DANAE STRATOU / Memory Threads, 2020-2021
PRESENTING THE EKO 8 ART PROJECTS
DANAE STRATOU / Memory Threads, 2020–2021
site-specific installation, MTT, Melje, mixed media and four-channel sound installation
courtesy of the artist
This vast temporary installation is an adaption of an earlier installation made by Danae Stratou in the old textile factory of PIRAÏKI – PATRAÏKI in Patras, Greece in September 2020.
Traces of the textile machines were made on the floor, staying faithful to their original size and location, as preserved in the factory floor plans. Then, a layer of sieved unprocessed salt was used to fill in the outlines, thereby 'replacing' the missing machines, maintaining the original layout; the machines 'returned' in the form of salt-made 'ghosts'. Salt was sourced by the artist, when she understood that this raw material was used in large quantities in the process of cleaning the textile fibres and sourced locally. The properties and associations to salt as material were used not only for their contrast with the dark floor, but also for the notion that salt is used as a preservative, as a preserver of memory. The locations of nine folding and duplicating machines are outlined in pure salt, in the same way that over ninety machines were outlined in salt in Patras last year.
The soundscape for the installation is composed of sounds of the old textile machines, such as spinning mills and looms. The rhythmic sound of the machines can be heard while voices of the factory's former workers narrate the stages in the textile production process. The new exhibition opportunity in Maribor enabled the artist to create a powerful remix in which an earlier work titled Icesongs (2010) is remixed into the soundtrack made in the textile factory.
Connecting back to the ecological questions raised by the memorial plaque to the melting glacier in Iceland, that serves as the motivating source for the exhibition A Letter to the Future, Stratou has configured a compelling new audio arrangement for EKO 8. The Icesongs soundscape was generated from sounds emitted directly from the Antarctic Ocean's shifting under sea icebergs. They were captured by directional underwater hydrophones lying on the seabed of the Antarctic Ocean now used by researchers for monitoring Antarctica's melting ice shelf. As listening devices for monitoring the movement of submarines in the South Pacific, hydrophones were relics of the cold war and now repurposed for climate science research.
Danae Stratou's (b. 1964, Greece) work consists of large-scale installations and audio-visual environments. She uses various media, ranging from digital and audio technology, video, photography, to metal or natural materials. The artist uses a minimal, geometric visual language and engages in contemporary issues such as immigration, life in contemporary cities, the growth of population, the relation to the environment, as well as political and social tensions worldwide.
