Lydia Dambassina

'Gini coefficient' is a statistical measurement of revenue and the distribution of wealth. It is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 indicates perfect equality and 1 indicates perfect inequality. During her last nine years of work, Lydia Dambassina has focused on the global economic and moral crisis and the inequalities that have unfolded impetuously, as well as on her innermost correspondence.

Her new works, exhibited at Yeni Cami, make up a single installation. Her central work, 'The Bellybutton', at the centre of the Ottoman monument, is the core of her installation. It expresses a bleak and cynical realization. The embalmed head of large deer, from which hangs a piece of paper with the phrase, “The 62 richest people in the world own the same wealth as half of humanity – that is, 3.5 billion people”.
The series with the scales, spreads throughout the space creating a labyrinth. Dambassina proceeds to “weigh” her personal experiences and truths, her memories and descent, to refer to the current situation in an era where numbers, measures, sizes, statistics and analyses are all powerful .

Her photographs, positioned on either side of the entrance in the central part of the mosque, portray versions of the same area which was intended for women in distinct separation from men, who occupied the whole of the central part.  In direct connection and in a dialogue with the photographs, the installation of doors with black windowpanes is deployed, representing an impassable wall.
 
They function as “cartographies” of the limits between a woman’s and a man’s position, and as a signal to the worsening refugee crisis.

The component that determines the works of the exhibition is duality: an “establishing”, primal and fundamental world-view concept containing antithesis, co-existence, equilibrium.

With a non-negotiable viewpoint and timely concern, avoiding description and narration in her work, while at the same time maintaining a moral stand, Lydia Dambassina acknowledges her vital relationship with the world, she locates incomplete endeavours at personal and collective levels, in a reality where: “The world's 62 richest people have as much as half of the world’s population – that is 3.5 billion people”.

On the opening night of the exhibition – curated    by art historian and curator at the SMCA, Giannis Bolis – Joachim Latarjet, a musician who plays multiple instruments (trombone, guitar, bass), will perform some of his compositions to accompany and enter into dialogue with the works of Lydia Dambassina.

Amongst other exhibitions, Lydia Dambassina has exhibited at the  Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki (2014), at the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum Alex Mylona (2012), the 2nd Athens Biennale (2009), the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale and Nuit Blanche at the church of Saint Eustache in Paris (2007).

Opening: 20:00 Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 10:00-18:00, Saturday: 11:00-15:00 and Sunday, Monday: closed

Co-organised with the Administration of Libraries & Museums, Department of the Municipal Gallery