The stories and the sensationalism surrounding the discovery of Cave Woman sparked Papadimitriou’s attention regarding an individual who deliberately escaped from life and society in search for personal freedom through a self-imposed exile. On this discovery Papadimitriou remarks: “I wanted to meet this woman who didn’t want to give into the situation as it existed, who refused to reveal her identity, who didn’t want to reveal her age, family, religion, or country, who fiendishly Chagall-like, paints little people with wings and communicates with aphorisms, who comes out of nowhere and cannot be placed into a framework of either time or place.” 

In the context of the exhibition “The Image of Europe” Papadimitriou produced a poster where she re-designed the cover of one of the most widely distributed newspaper magazines in Greece, “E.” She responded to Mauguchata’s request for personal freedom (as she was being held up in a monastery) whilst the media incessantly published her portrait everywhere. The poster became Papadimitriou’s personal vision of the story, relating the facts as she saw them fit to relate. In which instance, she wrote the word EXPENSIVE across Mauguchata’s concealed portrait, claiming “our faces are expensive” and “our existences are expensive.”

Maria Halkias