This research project was first conceived along two axes: afto and WASP. With the first, Anne Penders intended to extend kalà — a book written “about, around and out of Greece, without ever having been there”— into a fine-arts and literary project: to make the text step out of the book, to let others use it, and to focus the research on the Greek territory itself. And at the same time, to work on writing based on quotations by other authors, stride a territory (poetically as much as geographically, searching for “the images of the text”, captured on Super 8, using film stock.
The author brought a literary translator (Anastasia Chavatza), a dramaturge (Barbara Demaret) and two actresses (Justine Lequette and Christina Dendrinou) into the fold. A polyphonic vocal adaptation of the texts (in French, Greek, English) combined with images and sounds collected from field recordings was presented in 2018 at the Institut français in Athens and at La Bellone in Brussels as part of the Midis de la Poésie program.
The second research axis developed in parallel: coming about from an encounter with Solenn Patalano, a French biologist specialized in primitive wasps currently working in Greece on honeybee memory. Exchanges, field observations and even conferences give form to a conversation wherein Anne Penders questions how artistic and scientific research echo one another.
Aside from the performances and field studies, the research also led to an exhibition of images and words at the Institut français in Athens, a hybrid presentation at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels, and the risographic publication afto, created in
collaboration with illustrator Lisa Boxus.
An experimental film is currently in the works. Anne Penders will be continuing this deeply personal and collaborative research in 2019 (at the very least), exploring the distance and proximity between languages, places and beings.