Oedipus in Search of Colonus

About the exhibition

The drama Oedipus in Search of Colonus, written shortly before the tragedian Sophocles’ death in 406 BC concerns old age and the act of dying. The play describes the end of Oedipus tragic life when he is an outcast who has blinded himself. He comes to Colonus with his daughter, wandering, trying to find his final resting place.

Loukia Alavanou’s work Oedipus in Search of Colonus uses VR technology to transport the viewer to a Greek shanty town making it the scene for a modern version of Sophocles’ ancient drama. The town, Nea Zoi, situated close to the original Colonus, is populated by Romani who in the film take on the different roles in the play.

Alavanou’s work points at questions concerning a person’s power over where to live and where to die. Contemporary parallels to Oedipus’ story are for instance migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea. In the artist’s words: “Oedipus is used for political mileage by Creon, the ruler of Thebes, not unlike refugees today arriving in Europe from the Middle East or Africa. They are treated more like a ‘trading’ pawn between European countries than humans worth aid and support.” The artist also saw parallels with Oedipus entering Colonus to her own experience and her encounter with the Romani community. The journey of temporary integration of the artist into the local group was also one of gradual acceptance. The Romani are themselves usually outcasts in the country they live in – many of them not registered citizens of Greece. 

As a visitor at Accelerator you enter through a dark tunnel into a sound absorbing dome, inspired by the work of the Greek visionary futuristic architect Takis Zenetos (1926-1977). For his utopic project “Electronic Urbanism” Zenetos envisioned a city in the clouds where solitary humans lived in hemispherical capsules. A central part of these capsules was Zenetos’ “posture chair for digital projections and immaterial environments”, which has itself inspired a VR seat especially designed for this exhibition. A directional sound design made out of fragments from recordings in the Romani community of Nea Zoi becomes the first trigger for the visitors in the space, before they are guided to their seats and eventually immersed into the film. 

Various types of territories and who governs them is the overall focus of Accelerator’s spring exhibitions. Physical, geographic, juridical, mental and spiritual areas are explored in the exhibitions and events program. 

Richard Julin, curator of the exhibition