- π
- fountain
- worry
- meeting point
- portrait
- Natalia
- Marion
- honey or where everyday had a tast
- triptyque
- where we left
- the great war between
- the house under
- le interruzioni
- garten paradeis
- perpetual shower
- Theirland, a not unnatural enterprise
- the ancient war
- the absent one
- the maiden and the death
- kindergarten
- frutopia
- Loutra
- in the backyard of kings
- the sleeping beauty project

Triptyque, 2003-2006

This triptych’s three parts include: der Jungbrunnen, Along the Styx, and Midway upon the journey of our life.The central video, der Jungbrunnen, was the first to be filmed. Made in Berlin during the summer of 2003, it is a very short sequence of children playing in a park. For us, this short visual sequence serves as a metaphor for secret gardens in fairy tales. The central action of the piece is in this central video and the movement in the films on the left and right edge goes toward the center panel. Along the Styx and Midway upon the journey of our life were both filmed in water reserves, the first [right] at a thermal lake and the second [left] at a small river. The two films were specifically designed to flank the central video. In both sequences the actors are moving through the water in a “nonchalant” way, unstructured, but constant in their action as they move, metaphorically, towards the center panel.

1. Along the Styx, Crete in 2004-06 [left]. Filming a river, in a palm reserve. Young couples and families are slowly and constantly crossing the frame, from left to right, discussing and laughing on their pedal boats [pedalos].
2. Der Jungbrunnen, Berlin in 2003 [center]. Filming in fixed frame at ground level in the park. Children play and run all over the park fountains. Light, youth, and laughter are at the center of this projection.
3. Midway upon the journey of our life, Athens 2006 [right]. The third part of this 3-part installation is a video at a small thermal lake [Vouliagmeni]. In this small lake, elderly people join each other for a swim and chat about their health while crossing the lake. The tranquil discussion of the swimmers contrasts with one part of this landscape, a dark cave where many people have drowned in the past. Legend has it that this cave doesn’t end. Part of the women’s discussion is replaced by lines from Hell in The Divine Comedy. People are slowly and constantly crossing the frame, from right to left.

The piece is a fiction about crossing, traveling, and changing. The thread that unites these three videos is the people in the flanking panels that are traveling with the current of the water to meet with the youths in the central panel. Children play in the park nourished by game playing and laughter. The landscape is changing: these children will leave and others will come, but the scene is constantly reviving like a fountain with its water constantly recycling.

Our idea was to create a film triangle about this fluid circle renewing itself with criss-crossing lives. Inspiration came from multiple legends: the fountain of youth, crossing the river Styx into hell, the Inferno, all interpreted through contemporary images of water. The structure of the Triptych is similar to a religious painting where three panels create an entire story and a complete landscape and where the actors of the two extreme panels are turning towards the focal center.