During the summer of 1993, Papadimitriou was on the smallest and most remote island of Dodecanese, Kastelorizo, and she photographed herself naked inside an old wooden barrel on the side of which she had written in gold letters Deposito d’Arte di Megisti. The juxtaposition of text and image on the work makes its case through incongruity. Papadimitriou strategically played with the word “Megisti,” the name of the only town on this minuscule five square-mile island, which means the “largest” or “biggest.” Amused by the paradoxical use of the word, Papadimitriou extended the irony of this contradiction by generating a parallel incongruous framework by placing her own voluminous figure inside the smallest possible fitting repository, a barrel bearing the term “Megisti” on the exterior.

Naked and staring straight out at her viewers, Papadimitriou refutes and challenges stereotypical norms of female beauty as prescribed by pop culture and mass media. This work marks the beginning of Papadimitriou’s projects that mock through irony, humor and satire Western feminine norms; a project that lasted over a three year period between 1992-1995.

Maria Halkias