Daphne: Screening and Performance Lecture
Atopos CVC, Athens - for the Office of Hydrocommons project curated by Eleni Riga. Themed evening: Water as an Agent of Social Justice in Mythology and the Folk Tradition. 21:00–22:00
Performance lecture by Catriona Gallagher, in conversation with curator Eleni Riga.
A presentation of digitised 16mm film, phytography, text, and documentation of the eco-developing process of a filmwork in-progess. In Daphne was a torso ending in leaves (2023), Catriona Gallagher aims to make a film about Daphne with daphne, by hand-processing black and white 16mm film in an infusion of bay leaves. Ovid’s version of the myth of the water nymph turning into a bay-laurel tree after being pursued by Apollo is reapproached from a perspective that keeps Daphne central to the story, investigating the bay-laurel plant as a persistent symbol in contemporary Rome, and exploring what metamorphosis looks like from the inside. This work was developed during the artist’s Bridget Riley Fellowship at the British School at Rome between September 2022 and March 2023.