The exhibition “Malleable memories” consists of a combination of art exhibitional practice and bibliographical research and invokes the concept of pseudo-memory. More specifically, this concept functions as a metaphor on the way this particular exhibition was worked on, where by utilizing the literature and elements of cultural heritage (memory), points were identified where the literature had gaps and by putting imagination there, a fictional character, Theodoros Valis, was constructed. In a similar way, when memory has gaps, imagination tends to bridge them, creating pseudo-memories. In the context of the exhibition, the existence of Valis is documented by a pseudo-podcast created by studying relevant literature and material culture data on Chioniadites folk painters and the Greek printmakers and publishers of Venice in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
This exhibition, through a post-production approach to elements of visual culture, aims to construct and curate a pseudo-memory of the existence and action of Theodoros Valis. The archive assembled during the research was used to create a series of works (paintings, woodcuts, digital prints, artist books, sound work and mixed media works) that attempt to incorporate traditiotional, folk iconography into a different visual system. In this new context, a multimedia, hybrid situation prevails, in which the boundaries between fiction and reality are blurred, likening the exhibitional context to the brain in the construction of a pseudo-memory.
The exhibition was presented on 9 – 12 October 2023, at the MEKEIO foundation, in Ioannina, Greece. Curated by Arurkokk