INDOEUROPEAN GREETING

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lecture performance

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Indoeuropean Greeting was an opening lecture performance I created in collaboration with Athanasios Anagnostopoulos for Documena (http://documena.weebly.com/) at the Athens Biennale Waiting for the Barbarians at Bageion Main Hall, Omonoia Square, Athens. It took place in 2017, parallel to Documenta 14, which, for the first time, split its locations between Kassel and Athens.

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The performance questioned the romanticization of the “South” and the Greek economic crisis in the context of Documenta 14’s visit to Athens. I delivered a speech in the role of an “official representative” of Germany, which was translated into Greek by Athanasios Anagnostopoulos. The speech highlighted cultural exchanges between Greece and Germany (such as pluralism and Platonic love from Greece to Germany, and the architecture of the Greek parliament by Friedrich von Gärtner from Germany to Greece), and argued for a shared Indo-European cultural foundation. Meanwhile, images were projected, showing me as a volunteer in India, at the Acropolis, etc., exposing the blurred line between humanism and colonialism/voyeurism. The speech culminated in a wordplay with the German word “das Gift” (eng. poison), which once meant “gift” (“die Gift”) but evolved to mean poison over time.