[2012] The island of emotions 

 

Part of the installation with the title: Sensitive sensitivity
based on Manos Hatzidakis story " a fairytale for kids and adults"
music by :  Manos Hatzidakis for the film "A la recherche de l' atlantide"  of Jacques Cousteau

 

 

 

TEXT in catalog in AVESTA ART 2012

What could go beyond sensitivity? What could shift things into a sensitive sensitivity?

On the crown of what is the very heart of the ironworks – the blast furnace – Achilleas Kentonis and

Maria Papacharalambous pose questions about what is deeply human. Here, where the iron was released

from the ore, they challenge the visitor to investigate  how sensations and feelings can release a deeper

understanding of both the ego and the world around.

A series of cross-discipline artworks and installations function as the basic ingredients of a narrative that could

be shared. With the help of a short fairytale written for children and adults by the Oscar winner Greek musician

Manos Hatzidakis, The Island of Emotions, a video installation has been produced and is the core of all

other works surrounding it. Works hung from the series Re-tales, sound installations Wishing Whales, etc ... are

all tales of memory from the past and the future....

On the hard, rusty charging gallery of the blast furnace Achilleas Kentonis and Maria Papacharalambous have

also introduced a number of soft pillows.

“The pillow is a witness of both conscious and subconscious dreams,” according to the artists. “The

pillow is an ‘in between dreams’ object which hosts and stores the energy of the memory, the desire, the dream.”

Different types and sizes of pillows appear as sensitive personalities in a very rough and dark

environment such as Avesta ironworks doing exactly the same task. A shift from creating a series of metal alloys

into a series of emotional alloys.

“Our work swings between the conscious and subconscious dreams,” they say. “Dreams as the result

of the imagination and as the result of the deep sleep which awakens the collective memory, the knowledge,

the longing of the soul, the desire of the kid inside us, the sound, the play, the light.”

Both sensibility and space – the heavens, the interspace, and empty space – in our existence interest the

artists and before participating in Avesta Art they say:

“In our contemporary societies sensitivity is seen as a problem, or more correctly an expression of instability

or imbalance that cause complications. At the same time sensibility is also a factor that could lead to innovation,

liberation of hidden knowledge and evolution of mankind. Throughout history different types of

‘intelligences’ have tried to pack together the various faces of sensibility and get control over it guarantee rationality and effective work. But even if you try to square the circle you will always have its four corners always containing empty space. This empty space is life’s interspace – the space for eternal freedom. In the same way man explores his body and soul. This takes place with feelings as the intermediary – as interspace. This particular free zone where feelings coexist with dreams is the place where time vanishes into the present – where the past and the

future fuse together into the NOW.”

The artists quote from a poem of Andreas Embirikos “...We are hunters of the charm of the dreams

of a destination which keeps on going and never rests...”