Eleni Danesi
„Embodied Un-democracies“

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„Embodied Un-democracies“ or in greek „Ενσώματη Αν-δημοκρατία“, is a term the artist, Eleni Danesi, uses to describe the sensations, memories, and cognitive information that is registered in our bodies when we experience states of violence, oppression, abuse, violation of boundaries, physical or emotional rapism, poverty and the list goes on…, within systems that claim to be democratic otherwise.

Her initial point was to demonstrate that the word DEMOCRACY, which in greek represents the power of the people, and in my body-mind space it holds a meaning of respectful interaction between people, is being abused itself.

• How does DEMOCRACY feel within the body?
• Is DEMOCRACY part of nature as a lived experience or an intellectual construct?
• Who has the authority to define Democracy after all?

Eleni suggests that Democracy is generated within the body through interdependent relationships between humans and other-than-human beings, and appears in the relational spaces in between them.

Through Somatic Architecture (the studies of the connection between the body and environments) and Ecosomatics (the studies of the union between body-mind-nature), Eleni examines which qualities of interspecies relationships can be viewed as interdependent and how humans can actively practice these relational actions, in order to cultivate the sensation of Democracy within themselves. She suggests that a key tool to understand the depth of such relational networks is Radical Imagination: the ability to imagine new possible Democracies as an outcome of reciprocal perception of otherness. She uses practices of “Active Imagination” through improvisation of moving, drawing, and sculpting, which helps her reflect on how responsibility and community can be embodied and realized anew as the cornerstones of democratic life.

Throughout the residency period, Eleni’s work was embodied in different forms. The main body of information was organized in the form of a self-organized Academy: THE IMAGINARY GARDENS ACADEMY.

Inspired by the Epicurean Gardens, the IMAGINARY GARDENS ACADEMY is a physical-virtual, imagined, or interstitial space, where one is the architect of their own bodily knowledge. This awareness can be a space of self-power, creativity, self-agency, and consciousness of movement in whatever direction they might choose to go.

The main tools of this Academy for self-generated knowledge are focused attention, improvisation, meditation, sleep, bodyspace awareness, mindfulness, mental mapping, and conscious choice. The Academy provides a pool of topics that can be used as case studies for embodied and interspecies reflective research. One of the courses of the first year of the Academy is “THE WOMB: Internal female architecture. Interdependency between mother and fetus and the womb-space as the primal space for the experience of Democracy”. Eleni represented this concept with a 3.40 x 4.40 acrylic mural exhibited in her Studio.

In the group exhibition space “Picturing Democracy”, Eleni’s installation composition presents the notion of „INTERDEPENDENCE“ as a state that generates democratic interspecies relationships and provides a sensation of connectedness and wholeness with the world. A golden network of lines, a complex sculptural formation, a real-looking-fake plant, and a collection of words, were inspired by the symbiotic relationships between the Mycelium (structure of a fungus) and trees, which live in a state of mutual exchange of nutrients and information that supports both parts equally.

The last part of Eleni’s research is titled “The Tent of Consciousness”, a 2-day-pop-up participatory immersive installation in her studio. Eleni opened her space to the audience and offered a small taste of the practices at the IMAGINARY GARDENS ACADEMY. The installation was preparing them for the practice of self and collective consciousness. Three individual spaces and one common space, brought the participants together to actively co-create and reflect on how consciousness about ourselves, our relation to others, and the sensation of wholeness with the world are generated as embodied experiences.
The BODY Space
The ECO-Space
The WHOLE-Space
The PURE-Space
Are the four spaces within the Tent, inspired by the 4 states of consciousness: WAKING, DREAMING, DEEP SLEEP, and PURE AWARENESS, as they appear in Indian Perceptual Traditions and Buddhism.

“The Utopias of the Present are already in the progress of becoming the (e)CO-Realities of the Future.”

Text: Artist’s description of the project

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Eleni Danesi
Eleni Danesi is an Architect and Interdisciplinary Movement Artist. She is a researcher in the contemporary field of Somatic Architecture, and she is currently studying the intersections between theories of space and perception with phenomenology, neuroscience, biology, quantum physics, design, psychoanalysis, the experience of movement, and performing arts. Eleni manifests her ideas and perception of “inter-realities” (the overlapping ways to interpret reality), through workshops and immersive practices on the embodiment of space and landscapes, solo or group performances on movement and spatial narratives, visual arts, and experimental writing.

Instagram: @eleni.danesi, @latomeioproject
Website: www.elenidanesi.com