The building of the “Vourla” in Drapetsona (1876-1968) played a role in modern Greek history as a state brothel and later a prison. After the Civil War, it was a place of imprisonment for political prisoners. The “great escape” of twenty-seven imprisoned communists in 1955, in defiance of party legitimacy, was carried out by digging a hole under a prisoner’s bed. The bed of the prostitute, the client, the political prisoner is always the same bed. It becomes the privileged field for the desire to escape, especially in conditions of brutal domination. Coercion and dream, sexual and libertarian desire, the paths of the collective unconscious pass through the invisible drains of the deep field of the bed.
project dimensions: 2.40×1.80m
materials: wood, reeds, fabric, plastic, mat, led light
collaborator: Vasiliki Roditi