Eleusis 2023 - Mystery_177: Visions from the Underworld

The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) is an annual initiative that aims to highlight the diverse cultural wealth of European cities, and in this way help its citizens better identify with each other. This year, Elefsina—along with Veszprém (Hungary) and Timisoara (Romania)—holds the title and presents a rich cultural agenda over the course of a year.

The programme’s name, The Mysteries of Transition, was inspired by the Eleusinian Mysteries. These were secret religious practices held in Elefsina during antiquity to honour the goddess Demetra. Makes sense that each event on the programme was therefore dubbed a Mystery. The festival’s cultural agenda is built around three thematic axes: Environment, Labour, and People and Society, and includes 130 artworks, 465 events (Mysteries) in 30 different city sites, and 17 different types of art by 192 Greek and 137 international artists from 30 countries.

Borrowing elements from the Eleusinian Mysteries, the group exhibition Visions from the Underworld, curated by The Agprognostic Temple (Dome Wood & Sam Steverlynck), uses both myths and facts behind the Mysteries as its starting point. For example, it is believed that during Eleusinian ceremonies, participants would drink kykeon, a barley-based drink that contained the fungus ergot, which could cause hallucinations. So, “Visions from the Underworld'' echoes the themes and motifs behind the Eleusinian Mysteries such as hallucinations and visions, the cycle of death and rebirth, fertility and mortality, and initiation rites and rituals. 

The exhibition features more than several artworks. The setting itself stands as a point of interest: visitors walk through a constructed hypercube that resembles both ancient ruins and post-apocalyptic architecture. This “temple” takes visitors down a symbolic descent to the underworld and back up again, where throughout the journey one comes across artworks related, each in its own way, to the Eleusinian Mysteries. Powerful stuff.