ghost

Maria F Dolores (member of AMOQA | Athens Museum of Queer Arts)
Επιθανάτιο, 2022
Black soil cover polypropylene fabric, acrylic paint, 2 x 1m

Ghost carrying eyeballs, 28 x 30 cm, made by Stoneware of high temp with samot and slips of different colors, glazed with transparent glossy glazing. Dry petals from flowers.

This banner has been created by Maria F Dolores especially for Breathing Exercises. It is a breathing exercise itself. It brings together two different instances, two different written versions of the word justice (Δικαιοσύνη) that carry different spelling mistakes as witnessed in two banners raised on different occasions. Δικαιωσύνη is demanding justice for the murder of queer artist and activist Zak Kostopoulos/Zackie Oh! The banner was made by AMOQA (Athens Museum of Queer Arts) and was hung opposite the Athens Courthouse on the last day (3/3/22) of the hearing of the case of the murder of our beloved Zak, with the intention to claim space for each other. The other Δηκεοσίνη is demanding justice for the murder of young roma Nikos Sampanis who was shot 36 times by police at Perama, Athens (23/10/2021). The banner for Nikos was held by his family on November 17th (17/11/21), the date where an annual march commemorates the uprising of November 1973 that expressed popular rejection against the Greek military junta of 1967–74. In making the vision of social justice tangible through their spelling mistakes, these two banners are yelling for other, more holistic and intersectional forms of justice.

One suspicious witness (the man with the yellow t-shirt) testifies that one of the last things Zak was saying during that bloody incident that ended with his assesinasion was the phrase <> Our eyes got haunted that day in the view of those videos that will never be erased from our souls. The Επιθανάτιο ghost was not meant to survive, will be broken during Breathing Exercises, will result on pieces of ceramic, eyeballs and petals of flowers on the floor, as a cyclical gesture of letting go.

Banner for Zak Kostopoulos/ZackieOh! by AMOQA hung opposite the Athens Courthouse, 3/3/2022.
Banner for Nikos Sampanis held by his family at the 17th November demo in Athens, 17/11/2021.
Photos by Maria F Dolores @mariafdolores