The name ‘Gergeri’, to my ears, combined the moving sound of gargling
waters and the stability of rocks. It happened the monumental moment
when Chrysa, my colleague in Crete, notified
me that the Municipality of Rouvas had proposed the mountainous village
Gergeri, as the field of action, in response to our request to do ‘something
Great’, on the occasion of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, in Crete. Gergeri is
a village, in the heart of the island of Crete, situated on the southern flanks of Mt. Ida,
or, Psiloritis mountain range. I had been to Mt. Ida many
years ago, to spend the night close to the Ideon Andron, the cave where baby
Zeus was hidden, nursed by Nymph Melissa and Amaltheia the goat with the
precious horns of abundance. Myth is like the echo isotropic radiation
dark matter giving the illusion that the creative spot is everywhere. A
piece of rock from Mt. Ida, is lying its cool hardness on my desk; a keepsake
from our last trip to the ‘oroi’, ancient name for mountains, which has
survived, as many other ancient names do, in the contemporary Cretan dialect.
The rock is striped with successive alternate grey and black layers,
progressing geometrically in width 1- 1- 2- 3- 5, according to the
Fibonacci constant of authentic self growth; in the same way that the
Gergerian ‘andartic’, freedom- fighting, soul grew out of these steep
inaccessible wild mountains, exposing their structure, in a mosaic of stones,
with vulnerable boldness.I had arrived in Crete late in the evening, from Piraeus,
with the day boat. I was still under the impact of the sight of the volcanic
islet Antimilos which keeps endlessly falling in the blue light of the
sea, like a sunset frozen in the web of time. I saw it
suddenly, when I came out on the deck, pushed by the need to get some fresh
air, leaving behind Vaso, my colleague artist, in a chaotic heap of branded
clothes which were on sale in the shop of the ship. Stepping on the deck was
like stepping in another dimension. The ship itself seemed to hold its breath
in the leaden silence. I do not remember having seen anything so immobile,
anything so accelerated, and anything so unbearably beautiful.At the chaotic port of Heraklion,
I managed to meet the Venetian couple of artists who were participating in
the exhibition I was curating in Gergeri; they had arrived a few days
earlier, since the inauguration date kept changing from one telephone call to
the other. They had arranged their tickets according to the initial schedule,
which, in the meanwhile, had been reversed in order to fit with the
shepherds’ festival, so, they were leaving when I was just arriving They were
friendly, but, they seemed shocked.“It was not what we expected”. Rule
number one: when you go to a strange place, let go all
expectations. “Which way do I go? “ I asked them, thinking that after
five days on the island they must know the way to Gergeri “Well huh…we
came that way!”Well! it was totally the other way. I understood that after
two hours drive, finding no signs where the signs should be. “Stop. Stop
the car. I see a light”. Vaso, rushed out of the car, running towards a
noisy lighted spot in the middle of nowhere, some kind of a cafenio or
butchery? Or both? I waited for her in the car. Time was passing. I
saw her sitting there while four men, around her were speaking loudly at the
same time, brandishing the tablecloth on which they were tracing all sorts of
signs with determined gestures. She came back to the car with the huge
tablecloth and sighed: “turn right “‘Turn right’ meant: ‘leave the lighted
highway and enter the deep space of total trackless night’. I could only see
as far as the light cars went, beyond that, lay the unknown; like falling in
the abyss again and again, aboard my Zephiroula old car; while Vasso with
tears in her eyes, would utter from time to time: “My God! it is
like flying on a spacecraft”.I could only see a few meters ahead, I had
indeed no idea we were flying so high. I asked her not to comment anymore, if
she wanted to live.. We spent five hours in this labyrinth, floating in
deep space, turning once or twice, following the scribbles on the tablecloth,
to find ourselves back in the same spot; the rare epigraphs were appearing
suddenly in the carlight, as if emerging out of nowhere, surprising us.At a
certain point, at around two in the morning, we had a glimpse of the sign
Gergeri and following a dark piece of road, we arrived in the neighboring
village Zaros, where the municipality of Rouvas had
reserved our rooms. Chrysa and other colleagues were waiting for us at the
Vengera tavern, sitting around a table on the street pavement. Vengera
is owned by Vivi, a very special lady who is always joking. Soon the table
was covered with delicious, luring, Cretan tastes, prepared by her
mother Irini accompanied by her father’s pure anise flavored spirit; the
famous ‘raki’ that made you forget anything else in this or in any other
world. “The Keramos hotel is right there. You can leave your Zephiroula here”. My
room was homely, like a granny’s room, with two old fashioned beds and a very
old wooden cupboard. The next morning was a real surprise as I stepped
out of my room, sat at a table to have coffee and smiling Katerina started
bringing a row of dishes she had prepared before the sun rose. I counted
fifteen varieties, it was the most opulent and healthy breakfast ever: Kaltsounia,
mizithropita, sfakiani, chortopitakia, tiropsomakia, bougatsa and of course
double doses of delicious Greek coffee Even after consuming fifteen of
Katrina’s dishes, after one hour you still feel hungry. This heavenly food is
consumed, sublimated by your, starving for health, body and refuses to get
stored into fat. “Let us go to Gergeri to start working on the
exhibition” I said“I have all the works piled in the old school, but, now we
have to wait for the workers to renovate it” Chrysa replied, peacefully.The
inauguration was only at two days distance. “Years cannot bring what a moment
brings” is a Greek saying. The monumental ultimate moment rises
like a vertical wave carrying the momentum of a lifetime and things are
miraculously done, in the omniscient Greek way.The abandoned school, at the
end of the village, which was a crumbling building, was repaired and
renovated in one morning. The peculiar thing about this ‘international
pinacotheque-on-the-make ’ which I had announced to my international
colleagues and to which they had responded by donating their works to the
Municipality of Rouvas, was, that there was no actual exhibition hall, but,
an exhibition- hall- to- be. Once you step into a situation and you declare
it in the open, you have to carve, with your teeth and nails, a way out! “The
whole village will be turned into a polycentric exhibition hall; a
pinacotheque in the form of a constellation dedicated to the International
Year of Astronomy; an arch of culture in the mountains, called Gargarus
Uranos/ Gargling Sky!!” I exclaimed.It is amazing what you come up with after
a state of crisis. The polycentric model was, anyway, but too
close to the way I work since 1990, when Hubble was launched, creating
installations on a planetary scale, seen altogether from an aeronautic
multiple point of view.I spent the morning in the municipality of Rouvas,
trying to download satellite images of Gergeri in order to make a map out of
the exhibition spots. “Let’s go drink to that” proposed one of the
Dimitris Ks. of the village. Here everyone is known by his nickname, his
‘paratsoukli’, because the same name and surname is shared by half of the
residents as they name their children after their parents and so on. The only
way to differentiate one from the other is their paratsouklia that spring
from characteristic events in their lifetime; you can probe deep into the
history of the place by digging in the paratsouklia of its residents. As
I was told later, my Gergerian ‘paratsoukli’ came to be: pxk
Zephiroula, for ever.We all went in an ‘ouzeri’, on the main road, Vaso, me
and around 15 men from the municipality. At that moment, in order to
establish a base of communication, I had the inspiration to play a social
game; a psychological quiz, which goes like: “You are in the desert and,
suddenly, you see a box. Describe it” The meaning hidden in this question is:
‘what is life for you?’.The answers, I usually receive, are various, ranging
from a ‘can box’ to a ‘treasure box’ but I had never received an answer like
that one:“A box of bullets, what else? ”Another question went like: “you
continue your way in the desert and you see a castle. Describe
it”. The meaning hidden in this question is: “what is death for you?” “A
castle? A Castle in the Desert? NO! It is not possible! NO the
Castle does NOT exist”. No, there is no death in Gergeri. I felt
that, in the rocky texture of Mt Ida, uncovering its rhythmic structure and
its narrow paths which the Gergerians would escalate, with their
cars hanging on the fringe of the precipice, singing ‘mandinades’, 15
syllable rhyming couplets, improvised on the spot, overlooking totally the
danger, behaving like eternals. Going back to the Foyer,
station1 of the exhibit, we met around thirty local youngsters painting
stars on the streets of Gergeri and lining, with star constellations made of
ribbons and threads, the walls of the houses, on the way linking one
exhibition spot to the other, like Ariadne’s thread the labyrinth; memory is
strong“To find your way, you have to tread on the stars” commented a
Gergerian old man.Late in the evening, we went for a walk to the lake of Zaros.
Gargling water streams were running in the streets instead of pavements. The
sweat of racing waters seemed to break in at every crack. The same
night after a long dinner at Vivi’s tavern and the necessary raki, made by
her father, we went to sleep in Keramos hotel, looking forward to the joys of
Katerina’s luxurious breakfast and coffee.I found out with great comfort that
the refrigerator was full with grapes and figs and I was about to sink in the
blueblack dreamlight when a prolonged series of gunshots broke the silence of
the night. I realized there was a wedding in the next village and the
‘baloties’; gunshots in the air, are a common way of celebrating
weddings. Life is a box of bullets, after all.Dores, the Italian
gallerist, had arrived in the meantime and we started moving and exchanging
the paintings again in the four places, like a configuration of playing
cards. The Gergerian workers were helping us, experiencing the same
excitement, giving their opinion on likes and dislikes and I sensed they had
an authentic taste for the beautiful, immediate sense of presence, sliding
out of maps and theories.Then, just before finishing, the last touch in the
Foyer, a huge wooden cube arrived, carried like a throne by two Gergerians
and was placed proudly in the middle of the room. The master carpenter looked
at me proudly: “I have been working on it since dawn to finish
it”. It was meant as a pedestal for a small sculpture from Romania.
It was so huge that you could hardly see the sculpture on it!So, with the
52 art-works well disseminated in all four spots of the Gergeri
polycentric pinacotheque, it was time to get another unforgettable treat at
Vivi’s and rest for a while, until the opening time at 7p.m, along the
symposium of astronomy, that was accompanying the inauguration at the Foyer, “We
will pick you up from the hotel at around eight, with a small bus from the
municipality”“But… isn’t the opening at seven?”“O by the time people gathers
up…also, with this strong wind, it is possible the screen won’t hold and it
will not take place, after all”Wooden chairs were placed in rows in the
garden of the Foyer. A huge projection screen was hanging on the façade,
which was held in place by four people because the wind was threatening to
snatch it all and fling it to the stars. It was a dramatic scene; the
professor’s white shirt was ventilating in the wind, dressed with a colorful
projection of stars while the computer images on the screen, were handled by
an anxious ‘someone’ curled under the table.. Anyway, we all spoke from
inside the doorframe of the Foyer, using it as a protective wind shelter, to
a shivering ventilating audience, like on board of a ship in a
hurricane. As I noticed, it was only the personal element that
would touch the heart of the audience. When I said “thanks…” using their
paratsouklia like: Ninio, Brico etc, they all smiled contented and
contact was established, for life. After the stormy symposium, we
walked to the watermills, station 2 and 3 of the exhibit, following the
starway paved by the youth of the village, through the village. Big
trays were floating here and there, in the night, with offerings from the
surrounding houses, trays full of crops, fruits, cakes, cheese pies
accompanied by the tinkering of small glasses of raki. A real feast was going
on, especially inside the 17th c watermill. Works from Venise, New
York, Korea, Paris; signs of an international presence in this
atmospheric stone building that had stored, for centuries, the energy of the
racing waters. After the stop at the two watermills, we
continued our way to point four of the exhibition at the end of the village,
in the old school, but, just before getting there, a huge table
appeared in the middle of nowhere, all made up, for a sumptuous
dinner, like a wedding ceremony!I realized that the opening event was
to continue the next day, accompanied by the traditional music of the
shepherds ‘askomandoures’, self made musical organs. The concept of time
here is the Homeric Hemar { ΗΜΑΡ} or the slash of lived time during which you
experience a certain state. Here, Living Time is not confined to the ticks of
clock time. The opening, which sort of started at nine pm that night,
was still to go on in the next day and the excursion, in the Forest of Rouvas for
lunch, was meant to be part of it. The Forest of Rouvas is
situated at the southeastern part of the mountain range Psiloritis and it is
considered to be a Wild Life Sanctuary. The meal there, was an experience of
methexis in infinite tufts of ancestral hollies, platans, cypresses, pines, holm oaks, the cretan orchid cephalanthera and cyclamens. You can sense the presence of its concealed
inhabitants: Felis Silvestris the wildcat, the badger Meles-Meles, the weasel, the hare, the spiny mouse , the shrew, lizards, frogs and snails, vultures, the golden eagle, thered tail hawk,
woodcocks, bees and colourful butterflies The Gergerians had hosted us in an arch of
biodiversity. It was all done naturally, with traditional sanctity, in the luring rhythm of Cretan music by
lyreplayer Psarantonis, nick-named ‘son of Psiloritis’, archaic Zeus-like
figure, with the special rocky timber. Our friends were reciting the verses
of Psarantonis songs coming out of the car radios, with due reverence,
gathered around a wooden table on wooden benches, drinking raki, waiting for
the meat to be cooked in the ‘antikristo’ way of cooking; the fire flames in the center of a circle and
the pieces of meat are placed all around the periphery, like planets orbiting
the sun. As soon as the meat was cooked around the central fire, a whole
orchestra of musical instruments holed out of the cars and the Gergerians
started singing, with the smoke of the extinguished fire as a
background, I was feeling the drunkenness of things adorned by the miraculous
luxury of sparkling wine; it was like a sacrifice ritual offered to the gods.This ecstatically grounded buzuki music is a
revelation of hypostasis which escapes description. In this arch of
biodiversity amidst the goats and the hollies, I understood that all down
Here, there is only NOW, a huge present NOW extended horizontally and
vertically up to infinity.On our way back, our cars were stopping on the
steep wild slopes and we would jump out, one at a time and dance to the
rhythmic pattern of zeibekiko, 1/8 1/16 1/16-1/8 1/8 1/8 1/16 1/16-1/8 1/8
1/8, emitted from the car stereos, while the others would clap, attending
with due respect, until this personal dance, expression of the individuality,
of each, was over.Thus, dancing and singing we came down to the Vromolimni { Dirty Lake}
also called Diogenes Tomb. It is a ground recession situated one km distance
from the inhabited area. The most prominent version is that this inexplicable
ground recession is caused by the fall of a meteorite. There are many small
holes around the area, in the shape of inverted cones, known as ‘chonia’,
signs of a shower of meteorites. The first day the Vromolimni was full of
aquatic turtles. Then, they disappeared, hiding from our sight: probably they
only like the company of the watersnakes, the Cretan frog and a variety of
wild birds which find a shelter in the Vromolimni’s special ground.We finally
went back to the hotel to get prepared for the final part four of the
exhibition inauguration, which had started the night before. The opening was
to close in the old school, with the traditional music of the shepherds’
musical group called Pimenes Agravloundes,Once in Keramos hotel, I passed out
in an avalanche of hollies, pines, golden eagles and stones Thus, I missed
the final part of the inauguration of the very exhibition I was curating!. The
next morning, I boarded Zephiroula for the port of Heraklion.
In the day light, it was less than one hour distance from Gergeri!. I
realized how lucky I was to lose my way, on my arrival, in the starry
labyrinth, hanging on the precipice, before landing on this enchanted
meteorite, out of the cone of time.
Polyxene Kasda, Artooth.gr articles 2009
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