PLAYGROUND, Meletios Meletiou

Adventurously, “Playground” triggers an innate sense of exploration and play. Surfaces aggressive that twist, contort and flip blur the line between danger and fun. Here the artist presents compositions that occupy space, giving the impression of evolving, scattering units that structure and combine in an autonomous interplay of balance. Meletiou emphasizes organization rather than individual components, shifting the focus away from the parts and treating the whole as a process of dynamic interaction between the constituent elements. It is the work itself that welcomes the viewer as an active participant in this relationship. An additional layer on the walls, floor, and structural support points is the result of unpredictable systems, grids, and patterns that resemble cell-like connections, reflecting possibilities of action and reaction. These elements are oriented in two seemingly opposite directions and oscillate between care and instinctive danger. The artist walks along this ambiguity to create unexpected conceptual connections.

Meletiou continues his exploration of forms related to hostile architecture, an urban design tool that discourages specific groups of people from using public spaces. He also focuses on the materiality of counter-terrorism measures related to the global political context. Metal bars that divide public benches, obstacles that control the movement of bodies, spikes and pyramids that protrude from the surface of the wall to prevent people from sitting, falling asleep, or standing up-these are barriers that segregate and also function as tools to support urban pathology. Their architecture embodies fear and misunderstanding. Undoubtedly, the artist's work is geographically rooted and shaped in response to the phenomena of urban stratification.The forms within the “Playground” become visible through the perspective of a playground, echoing concepts of childhood that have already been a recurring theme in the artist's body of work, which Meletiou significantly expands from her only show at Fondazione Pastificio Cerere. Here in fact she explores the potential (and also the limits) of formal reconquest and direct appropriation of hostile architecture.

Published by DITO Publishing
English, Italian, Greek
Hand-bound
24 pages
210 x 160 mm                                                                                                                          ISBN 9791280304292