Cleanliness – Purification – Fruit Washed Well, Try Some

The work titled Cleanliness – Purification – Fruit Washed Well, Try Some was created for the Argos Festival, organised by theatre theorist and art critic Eleni Varopoulou in June 1996. It was designed specifically for the neoclassical Municipal Market in Argos, a piece of 19th century architecture situated in a place with a deep and potent history. Seven large sculptural forms installed along the length of the market contained fruit, while a “living sculpture” at the far end encouraged the public to take part in the happening. The artist incorporated materials and objects she found inside the space into her installation. Allowing the market to function as a public and social space of exchange, and seeking the active participation of visitors were both key elements of the concept driving this work: the idea of a symbolic symposium [in the ancient Greek sense] connecting the sensory pleasures of taste with collective experience. As she herself noted, “the function of a market as a public social space where people engage in transactions led me to think and to decide that my intervention, my work must somehow involve an element of interaction. This gave rise to the idea of a symposium of sorts where the sensory pleasures of taste would connect visitors inside the space, turning them into fellow symposiasts.”