BedSheets – The Duality of Freedom is a public art project I presented in 2017 at Syntagma Square in Greece. It seeks to explore and interpret the human imprint on the sheets, which is connected to the deeper meaning of freedom: personal, societal, and civic.
In this project, the BedSheets escape from beds, houses and even my canvases, transforming into three-dimensional digital forms that wrap themselves around buildings of big cities.
Performance April 27, 2017 Syntagma Square
I believe that art is interwoven with life. In that sense, with the help of technology, I “covered” the historical Hotel Grande Bretagne with a huge digital sheet. This is no kind of architectural intervention, but rather an opportunity, almost an excuse, to reveal a different view of things. The building symbolizes the bed: our personal space, where we feel safe and free. In a metaphorical sense, the digital sheet functions as a cover, to hide or to protect, to embrace or to enfold the body that is in constant motion, free, upon the bed.
I wanted to prompt the audience to reflect upon age-old questions: are we truly free? To what extent is freedom possible? Are we free when we get out of bed –our own space of freedom– and go outside? Is our freedom lost as soon as we leave the house and shut the door behind us? Do we simply want to cling to the idea of acting and thinking freely?
Whatever the answers may be, my aim was to stop the common passersby on their tracks and to draw them into an encounter with art, so they can sense another reality.
Maria Fragoudaki
SOME THOUGHTS ON FREEDOM
The ΒedSheets harbor freedom like the struggle with ourselves.
That perpetual and bidirectional struggle, outwards and inwards;
In other words with ourselves,
But not without the Other.
Extroversion and introversion switching places in the quest for balance.
The representatives of ourselves or of our many selves are expressed by our fellow citizens,
Our friends, our family and, finally, our ideas
And our actions themselves.
Our movements in space.
But which space? The space we define and is, in turn, defined by the us and the you!
A sheet sets the boundaries and transfers movement or takes on movement
From the body that it enfolds.
The wrapping helps or hinders, inspires or limits,
Gives shape and protects or rips and reveals!
The cover is often the most powerful challenge urging us towards exploration.