1995)
Context –
Geography is the preface to the very track of human events. It is no accident that the European civilization had important origins in Crete and the Cycladic islands of Greece, for the former, a “detached fragment of Europe”, is the closest European point to the civilization of Egypt, and the latter the closest point to that of Asia Minor. Both, because of their island situations, were for centuries protected against the ravages of invaders, allowing them to flourish. Geography constitutes the very facts about international affairs that are so basic we take them for granted. (from 'The Revenge of Geography' by Robert Kaplan – 2012)
____________________________________________________________
There is a place where you're safe
In a war or in the past
On a mountain in the sea
No one will find you 'till you're free
On mount Ida we're safe
In a cave with Kreipe and Zeus
Run the way from Olympus to that place
Run to hide from Anogeia to that cave
The andarte-kapetans will be your friends
Amaltheia will give you milk
On mount Ida we're safe
In a cave with Kreipe and Zeus
Then they bomb as revenge
On the island of the greatest God
But on mount Ida there is a cave
People believe He is still over there
In the mountains between Peace and War
_________________________________
