Lia ironing Greek flag : Video and Series of photographs, 2016

“I stand here ironing” putting on my headphones ,

listening to my daughter read to me Tillie Olsen’s short story.

Title alluring to domestic life of women, anguishes of mother , and above all the silenced women in politics.

Reading-Audio Niki Lapithi

Lia irons Greek flag (while outing on headphones).

Arrtist’s notes on Video: A woman stands in an empty white room ironing a Greek flag. While ironing she listens to an audio of a short story read by her own daughter and written by Tillie Olsen “I stand here ironing”.  

In the video we hear an extract of this story.

Olsen’s story is about a mother and daughter, and takes place in the most ordinary of settings: a mother, at home, ironing. The mother is interrupted in the course of her routine by a troubling question from her daughter's teacher. The question "moves tormented back and forth with the iron," as she looks back over her life and circumstances, the continuous movement of the ironing clues us in to the continuous stream of economic hardship and responsibilities that distract her from giving her daughter her full attention and care. It's a world where those in power can't be trusted to work for the ordinary person's best interest and women are “Silenced” in the house, away from politics.

Text on video-

and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron.

Come in and talk with me about your daughter

You think because I am her mother I have the key, or in some way you can use me as a key?

There is all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me.

But the seeing eyes were few or non-existent. Including mene.

With all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood

She blew shining bubbles of sound.

blue

She was a miracle to me,

Looking like her father, thin, and dressed in a shoddy red that yellowed her skin and glared at the pockmarks.

All that baby loveliness gone.

But never a direct protest, never a rebellion.

I put the iron down.

“25th March”-
Ironing a Greek & EU flag in Cy. In 2004, the whole of Cy entered the EU even though 38% is still occupied by Turkey. Ironing signifies her Hellenic identity and heavily pregnant on the shores of Cyprus signifies care, the foundational fabric of social reproduction.

Photo as exhibited in "Suspended Spaces"