Things Not Generally Known

2026

Helix (For Sailing Stones), 2026, welded steel, red jasper, limestone, mineral concretion, serpentinite, driftwood, Quartz/chalcedony, Platygyra daedalea coral fragment

Pityoussa (Covered in pine), 2026, 30 x 40 cm, Digital print on Hahnemühle paper

Beachrock, 2026, 60 x 90 cm, Digital print on Hahnemühle paper

The Anargyrios and Korgialenios School of Spetses (AKSS)

Nona Inescu studies the natural setting around the Schools and identifies repetitions, mixtures, and encounters that are not accidental. Inspired by the information that in 1966 James Watson and Francis Crick presented the DNA helix in the School’s amphitheatre, she presents in the old Physics room an alternative genetic structure for the island, made of stone, coral and wood she has found during her explorations of the landscape. The connecting structure starts by repeating the helical curves as they appear in the latest digital imaging, but branches out in a way reminiscent of the earlier representation of the almost-2m high metal model of 1953. The stones—from limestone to serpentinite and quartz—and the white coral Platygyra daedalea (which is native to Saudi Arabia but ended up in quantities on the island due to a local seaman who had worked there) carry stories of mixtures between local and foreign elements and attest to the uncontrollable and constantly evolving identity of the landscape. In Inescu’s photographic work, her body parts converse closely with the landscape, transforming themselves into it or becoming its extensions. Here we find a reference to the pine forest, which has been part of the island’s identity in the last century, strategically planted by Sotirios Anargyros in 1928 with a special pine variety (Pinus halepensis) whose skewed trunk made it unsuitable for shipbuilding, as well as to the mosaic of sand and rocks that is naturally formed as seawater evaporates on the beaches.

Text by Eva Vaslamatzi

Special thanks to Louis-Phillipe Scoufaras and Marilena Kranioti