Danae Stratou participated, with the installation Memory Threads II, in the international exhibition A Letter to the Future of the EKO 8 triennial, which opened on 21 May 2021. The venue of the exhibition was the former textile factory in Melje, Maribor, Slovenia. Artistic Director: Alessandro Vincentelli.
This site-specific installation is based on the first version of the installation Memory Threads which took place in the old textile factories of PIRAÏKI – PATRAÏKI in Patras in 2020. Memory Threads – Maribor, is a site-specific installation comprising two elements, a soundscape, and a sculptural installation. The first is a sound composition blending natural and industrial sounds. The second takes the form of traces of the (now gone) textile and folding machines, created on the floor using salt, staying faithful to their original size and position as preserved in copies of the mechanical floor plan.
A new soundscape was created for this project using two existing sound compositions from previous works of the artist, combining three different elements of sounds. One coming from nature -specifically the sound of icebergs, recorded by underwater microphones, as they collide, melt and break while moving in the Antarctic ocean (from the project Icesongs, 2010). The other two sound elements are comprised of operating old-type textile machines (from the project Memory Threads, 2020), and of former workers describing the production process of the textile factory. The Icebergs songs coming from deep within the Antarctic Ocean are like voices emanating from an imagined landscape, at once familiar, alien, powerful. The combination of natures’ voice with the rhythmic, deafening sound of the working machines, remind us of the industrial revolution that was the beginning of our current climate crisis.
The art video presenting the original Memory Threads installation was shown on a large TV screen at the exhibition space of the former textile factory close to the new site-specific installation itself.
