Nature Inside the Walls

An exhibition by Konstantinos Patsios & Marios Fournaris

The exhibition "Nature inside the walls" by Konstantinos Patsios and Marios Fournaris, curated by Nina Fragopoulou, Marine Biologist, PhD, Independent Curator, at the Herakleidon Museum, explores urban biodiversity through interaction with the city, the machine, and human perception. In addition, it brings the artists' works into dialogue with the achievements of ancient Greek technology from the Museum's collection. The exhibition opens at the Herakleidon Museum on Friday, November 7, at 7:00 p.m. and will run until January 18.

The art works in the exhibition comment on the current human-nature-technology relationship and refer to the contrast and synthesis between the natural environment and the artificial/urban landscape. Placed in the Herakleidon Museum, they are in conversation with the technological achievements of the Ancient Greeks, who exploited nature (sun, water, wind) to create ecologically conscious technologies. The aim of the exhibition is to raise awareness, in a visible and symbolic way, of the need to preserve and protect urban biodiversity (plant and animal organisms in cities), highlighting its importance for quality of life and environmental sustainability. It also invites the public to reconsider the harmony that existed between man, nature and technology in antiquity, encouraging them to reflect on their own role in shaping a more harmonious future.

Konstantinos Patsios - The Cannibal's kitchen, 2024. Painted wood and clay 130 x 30 x 30cm. Courtesy of Alma Contemporary Art Gallery.

Konstantinos Patsios says about his work: "In the exhibition 'Nature inside the walls', which is a dialogue with the artist Marios Fournaris and the existing material of the Herakleidon Museum, I present a series of new works. This section includes a variety of visual media, from painting and photography to complex readymades and collages, and focuses on the relationship between the natural environment and urban space under human influence. My work constitutes a dynamic ecosystem, where seemingly unrelated elements coexist, forming a community of forms capable of generating multiple and successive narratives. The dialogue with the Museum's exhibits and with the work of Marios Fournaris aims to form a unified narrative that dissects the nature-city dichotomy within a historical and experiential context. In my works, contemporary cities are transformed into visual landscapes that reflect their relationship with wildlife—both the wildlife they host and the wildlife they exclude. This new series of works arose from a desire to document urban biodiversity. Elephants, lions, moths, sparrows, and other wild animals appear in the works, highlighting the urban landscape as an imaginary labyrinth, both real and of spiritual significance. Climate change runs through my work like a strange light diffused across the landscape, constantly changing it. Many of the works function as palimpsests: colorful, multi-layered, and multi-meaningful.

Marios Fournaris - Ante Res Publica, 2017. Ceramic parts, wood, iron, found objects, straw, iron nail. Dimensions variable

Marios Fournaris notes: “My work is dominated by a multimodal system of expression, both in terms of content and the media used. Constructions, small sculptural compositions, painting, photography, and video form a diverse but coherent whole that explores the relationship between the natural and the artificial, the organic and the industrial. My visual universe is constructed through the recording and recomposition of industrial finds from contemporary material culture, as well as organic remnants from the natural world. My aim is not to highlight a simple coexistence, but to create a new, hybrid collective existence capable of responding to the realities of a changing environment. The large installations reminiscent of residential structures of the animal or pre-human world, the sculptural compositions with ceramic parts and organic materials, as well as the taxonomic visual approach to painting, serve as representations of adaptive strategies, either of nature towards the anthropogenic technological environment or of humans within a natural context that is constantly shrinking and mutating. The hybridity that runs through my work is not limited to the morphological or material level, but extends to the social sphere. Through photographs and videos, I focus on the environmental crisis, the degradation of the urban landscape, loneliness, isolation, and the alienation of contemporary humans. Urban space is not approached merely as a backdrop or stage but as a dynamic field of coexistence and tension between human and non-human forms of life. Within the framework of the exhibition’s theme of urban biodiversity, my work acquires an added depth: my forms function not only as aesthetic proposals but as artistic representations of potential organisms born or evolving within the contradictions of the city. Thus, my work supports the imaginative and material possibility of a future world of coexistence and tolerance, where nature and culture are not in opposition but co-shape the biosphere as a unified, evolving body.”

Theoni Anastasopoulou, PhD in Philosophy, points out: "The vision for the future of the city cannot be independent of the vision for the future of nature. Urban planning should ensure that urbanization does not result in formless urban agglomerations but in cities structured on a human scale and with full respect for nature (M. Bookchin). Obviously, we need to find a holistic model that treats urban space as a social-economic and, at the same time, natural-cultural whole. A healthy relationship between humans and nature, and by extension between cities and nature, requires above all a healthy society, so that “nature within the walls” has a substantial rather than a decorative presence. The coexistence of humans and nature, in other words, should be based on interdependence and solidarity within an eco-logical framework that does not obey the laws of the market. If urbanization does not take place at the expense of nature (with the absolute domination of the city over the countryside), not only will nature thrive, but the city will also regain its true meaning as the preeminent space where every citizen (as a physical, social, and cultural entity) can fulfill all aspects of their existence.

A public science lecture will be held as part of the exhibition.

“Greenery in the city: a window into nature”

Antonis Skordilis, PhD in Plant Ecology, Landscape Architect