Persephone’s Plight:
The Four Seasons of Migration
Multimedia Exhibition

Writer/ Producer/ Director

Moving Image Centre, Auckland, New Zealand
Ionion Centre For Arts and Culture, Kefalonia, Greece.

Persephone’s Plight is a multi-media installation with multiple film and video images drawn from over 20 years of filming between Greece and New Zealand.

This multi-media installation exhibition was mounted for the Moving Image Centre in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2010. In 2012, it was invited to the Kefalonia International Arts Festival in Greece. Its thematic motif of Birth, Separation, Yearning and Return continues to emerge in her work, as an archetypal template.

Persephone’s Plight – the 4 Seasons of Migration are expressed through the quartets of Birth, Separation, Yearning, Return. Like Persephone, abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld, where she yearns to return to her Mother, the migrant is abducted by the New World. Separated across the waters, she and her Mother yearn for each other.

As Persephone eats the fruits of the Underworld and is irreversibly changed, the migrant partakes of the New World and is changed. Though the Homeland calls, she can never permanently return. Destined to journey between worlds, she, like her Mother, is trapped in yearning. The generations that follow - the new seeds – inherit this yearning, this love of a distant culture through Music, Language, Food, Dance and Stories.

Maybe they can one day return, maybe they can one day stay?

Christina Daglas

“I went and saw your exhibition on Saturday with a friend. I found it to be an extremely moving experience, and I believe it is a very important work and of great significance to tell all children of Greek immigrants.”

Paolo & Maria (from Italy)

“This is the same story as our family. It made us cry.”

Persephone’s Plight- Four Seasons of Migration

In total, seven pieces of work were edited to make up the exhibition, each with accompanying prose or poems in English and Greek.


Music Credits: Flight on Light composed by John Psathas, Clarinette by Manos Achalinotopoulos

Art gallery room with two projected images on the walls, one showing a close-up of hands with text subtitles, the other displaying an outdoor scene with a building and water. A bench is positioned on the floor.
Projection of a woman in a headscarf lying down with subtitle "the maiden Persephone, was abducted by Hades" on a wall.

The Quartet

Duration 9.10 minutes
A DVD sequence, the exhibition’s main work.

The Myth

Duration 5.51 minutes
A DVD loop expressing the myth of Persephone and Demeter.

Collection of personal items including a suit with a red and blue striped tie, a photo of a man walking in a suit, handwritten letters, a religious icon, a rosary, and a notebook with Greek writing open to a page labeled "Monday 1936."

The Suitcase

Duration 2 minutes
A DVD loop projected into the open upper interior of a suitcase, including Homeland (poem) -Within the main body of the suitcase, an installation work including letters, a folded suit, an icon, a diary, and a set of Greek worry beads

Black over-ear headphones hanging on a white surface

The Cousins

Duration 2.41 minutes (audio only)
How it feels to be Greek. -“I only have to listen to a beat of Greek music, and my feet are up and I’m dancing before I’ve realised.”

Older couple on a computer screen in a room with framed pictures.

The New World

Duration 3.30 minutes
A DVD loop on a small TV screen -Exchanges and greetings between relatives in Greece and New Zealand, including Between the Seasons (poem).

Smiling elderly woman with gray hair, reaching forward, captured in a candid moment.
Close-up of an elderly person's ear and glasses

Olga Yearns

Duration 5.28 minutes
A DVD loop on full-wall in slow motion.

Emilio

Duration 4.49 minutes
A DVD loop of a personal exchange between film-maker and her father.

LINK TO: An intimate conversation between Emilio and his daughter (the artist).

Person standing with arms outstretched in front of a large abstract hand projection on a wall.
Elderly woman sitting outdoors knitting
Projection of two side-by-side images on a wall. The left image shows a person standing by a waterfront with a boat mast and mountains in the background, featuring the subtitle "At another time, from similar shores." The right image displays three me
Two adjacent video projections in a dark room; left displays Greek text with a blurred image, right shows a person by water.
A small fishing boat docked on calm water with a blue and white paint scheme. The boat has equipment on the deck and is secured to a wooden pier. A white cat is sitting on the pier next to a plastic jug. The background features a tranquil water surfa
Stone house with red doors and windows, a dirt road, a red pickup truck, stone walls, greenery, and a lamp post near water.
Close-up of hand holding a stack of airmail envelopes with postage stamps and handwritten Greek addresses.
Two projected images on a wall in a dark room: on the left, a hand holding olive branches with text "Persephone had eaten the fruits of the Underworld"; on the right, an elderly man sitting outside against a stone wall.
Scenic coastal view with buildings, water, and trees
Two elderly women wearing headscarves, standing outside with one holding a tool or stick; faded vintage style photo.
White building with green shutters and closed door, plant on ledge
Metal bell hanging from a red support beam on a white wall, with a rope attached, against a clear blue sky.

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An Exhibition Pack is available for Persephone’s Plight Exhibition. Request a pack by email.