Alexis Fidetzis
Alexis Fidetzis was born in Athens in 1987. He graduated (Hons) from the Athens School of Fine Arts in 2011. Currently based in Brooklyn, New York he is pursuing an MFA degree at Pratt Institute, as an Onassis Foundation fellow. His work, which revolves around a question about the importance of national identity and ethnic traditions, has been shown in several group exhibition in Greece, Germany and the United States.
Delos Scheme
2013
500x200x100 cm
Multimedia installation: Boat, video documentation, map
The sacred island of Delos, mythological birthplace of the twin Gods Apollo and Artemis, is where one of the most bizarre and grotesque incidents of antiquity took place. A number of "purifications" were executed by the city-state of Athens in an attempt to render the island fit for the proper worship of the Gods. The first took place in the 6th century BC, directed by the ruler of Athens Pisistratus, who ordered that all graves within sight of the temple be dug up and the bodies moved to another nearby island. In the 6th year of the Peloponessian war and under instruction from the Delphic Oracle, the entire island was purged off all dead bodies. It was then ordered that no one should be allowed to either die or give birth on the island due to its sacred importance. By reenacting this route from Delos to Mykonos with a hybrid of an old aegean fishing boat and an ancient sarcophagus the work raises questions about historical importance, the high, the sacred and the indifferent.
