2019

Territorial Poetics

(I: awareness)

Concept

Territorial Poetics (I: awareness) consists of a mixed media installation of neon text, stones and soil. The poetic phrase ‘in the name of atonement, we re-inscribe every day’ made of neon light is placed into a rectangular shape of soil and stones, forming a spatial extension of meaning. The work forms a territorial narrative using light and earth materials, open to multiple interpretations. The selected sentence, taken from the artist’s poetry collection Tundra (2017), is deterritorialized from its initial space (book) and is re-territorialized into physical space (building) as an in-situ luminous seed – proposing a ‘geophilosophy’; a metaphorical terrain both as human and social body upon which our efforts are constantly re-inscribed towards a potential future self. Current neon installation situates the poetic thought into the spatial, revealing an in-situ dialogue between the human, the political and the poetic.

Description

Neon light, text, stones, soil (sometimes)

Dimensions: 6.10m x 17cm with two power supplies, cable

Year: 2019

Credits

Concept - Creation: Bill Psarras

Installation photo documentation: Chris Tsanis (1,2,4 Aigio), Amanda Protidou (7,8,9,10, Thessaloniki), personal archive (3,5,6)

Selected exhibitions

The work has been awarded by Thessaloniki Concert Hall for the exhibition Enclosures-Pass-Throughs (September 2019). The work has been also exhibited at the group exhibition Into My Garden Come (October 2019).