The project investigates the boundaries of coexistence between the natural landscape and the artificial environment of the contemporary city through an attempt to recreate and approach a forgotten place which is located at the centre of Athens. It is a distant nature that exists and grows almost enclosed at the concrete limits of the Athenian cityscape.
Emphasis is given to a unique area defined by the flow of “Ilisos” where the bed of the river is visible and intact in its archetypical form before being covered again by the streets of the city towards the sea. The installation with the ambiguous title “Long Term Heaven” aims to become an ontological and topographical effort of mapping this almost hidden and marginal place that is isolated from the urban fabric, by its reconstitution at the gallery space which is located a few meters from the actual location. Collecting wild flowers, leaves and branches after months of drying treatment is combined with traces of human activity such as materials from neglected or destroyed buildings and various objects that were placed at this specific area.
An allegorical environment is being created where the organic elements articulate a dialectic situation of symbiosis with an organized, geometrical and rigorous structure made of paper where subtle traces of the landscape are revealed as shadows. Relics from nature coexist with the urban environment shaped as an ephemeral map and formulate a question of fragility and ascendance as they seek vital space.
