The exhibition “THE RIVER / VOICING WATER” is presented at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki in the framework of the “All Greece One Culture” 2024 programme, which this year revolves around the notion of conflict. The exhibition explores the concept of conflict through the art of the mosaic and the transformative power of water.

With Roman antiquity and the Archaeological Museum’s collection of Roman mosaics serving as its springboard, the exhibition attempts to conjoin the two cities – Thessaloniki and Rome – by highlighting the contemporary issue of water sustainability. The concept and outlining of the exhibition were based on research conducted by Christina Nakou, a guest Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome, which revolved around three axes: the natural flow of potable water, the often-unseen networks of aqueducts, and fountains as works of art that convey worship.

A modern-day marble fountain introduces visitors to the exhibition, inviting them to connect with the flux of water and contemplate what it would mean if it were to be interrupted.

A makeshift large-scale map charts the Tiber River, the aqueduct networks, and five hundred fountains of the more than two thousand scattered around Rome.

The large-scale mosaic entitled “THE RIVER” attempts to convey the dynamic water flow of the Tiber River. The work’s numerous handmade tiles, in varying shades of green, white, and grey that occur after the persistent and repeated fracturing of marbles, are fused within a lime mortar, while the grooved surface of the work alludes to the “wrinkling” of running water.

Coursing through the 21st century, at the onset of a digital and virtual world, the art of the mosaic persistently maps a handmade materiality that borders on human corporeality. The fracturing of marbles for the creation of the handmade mosaic tiles is taking place in a world where humanity still engages in a conversation with the environment in an effort to feel, understand, and appease it. The artist invites the viewers to surrender themselves to the sounds of the river, familiarise themselves with the element of the mosaic, touch it, sense it haptically, observe the routes of water, and attempt to see beyond the visible. In its full spectrum, the work displays the experience of lived time and the multitude of senses that connect us with the natural world and our fellow human beings.

In selected spots of the museum’s permanent exhibition, “Thessaloniki, the Metropolis of Macedonia”, and next to exhibits that align thematically with water, sounds of water flows (from fountains and taps) are transmitted, inviting viewers to build bridges to the work through the act of hearing and evoke personal memories of connecting with water.

In an allocated spot of the permanent outdoor exhibition “FIELD, HOUSE, GARDEN, GRAVE”, a sound composition based on the recording of sounds produced during the creation of a mosaic monitors the rhythmic impact and fracturing of the marbles, suggesting an understanding of sound as a vibrational imprint of this process.

Finally, in the lobby of the exhibition space, a video documenting the creation of the work, with a special emphasis on the input of hands, is projected.

The exhibition design promotes the mobilisation of our senses in the exploration of the work. Seeing, hearing, and touching, as well as activating our kinaesthetic perception and memory, extend an invitation to the visitors to explore more broadly the notion of flow as a constituting ingredient of the cultural process. Some of the proposed themes are the flow of time, tactility as flux, and transformations as part of the physical process.

The series of performative actions, “Voicing Water” by Anna Pangalou, seeks to endow Water with a Voice. The human voice interacts with the water element in different quantities each time, from a single sip of water to a full immersion within it. It further explores how water transmits sound, how the meaning of words dissolves within it, and how melodic elements are indeed enriched by it.

The two performative actions, especially conceived for the exhibition, insert themselves into a dialogue with “THE RIVER” by Christina Nakou and the themes it examines, focusing on understanding the Water’s nature and the aspects of human intellect attributed to it. Ancient pithoi from the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki collection come to the forefront, conversing with the human voice and offering the sound they generate in the end. The elements of Heron’s fountain, Epicurean thought, and Lucretius’ poem “De rerum natura” weave together the mythological narratives of the fountain statues, hydraulic technology and its contribution to the building of musical instruments (ancient Hydraulis) by means of observing the Flow and Pressure of Water, as well as the Collision erupting if this is blocked.

The exhibition was realised under the authority and supervision of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.