DANAE TEZAPSIDOU
visual artist-museologist Thesis title: Narratives of a railway station: in and out of the vogues and the carriages This thesis is about the museological conceptual and spatial programming and design, in view of an exhibition comprised of a part of the Railway Museum’s collection, in the city of Thessaloniki (Kordelio Thessaloniki). Our aim is […]
visual artist-museologist
Thesis title: Narratives of a railway station: in and out of the vogues and the carriages
This thesis is about the museological conceptual and spatial programming and design, in view of an exhibition comprised of a part of the Railway Museum’s collection, in the city of Thessaloniki (Kordelio Thessaloniki). Our aim is to outline the key importance of the railway during the modernist period in Thessaloniki, and more widely in the Balkans, both as a phenomenon and as a medium. To accomplish the above we chose an exhibition scenario – composed of six sections – which is directly related to the collection and the open-air environment of the Military Station.In the first section, we study the correlation between the industrial revolution and the railroad, and how the latter drove the economic and industrial development as well as the change in societal structures at the time. In the second section, we examine the way Nation-States used the railroad as a tool and as a medium, to conquer space and redefine their territory from an institutional and political point of view. In the third section, we focus on the train’s growing popularity within the leisure industry, as a means of entertainment and of recreational travel. In the fourth section, we look at the railroad as a political tool, to control and protect society during wars and geopolitical confrontations. In the fifth module, we examine the way the railroad changed the nature and character of transport, as well as its association with mass population transfer, displacement and migration. In the sixth section, we analyse the parallels between the out-of-body experience of travelling by train and the quest of introspective and existential inquiry. Each of these six sections have an equivalent scenographic representation in a distinct area of the outdoor space. The spatial museological interventions bring to life the chosen elements of the raw outdoor space, while still maintaining its current sense of abandonment and desolation. The visitor remains aware at all times of the spatial changes – or lack thereof -, of the relations between the different interventions, and lastly, of the interplay between the interventions and the other elements of the space that remain virgin of interference.
Publications:
2016 (08): publication of my painting work on the digital column Young Artists, of the non profit organisation PEEBE (http://www.peebe.gr/young-artists/) https://www.peebe.gr/young-artists/danai-tezapsidou/
2015 (09): participation as an artist in the photographic journal Toumpa: A stroll in the city, curated by Hercules Papaioannou. Photographs: Apostolos Maikidis, Grigoris Digkas, Antonis Theodoridis, Danae Tezapsidou. Publication: University Studio Press, ISBN: 978-960-12-2194-6. Μunicipal Art Gallery of Thessaloniki, Municipality of Thessaloniki. (http://www.universitystudiopress.gr/intro.htm)
2015 (11): publication of my photographic journal “Travel as Disenchantment”, in the digital magazine wip (work in progress, http://www.wip.gr) that hosts unpublished work by various photographers. Issue wip 18 (http://www.wip.gr/issues/Wip18.pdf).
2014 (07): publication of my photographic journal “Private”, in the digital magazine wip (work in progress, http://www.wip.gr) that hosts unpublished work by various photographers. Issue wip 15 (http://www.wip.gr/issues/Wip15.pdf), selection of works Paris Petridis.