Romance Street

The global confinement of the pandemic and the heightened atmosphere of emptied out streets has uncorked a creative geyser for artists. 

To escape their fevered thoughts and dreams, 33 artists from Greece and abroad have wandered in an Athens without people, on the ancient paths of Lycabettus, the Roman Agora, and poetic Anafiotika, beautifully abandoned by passers-by.

The fruits of their city walkabouts can be seen in “Romance Street”, an unsentimental new exhibition, conceived and curated by Maria Marangou, at the Technopolis culture hub, on the site of the old gas works in the urban neighbourhood of Gazi.  

Addressing the “present of our past, without nostalgia”, the artists have manipulated the materials around them: soil, wool, reeds, fabrics, marble, straw, threads and needles, looms. For 25 centuries, the oldest roads, lanes and passages of Athens (such as Panathinaion Street, Tripodon, Leokori, Dipylou) have endured the foot traffic of citizens and slaves; animals and carriages bearing food and clothing and the products of trade destined for the sea; tourists and classicists. 

The challenges of our present moment in time have created an artistic appetite to listen to these ancient streets and re-approach what we call the collective memory of the group, the myth of origin that is passed down through genealogies.

*Current Covid-19 health and safety measures are strictly observed in all areas of Technopolis.