On a hillside at the foothills of Malimadi, one of the fiercest battles of the Greek Civil War took place. Stones gathered among the tall grass mark the places where bodies once fell. In this charged landscape of silence and unspoken presence, an artistic walk was carried out in 2024 followed by a performance. Two women and a child descend the hill carrying an empty box. A symbol of futile effort, of all that was lost, of all that never found meaning. An echo of The Box by Aris Alexandrou. The women become keepers of memory, as if activating a dialogue with what remains unspoken: loss, lineage, the untold stories of the dead. The child becomes a bridge between past and future, the new generation attempting to complete what was left unvoiced. With mirrors turned toward the sky, the place is reflected into the present. The landscape becomes a witness. Land and body become one. This ritual passage is a silent reflection on how history still touches the earth and our lives.
Silence of the Sung
from verses of Aris Alexandrou
You who did not let
the drums of your ears be shattered
by the triumphant parades
listen.
It is time for this silence
to end,
and for the voice of the sung
to be heard.
However high you climb,
here you will remain.
You will stumble and fall again
among these ruins.
Our place is here, in this forest
with branches cut,
trunks half-burned,
roots wedged deep
between the stones.
Friend or foe, do not report this anywhere.
A prisoner I stand, obedient to the voices within.
For years we have tried to build the world,
to transform it.
We knead the earth
but it dissolves again and again
in superstition, in rain, in betrayal.
We are responsible for the materials,
for our cowardice,
we are responsible
for our persistence.
What good are all these things,
after all?
For whom do you build this city,
and to what end?
With what eyes can you now see
that within it lies
the whole heart of our future world —
trampled.
The clouding of your eyes
will not narrow the horizon.
The bitterness of the stars
will not break our bridges.
Standing upright
in the middle of life,
I weigh nothing.
Practice, continue your exercises.
Look — even the sea
constantly stirs sky and seaweed,
trying to find its true color.
As you walk through the night
you may slip
into the craters of the shells;
willfully or not,
you must carve out a space
of your own.
Even if today power belongs
to those who build desolations.
Be careful with your words,
just as you would
with a gravely wounded man
carried on your shoulder.
Here you must persist
without violence,
never taking refuge
in convenient despair,
never in contempt.
Do not allow even a single curve
to be trimmed
from your fingerprints.
Your chest remains broken,
empty,
without wreaths.
We give you our oath
to remember you
on the nights
when night truly falls.