212 Medea (Recited from an Empty Middle)

When an asteroid invades the earth’s atmosphere, it becomes incandescent. It is transformed into a shooting star and possibly a threatening body for the Earth’s surface. The asteroid 212 Medea which was discovered in 1880 is of interest for Stefania Strouza as part of her artistic and research work. Medea is identified with the unpredictable and the destructive, as well as with being the person who denied everything given as self-evident and imposed. A side of her character shows her kinship to natural phenomena, animal instincts, and Earth itself. The existence of the asteroid 212 Medea offers the opportunity for a visual narrative that manifests the contemporary connotations of the myth in relation to the natural environment. Three sculptural works and a video imply bodies that are at the same time geological and universal, human and nonhuman, material and active, unfinished and in formation. The bodies show traces of collision, but they also seem to be capable of provoking change. With the different works presented, Stefania Strouza refers to the suspended condition that the planet finds itself in today. She provokes a conversation about the urge to detach from human-centric and patriarchal models, and highlights the need for practices of repair and of planetary regeneration.

Text by curator Daphne Dragona
From the solo exhibition at AnnexM Visual Arts Center, Megaron the Athens Concert Hall, 2021