The 6th edition of the HYam project this summer will be presented for the first time in the premises of the Historical Archive-Museum of Hydra. For the third consecutive year, the organization HYam (Hydra for Artists of the Mediterranean), founded by the journalist Pauline Simons, honors women and invites two young artists, one French and one Greek, to exhibit their artworks in August in a location that reveals all the history of Hydra from antiquity to the present day.

Pauline Simons herself characteristically mentions about the exhibition Loin Sur La Terre, which hosts works by Eva Medin and Stefania Strοuza:

“In The World After the Rain, Eva Medin films a hybrid being, between man and sculpture, and in this way revises the fantasy of mutation and transformation. Stefania Strοuza’s sculptures refer to upheavals, planetary transformations, natural upheavals: thanks to mental syntheses that the artist builds with other transitory entities such as Medea, the witch, the anti-heroine with the unique fate that penetrates her myth to be reborn , the artist touches completely human worlds and builds bridges between different types of hybridity”.

Eva Medin
Prophecies 

The World After the Rain is a video and choreography fairy tale inspired by a science fiction book by Philippe Curval as well as a painting by Max Ernst. In the form of a hybrid creature, between human and sculpture, the work takes a fresh look at the fantasy world of mutations and transformation using a language that makes references to science fiction and choreography. It proposes the experience of a time that hovers between the past and the future, between the material and the immaterial in order to discover new relationships with the earth, with the living and the non-living beings that make it up.

It is a creation realized in the framework of the Biennale of Digital Fantasy (Chroniques) in Marseille, in co-production with the CHRONIQUES platform supported by the Region of the South of France, the Municipality of Marseille and the French Institute in Paris, the Regional Directorate of Educational Affairs of the Ile- de-France and the School of Fine Arts of Marseille – White Mountain College artistic residence, under the coordination of SECONDE NATURE and ZINC.

Dancer: Calixto Netto/Director of Photography-Editor:
Guillaume de la Forest Divonne/Original Music and Sound Design: Micha Vanony (studio PHEBE’S)/Costumes: Anais Heureaux/
Assistant: Leonardi Fabini

Stefania Strouza

212 Medea

In the sculptural installation 212 Medea, the artist refers to moments of cosmic turmoil as well as planetary re-creation. The project takes its title from the existing asteroid named 212 Medea and is connected to the artist’s research on the mythical anti-heroine. Similar to the way asteroids can transform into Earth-changing bodies, Medea is identified with the unpredictable force of Nature. Studying her story, Struza explores the anti-heroine’s relationship with natural phenomena, animals and the Earth itself. For the artist, the existence of the asteroid inspires a visual narrative where the modern connotations of the myth of Medea in relation to the natural environment are revealed.

The installation consists of a series of sculptures that allude to non-human, geological and celestial bodies. The hybrid sculpture 212 Medea (If only I had stayed the animal I was) refers to the recognition of other living worlds beyond man, while the ceramic fragments SPK-ID 2000212 (A880 CA) suggest the flows and changes of cosmic matter as it enters in the Earth’s atmosphere. The Her Turbulence relief evokes the waves of the sea or the surface of a distant planet. Formed by the artist through the application of pressure and deformation of the aluminum surface, the work is a snapshot of material transformations.

Historical Archive-Museum of Hydra
Opening: Saturday 5 August, 8:30 p.m.
Duration: 5 August-31 August 2023