One of the most famous journeys to Hades is found in Book 11 of Homer's Odyssey—a ritual known as the Nekyia, which recounts Odysseus's voyage to the land of the Cimmerians at the edge of the world, a place shrouded in eternal darkness.

The purpose of his journey is to consult the blind prophet Tiresias about his return to Ithaca. Yet, unlike other ancient heroes such as Heracles, Odysseus and his crew never literally descend into the underworld. Instead, they remain on the surface, and the dead come to them. The Nekyia essentially describes an ascent: the souls of the underworld rise toward the land of the living. Odysseus seeks the dead out of a longing for home (nostos), while the dead rise to the surface driven by a longing for life itself.

These opposing paths mirror a shared human impulse—a leap beyond logic and nature, bound together by memory and loss.

This project was developed during an artist's residency in Ithaca, Greece, during the COVID-19 pandemic—a period that brought about a profound and unsettling sense of lost time. Marked by uncertainty and isolation, days blended seamlessly into one another. This lost time was not merely about delayed plans, but about experiences and connections that could never be recaptured. Forced to slow down, we were confronted with our own priorities and the fragility of everyday life. Ultimately, this body of work uses the mythical imagery of Ithaca to explore how time, memory, and longing shape our perception of existence.



-- developed during “PERIPLUS” residency - Ithaka 2020