Encounters
NEON Grants | Tsikaliotis’ Tower at Melitzazz Festival
Leonidio Arcadia | 2026
As part of Encounters, an independent section of Melitzazz Festival 2026, I developed an installation in collaboration with the Tsakonian Archives. The project emerged through my engagement with the archive and its collection of historical material related to the cultural heritage of Tsakonia, including weaving, the Tsakonian language, and the visual and social history of Leonidio.The Tsakonian Archives became a starting point for exploring how archival material, traditional practices, landscape, and collective memory can be translated into contemporary artistic forms. The installation consists of the work Carpet, inspired by the traditional weaving of Tsakonia; the second work, featuring the inscription Et in Arcadia ego, created through patterns inspired by the landscape of Arcadia; and the third work,
based on photographic material from the Tsakonian Archives. The photograph, taken at the port of Leonidio, depicts the ship Neraida, which connected Leonidio with Piraeus and served as an important link between the town and the wider Greek mainland. Through these works, I bring together craft, landscape, and archival imagery, using the archive as a source of material and memory and exploring the ways in which local heritage can be reinterpreted through contemporary artistic practice. The collaboration with the Tsakonian Archives became an encounter between archival knowledge and artistic research, where fragments of local history are activated and transformed through a contemporary perspective.
Photo | Johnny Paraskevas
Text | Stratis Tavlaridis
