Aimilia Balaska creates photographic installations in order to explores the concept of collective memory. Using the encaustic technique, a post-Hellenistic art lost over the centuries, she tries to pay tribute to the refugees of Samos. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, this technique is used again in order to open a debate, related both to the era of the removal of populations from Asia Minor to the islands of the North-East Aegean, and to the cultural need to preserve a memory, blurred in nowadays.
The photos are from the archive of Samos and in this project function as primary material in the creation of 7 wooden pieces with dimensions of just over half a meter. The encaustic technique is respectfully used to place and process the photographs on the wood. However, the faces of the depicted remain as they are, thus gathering the greatest possible attention of the viewer. The work was inspired by the tradition of the Fayum funerary portraits, which went back to history for the realistic rendering of the faces through the use of wax and egg tempera - materials that combined with the climate of Egypt - kept the memory of those depicted alive as α photo snapshot.
The photograph, as the most realistic of the media that Aimilia uses, functions in this work as a symbol of the carefully preserved memory which is "washed" with wax colour and wax. Tools of the creative process but also documents of a sacred approach to memory through the element of flame that has always accompanied the concept of loss. Here, the loss of the homeland which through the work is recalled. It is a narrative of the journey of the people of Asia Minor and their imprint on their -new- place where they were to become heirs and heritage.
Aimilia Balaska work BODY ECHOES uses elements such as flowers leaves and roots in both subversive and transformative ways so that the female armpit appears as an extension of nature. BODY ECHOES is an awakening effort to delve in the woman's lost connection to primordial nature. It becomes an anthem to female natural beauty by focusing on the female armpit a controversial subject matter that has been debated around the world. Unraveling this deep-rooted and complex issue, Aimilia Balaska returns to the direct relationship between the nature and the female body and particularly the armpit.
Already in Greco-Roman times, nature has characterized as female: mother nature, also known as mother earth. The concept of beauty of includes the situation where existence is in complete balance and harmony with nature, a state which can lead to emotional well-being. Beauty is a subjective experience, creating positive reflections around the meaning of each person’s existence. However, the objectification of any part of the female body contributes to the alienation that women feel from their bodies, and consequently from nature and their primordial their existence. BODY ECHOES is an attempt to redefine the relationship among female bodies, nature and universe. Connection with female nature is proposed
In the work entitled Miasma I use different media such as photos, videos and installation.
The word miasma is often used in monotheistic religions and implies that the body and especially the female body and bodily secretions are miasma and abomination.
Mainly my work concerns the recognition of the violence inherent in monotheistic religions against women but also their struggle against their obedience and manipulation in a vicious form of exercised patriarchal power through religion.
Growing up in a Protestant environment and having studied the Bible as a child, I was constantly seeing new interpretations and approaches to biblical texts that caused hatred against homosexuals, minorities, and especially women. The ‘principle of uniqueness’ (one land, one people, one nation, one god) becomes a requirement for an exclusive alliance that leads to the violence of exclusion.
In the video Untitled I, I record a series of verbal actions with which I gradually destroy the Bible I had as a child, trying to reach the trauma and claim a new identity. I nail it, staple women's hair on it, I pierce it, burn it, I bury it.
In the video Untitled II, the skin / body becomes a writing surface. I erase with blood from my veins the inscribed words that religion imposed on my body. I am interested in writing as a desire to penetrate the surface, under numerous layers that resist where the manuscript as a cultural practice retrieves and constructs its political identity. Through my personal experience I invent rituals for deconstructing religious symbols such as blood, bread, fish, with the goal of catharsis and a transition to another state where the silent and oppressed female body / book is transformed into a body empowered by resistance, is created, constructed and reconstructed constantly.
In the project KIRKI Aimilia Balaska uses archival material from Ithaka. Specifically as a starting material she choses photographs from the albums of Spyros Meletzis who photographed the island focusing on the everyday life of women.
Aimilia Balaska in her approach transforms women to hybrid creatures, allegorical forms that refer to witches. The black and white tone of the archive creates a contrast with the added colored elements that transform the previously simplistic female forms to forms of power. The result of this process brings in mind rituals and symbols of witchcraft that refer to the ominous and the blameable. Since ancient times, forms like Kirki seem to stand on the opposite side of rightness and morality. The woman-witch, a person historically and mythologically delinquent, seems to seek its redemption through this project.
KIRKI is an effort to awaken from the stereotypes and the prejudice that still categorize women to obedient or not, wrong or right, lustful or moral. A fresh view regarding the woman is suggested that is different from the usual, converting sex issues and feminist rhetoric to images. In the world presented here, women are not deceitful but substantial and powerful.
The images do not portray monsters but human beings who, under the right perspective, remain unchanged and the only thing they are relieved of is the perpetual idea of the female image as non-dynamic, non-creative, not moral and ultimately mythical. It is an allegorical conversation that processes the subconscious automations of tradition ultimately criticizing it as deeply problematic and demanding the relevant change.
With what images can you recreate the sense of home, when you have lost both your parents in an early age, your mother deceased, and you being sexually abused by a relative?
In the beginning they appear as black dots, as holes, where you are being sucked in, restrained in their darkness. Then there is rage. Rage towards your mother, who died and left you: you appropriate family photos and you erase the face, you burn it, you stick needles. You then damage your own face, your relatives, everyone who has been hurt, has remained silent or has inflicted pain on you. This is my story but in a sense it can be applied to everyone, if you change the scale of the pain, of restriction and guilt. So the image opens up and becomes a material to work with, its transparency leading me to the events which trigger the memories. The works oscillate between metaphor and reality; but they make me move forward. The dots become faces, they have names, they are stories to be discussed, narrated, exposed. They are filled with light to become stars – of memory and of enlightenment.
(work in progress)
This project emerges from my need to answer how the object can affect us in our private enviroment. What is the dynamic of our private spaces? And how can photography reveal this? Our home reveals itself to be an enormous studio for changes.
