MEMORIA. Women on the Mountain
Public readings

Invitation to participate in the artistic memory act
for women - guerrillas of Western Crete,
by the artist Eleni Tzirtzilaki


In the context of the exhibition Blind Date. Versions of artistic citizenship
curated by Adonis Volanakis

Contemporary Art Museum of Crete
Friday, October 25, 2019 at 19:00
32, Messolongiou Street, Rethymnon



Vangela, Nitsa, Maria, Pagona, Athina...
With the artistic act “Memoria. Women on the Mountain”, by Eleni Tzirtzilaki, memory and tribute is paid to the women who got to the Mountain and became rebels in the "impossible revolution" that was the Civil War in Western Crete. Through these "public readings", it is attempted to set up a "living monument" at the Contemporary Art Museum of Crete for these women.

The public narration of these stories of women is a kind of "purification" for all those women who fought for Freedom against fascism, colonialism and patriarchy. For those who resisted and were killed with weapons in hand in unequal battles. Those who were accused as prostitutes and pilloried with vulgar ways, remaining unburied for years, or were banished to the desolate islets. Others had left secretly, but all remained in the darkness of oblivion.
This particular place, the Mountain, mattered, because something different happened there. Especially the Mountains of Western Crete, high and steep as they were. The rocky terrain, paths, wildlife, wild birds, herbs, caves, vast horizons and cliffs, all were the Mountain.

But there was also something more than that.
It was a new world being built, a world of freedom, of rights and of things "in common". There emerged different relationships with women and men on the Mountain, relationships of equality and mutual respect, there was a touch of another society and another impetus for the future.

Following on from "Nitsa Eleni Papayannaki - Electra", presented at the exhibition "Blind Date. Versions of artistic citizenship" (curated by Adonis Volanakis), the artistic actof public readings “MEMORIA. Women on the Mountain” attempts to bring to light the stories of these women, to treat them as the hidden collective subject: the woman in the “impossible revolution” that was the Civil War.

The stories of these women are acts of resistance, by rebel women, who were violently and abominably wiped out.
Women on the Mountain, in Western Crete, came out of the stiflingly prescribed universe of conventions and paths reserved for them by their families and society. One of the reasons for this act was to claim their own emancipation, their own life and liberation in an intensely patriarchal society. They remained unrestrained on the Mountains until the end, even after the defeat of the Democratic Army. Their home and refuge was the Mountain. They could not and did not want to return defeated and humiliated. Although some may have been of weak nature and others were accustomed to the comforts of their time, they developed resilience and endurance skills, as well as immeasurable strength in extremely adverse conditions. They developed complex skills of survival and solidarity, cooperation and risk-taking, movement and strategy. In short, they became one with the environment that hosted them.
It is noteworthy that in the last nine months the Democratic Army guidance in Western Crete was led by a woman, Vangelio Kladou (Maria), who, due to adverse circumstances, had been completely cut off from the Communist Party and was acting with her few comrades under a heroic, dramatic situation. “Vangela” paid from the beginning great importance and remained fully committed to the "women's issue", to women's education and liberation.

"Gangsters" and "prostitutes" was part of the renown the dummies and the Press of their time, the fascists and the death-prone power tried to disperse about them. They were considered to be a kind of damned "witches", incompatible with established regularity  standards of the society, even in their attire, as they were dressed in men's clothes. The figure of the emancipated rebel woman came to disturb the female stereotypes of the era, as the image of the rebellious armed human in Crete and elsewhere was exclusively associated with the figure of man.

In the Democratic Army, we see the participation of women from the very beginning, especially of very young. They came from EAM and EPON.
The female guerrillas were killed in unequal  combats, like heroines, were pilloried in the worst way as the dehumanized dummies of the power had them beheaded -Maria (Vangelio Kladou) and Electra (Eleni Papayannaki)- showing around their heads, according to witnesses.
In other cases, their bodies were hanged from the bridge of Kladissos river (Maria Boraki), for exemplification and compliance.

All these cruelties pose inexorable questions about the loss of boundaries between human and inhuman, but also about the depreciation itself of life and death and the understanding of all that happened.
Simultaneously, the women’s families were plunged into a deep and untold trauma, in a continuous untold grief and an unbearable gap that can hardly be described or represented, pressing them to forget. Those of the women who returned from the Mountain were exiled, imprisoned, hidden, left for elsewhere.
Women in the extremely conservative environment of post-war Greece needed to be completely defeated.
Women, not having access to the public sphere, remained invisible, were deterred as to their right of speech and of defence of their acts, apart from a few exceptions.

The artistic memory act “Memoria. Women on the Mountain. Public Readings” is a “living-monument” to those forgotten heroines who, while we know little about them, still hold the thread that unites the past with our present.
At a time when we are experiencing a new outburst of violence against women, with an increasing number of younger women actively participating in anti-fascist struggles and emancipation claims, when mobilization against rape and all forms of pillory is increasing, there is a need to know and recognize these stories; to mention the women who lived on the Mountain, who walked and fought for days and nights between thorns and flowers, whose blood stained the rocks and whose bodies were exterminated with inhumane savagery by the fascists.

How can one talk today about these women and the overwhelming experiences that have marked their lives? Why is such an act still relevant to us? And yet: What can contemporary art do for them?
It can trace their stories and their lives -lives that were suddenly wiped out and forgotten- events and places, testimonies and archives, narratives and images, giving space, body and voice to acts of recovery and memory.

Eleni Tzirtzilaki
Public readings include Argyro Voutetaki, Katerina Voutetaki, Maria Yatroudaki, Louiza Kaloussi, Lito Karampini, Meri Kelli, Eftychia Ledaki, Magda Doura, Eleni Tzirtzilaki.

For the artistic act Memoria. Women on the Mountain, Public Readings, I thank the women from Chania who participate. I would also like to thank particularly the Contemporary Art Museum of Crete and its Artistic Director, Maria Maragou, Georgios Tzirtzilakis, Ilektra Papayannaki, Efi Aggelaki, Valia Vayonaki for the photographic material, Alekos Marinakis from the Hellenic Communist Party of Chania, Antonis Papayannakis, Maria Anagnostaki, the Chania Historical Archive and the Library of the Municipality of Chania.
Material was extracted from local newspapers KIRIX, Paratiritis, Lefteria, and the magazines Elefthera Niata, Kritika Niata, Eleftheri Kritikopoula.

CONTACT:
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the Municipality of Rethymnon (KEDIR)
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