T.A.M.A. Sentimental, 2002
Video, colour, with sound, 3′
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Donated by Dakis Joannou, 2025
Maria Papadimitriou’s video T.A.M.A. Sentimental, turns a deeply personal lens on one of the most renowned Greek musicians, the flamboyant folk and traditional clarinet virtuoso Giorgos Mangas, whose iconic performances at festivals and concerts are the stuff of legend. T.A.M.A. Sentimental is part of a larger project by Papadimitriou titled T.A.M.A. (Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), which the artist initiated in 1998 in collaboration with a Roma community in Avliza, Menidi, and presented in 2002 at the Greek Pavilion of the 25th São Paulo Biennial. T.A.M.A. was not an actual museum with tangible, physical boundaries, but rather a living space inseparable from the very community whose life it documented. Its goal was to foreground the community’s history, defend its members’ rights, and negotiate their integration into Greek society while allowing them to hold on to their specific identity and culture.
In T.A.M.A. Sentimental, the sound of Giorgos Mangas’s clarinet reaches the viewer from a large screen not merely as background music, but almost like a lullaby. The camera focuses on the musician’s deft hands, from which music emanates like an embrace folding in the entire community, a reassuring promise of protection as night falls upon the toil of the day. Expressive and emotionally charged, the video creates an immersive experience that serves as both a tender gesture of care and a reminder that music is a language without borders, capable of bridging worlds. Especially when it comes to traditional Romani music, it is worth considering that it transcends not only historical time but also the geographical boundaries that separate the peoples of the Balkans.
Untitled (from the series T.A.M.A./ Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), 1999
Untitled (from the series T.A.M.A./ Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), 1999
Lambda print on duraflex
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Anonymous donation, 2018
Untitled (from the series T.A.M.A./ Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), 1998-2002
Lambda print
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Donated by Dakis Joannou, 2018
The photographs presented here are part of Maria Papadimitriou’s T.A.M.A. (Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), a project the artist launched in 1998, in collaboration with a Roma community in Avliza, Menidi. The project was presented in 2002 at the 25th São Paulo Biennial, where Papadimitriou designed the Greek pavilion to resemble a Roma residential structure. For visitors, it was like immersing themselves into the social and domestic reality of a nomadic community, where a variety of artifacts and documentation captured the lives of its members: their daily routines, mishaps and adversities, as well as their joys and celebrations. For the purposes of this project, the artist enlisted collaborations between different social groups and experts from various fields—such as architecture, sociology, anthropology, and cinema. Ultimately, claiming visibility for the community whose lives it recorded, T.A.M.A. further sought to foster meaningful communication with traditionally marginalised groups and an attitude of empathy in our relationship with them.
In T.A.M.A., the artist uses a variety of documentation media, such as photography and video. Concerned with the access of communities living on the fringes of the city—often under intransigent regimes of discrimination—to basic social welfare structures, Papadimitriou is at once eager to capture the multiple facets of cultural diversity the project gives her access to. These are observed in the details of everyday objects, textiles, clothing, and furniture that the members of the community craft themselves for their own use or livelihood. However, Papadimitriou’s gaze is not that of a mere observer; it is neither documentary nor detached, but rather a deeply empathetic gaze that recognises its subject as a co-creator. Her Autonomous Museum is a space that renders excluded social groups visible, giving them a voice while simultaneously challenging the traditional structures that marginalise them, including those of institutional museums.
Maria Papadimitriou was born in Athens in 1957. She lives and works in Athens and Volos.
