Thursday, July 6: Exhibition opening
Weaving together is a common work. It is about coming together, sitting together, talking together, eating and drinking together, making together, bringing our lives, our cultures together, sharing words together, sharing our stories and history together, confessing our pain and fears, our hopes. It is about companionship. It is about gathering. It is about human condition.
A grid, a woven structure which has been started by Vassia A. Vanezi, who invites others to gather every Friday evening, in order to weave it together.
The Grid of Memory
Our memory is us.
Memory is a grid of words, images, sounds, smells.
The objects of memory.
They are dressed in words when they return to our consciousness.
They sound when they are being spoken, when they become languages, when they turn into a story.
A call, a coffee, words that we recall from memory,
we knit them, we make them a story, a narrative.
“I’m a refugee.
The house I was born in is occupied Nicosia.
It was very nice my home.
In the front there was a window and a bower and a lemon tree in the backyard.
The last time I saw
it was on July 20, 1974.
On the day of the Turkish invasion.
I left and I never went back.
I was five years old.
The sirens were blowing, the bombs were falling and the sky was black.
I did not have the chance to take anything with me.
Not even my favorite doll.
We left with nothing but the clothes we wore.
All I have is that little dress.
A red treasure of memory.
I do not forget
And I expect to go back.”
Personal narration, recording
V. A. Vanezi
photo: Vassia A. Vanezi