Based on the myth of transparency in modernism, the exhibition Architectural Transparencies dealt with a series of practices and concepts concerning public and private space. According to art historian and curator of the exhibition Christina Petrinou, transparency becomes functional by negating the limits between the public and private; it creates an intermediate fluid space that allows light, air and natural movement to flow freely. This dialectic space is lucid — transparent walls no longer hide any secrets — and continuous, since divisions between the public and the private collapse, while it sometimes marks the panic that ensues when the limits between the familiar and the unfamiliar recede.

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I picked out two works that transmitted the proper atmosphere enabling the vitalization of transparency’s equivocal and uncertain state. Firstly, Nikos Alexiou’s delicate construction, a transparent web from reeds that thickened and thinned out, creating a vivacious vibrant environment, whose vague hallucinatory presence allowed for various associations. Secondly, Eleni Kamma’s drawings, and especially Home is where you hang yourself, which outlined spaces openly exposed to the gaze and definitely mysterious; unexpected and impenetrable because of the rampant growth and the intricate relationships developing on their surface. Thus, they accentuated the contrasts and refuted the belief that transparent walls no longer hide any secrets.

Excerpt from “Transparency and Awkwardness” by Natasha Adamou