Alexandra Athanassiades’ works are inspired by and made of fragments. Fragments constitute an inherent starting point whether they are miscellaneous elements found in nature or intangible bits of memories. Quite often, the materials she employs, namely wood and iron, are random finds; the poetic and historical memory emerges –in a selective and fragmentary fashion– from the horses and the study of the frieze. Time and the resulting wear of the primary elements, both material and immaterial, leave distinct and familiar marks that narrate a personal story or what is left of it.
As in all Museums, the exhibits in the Archaeological Museum of Poros comprise fragments and bits from monuments and sculptures which produce an image of the distant past; it is an ancient reality, perhaps not a living one, but most certainly existent and emotively functional. The whole emerges from the parts. Τhe connective tissue with the present is woven by the monumental remnants of the distant being.
We identify the same direction in the works of Alexandra Athanassiades, but in reverse. The present recovers or even dictates the past through selected material or immaterial finds which acquire substance, life and function. They engage in a dialogue with the museum exhibits as the figments of a “fragmented” memory.