4th Biennale D’Autun, International Festival of Sacred Contemporary Art – Migration(s)
Le Cellier du Chapitre (Place du Terreau)
Autun, France
15 July – 03 August 2023
Kalliopi Lemos participates in the 4th Autun Biennial with two artworks, the ‘Ritual Garments’ series and the film ‘Something is Brewing in the Pond’, from the 15th of July until the 3rd of August 2023.
From the Biblical Exodus to contemporary nomadism, from the processions of pilgrims to the current migrant crisis around the Mediterranean region, from migratory birds to inner journeys, all of human history is affected by the crucial question of Migration. For this 4th edition of the Biennale D’ Autun, 23 international artists from 14 countries are invited to explore and give their voice to diverse visions of the sacred.
Kalliopi Lemos’ Ritual Garments, a series of nine ceremonial shirts decorated with polymorphous religious and mystical imagery, resulted from a deep contemplation process while working in the garden that surrounds her studio during the lockdown time. Through regular contact with the garden’s environment, the artist meditated on the essential connection with the earth and the collective urgency for empathy, comfort, and hope, in times of mourning and despair. By using an extraordinary wealth of different spiritual references, the artist explores common elements of different cultures, revealing this way the universal human need for ceremonial practices; not only as a path to connect with nature as the essence of divinity but also as a means to meet each other.
Kalliopi Lemos’ film Something is Brewing in the Pond reveals the universal existential agony of facing the unexpected, the trauma, the illness, or the war. Following the natural circles of the sun, the interchange of days, seasons, and generations, and ultimately through the flow of life itself, the film praises the unstoppable seeking of healing, comfort, hope, and salvation within nature’s divinity and within togetherness, while it celebrates humankind’s common spiritual needs, throughout troubling times and throughout eternity.
