Mystery 89, Elefsina by Night

The light installations draw inspiration from the myth of Persephone, renegotiating and subverting it. In Greek mythology, Persephone is also called Kore [Daughter]. As Hades hides Kore-Persephone in his arms, Iris loses her colours. And when Persephone escapes from his arms to rejoin Mother Earth, Iris illuminates her welcome with six colours, as many as the months of her sojourn in the upper world.



Iris leaves behind six light rings on her path, to symbolise her marriage with life, the path to eternity, fulfilment, the union with our deepest self, the world, time itself. The day of rebirth is Saturday 1 July, and the starting point of this ceremony is the furnace of the IRIS Factory. It is there that the first ring will be illuminated, the red one, in the colour of living blood and fire, the colour of pulsating senses. Continuing her course, on 2 July, Iris paints Marie Curie square in orange, a colour similar to that of fire and flame. On the night of 3 July, she leaves her yellow ring at the abandoned industrial building of the Old Oil Mill Factory, praising the sun, the light, the spreading of knowledge and hope. On 4 July, she walks silently on Iroon Square, dressed in green, leaving her four rings to remind us of vegetation as well as the paleness of imminent death, the union of life and death. On 5 July, she will stand at the seaside, in front of the entrance to the Old Oil Mill Factory, in front of her blue ring, as if ready for a journey in the stormy seas under the starry dome. 6 July, a day of rest and preparation for a meeting with Kore. The terminal station of her course is VLYCHA − Ship Graveyard, where the violet ring will sink into the sea. Everything evokes the fertilised and wet earth she leaves behind. The six colours of Iris, which proudly accompanied Kore during the six months of her journey in the upper world, fall silent…