In view of the exhibition’s theme of migrant populations, Papadimitriou’s work titled T.A.M.A. Leaving combined two diverse building concepts based on the dwellings of cultural migrants and the massive blocks of buildings that sprouted up throughout Athens in the 1920s with the arrival of Greek refugees from Asia Minor.

Papadimitriou constructed two rooms using the lightest and most flexible building materials: fiberboards and concrete masonry blocks. The boards remained un-hinged and the concrete blocks were simply stacked one on top of the other, resembling the precarious construction of a Roma traveler’s building. The topology of the rooms, however, was inspired by the Athenian refugee flats based on the division of a square room into four equal parts. If two consecutive walls happened to be external, they would then be pulled down and turned into verandahs. It was on this latter open space consisting of just two standing walls that Papadimitriou modeled her two temporary rooms, a living room and an office space.

Visitors were encouraged to enter the space to sit down, relax their feet after a long museum visit. Reading material, photographs and television screens broadcasting T.A.M.A. projects could be found all around. Visitors were then encouraged to leave their observations, comments and feedback inside the masonry concrete walls.

Maria Halkias