The temporary installation ΧΑΜΩ [fleeting archaeology] took place on Saturday, October the 12th, 2024, at one of the sites of the Archaeological Excavation of Ancient Tenea. Known as the “Tenea Project”, the excavation has been going on since 2018, revealing evidence of the important city of the same name, on the ancient road from Corinth to Mycenae.

This was an active excavation and the works were in progress having left several traces on the ground. An intense sound and visual “noise” was coming from the surrounding space and the near village Chiliomodi, which is also my place of origin. As a response to this multilayered context, I extracted a phrase from a recent text of mine and placed it on the ground in various arrangements, at different points of the excavation.

The work comments on the relationship between writing and the earth, the dynamics of the inscription of speech in space, the displacement and exchange of materiality and abstraction. As the inscribed phrase unfolds in space, it occasionally becomes illegible. The mirror-letters sometimes reflect the environment and sometimes visually integrate into the environment or disappear, creating gaps in the phrase. Spaces between the words are obliterated, referencing the ancient greek inscriptions, while calling for a more performative reading.