Page 64 - Collectanea

MARIA TZANAKOU
b. 1973, Athens. Lives in Athens.
Desert Citizens: The Last Thing I Took, 2020
The wall of my studio was peeling. I drew on the color that peeled off the word “SICK”. The color of the wall – its gloss paint – was light blue. I detached the plastered wall along with the pencil trace I had left on its surface. (A small and insignificant trace, but for me important.) It was the last thing I got from there.
Now, then, just a little later, as if not a single day had passed, more specifically every moment I live, my dad has gone away for the tour of the world. In what was left, in my last picture of what I got from there... a light blue sheet over him covering him from his face to his feet before transferring him. He was sick just before that. Now we are forever twogether desert citizens.
2019. Christoforos Marinos invites me to participate in the exhibition he curates with the title Collectanea borrowed from Zissimos Lorenzatos book, published by Domos Publications. I move out of my home and the last thing I get from there is the text sculpture. We agree with Christoforos that this is the work and it must be presented in this way, just like an unsalted mature olive, without any other editing, as Lorenzatos describes his recordings to the reader: “as they are – no other treatment – unsalted” («όπως είναι – δίχως άλλη επεξεργασία – ήγουν ανάλατες»).
Maria Tzanakou
Artist Website: mariatzanakou.wixsite.com/mariatzanakou
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