At the 2024 Izmir Mediterranean Biennial, Stratis Tavlaridis presented Waves, a large-scale installation exploring movement across the Mediterranean; physical, emotional, and imagined. For Tavlaridis, the sea is both origin and passage. It is the space before borders. A space where radio frequencies blur languages into a single continuous soundscape of melodies, news bulletins, static, advertising, prayer. The work drew from the story of a child in Greece experiencing domestic violence, who sought refuge not in geography but in sound: covering his ears with headphones, scanning FM frequencies to construct an interior world protected from harm. In Waves, this gesture expanded outward. The child became every displaced body at sea, every refugee navigating the waters of the Mediterranean in search of safety, carrying fragile dreams across unstable ground. The paper surface resembled both waves and wounds; absence forming image, removal becoming meaning. Working almost exclusively with extremely lightweight handmade paper, Tavlaridis builds his large-scale environments through a process of removal. Using a surgical scalpel, he cuts each form by hand, a slow, meticulous act that demands physical endurance and absolute concentration. During the Biennial, something unforeseen occurred. A cat entered the exhibition space, climbed onto the work and tore through it. The gesture was neither malicious nor symbolic, simply instinctive. No one intervened on time, and the damage was irreversible. A video of the incident circulated online, gathering hundreds of thousands of views. Very quickly, the work became a site of digital dispute. Comments accumulated rapidly, with