The Sterna organisation brings together a team of four visual artists who have already spent time on Nisyros. They have studied its materials, codifying and incorporating them into their work according to each one’s personal style and depending on their subjects. After a two-week stay on the island to collect the materials they’ll need for the journey, they embark on two ships for another three weeks of island hopping to the south, stopping over at Tilos, Symi, Rhodes, Castellorizo.

They carry with them ‘trademark’ local materials: pumice stone, sulphur, agramittha (a kind of nut) and thermal water, which are ritualistically offered as gifts to the islands linked to Nisyros by regular boat connections. On the other hand, what makes these artists, amidst the tourist high season, to create something of no apparent commercial value? What kind of good is contemporary art, and how does it relate to tourism? In a special time when art and tourism are the mainstays of Greek production, what is the role of artists and why are they producing during a season designated as a time to rest and consume?

What is attempted here in a way is a kind of “branding” of artistic production while travelling from place to place; a process that involves the creation of a unique name or image for contemporary visual art. The “tourists-consumers” are recipients of a constant artistic process. This “branding” concerns the artists themselves and their work, but also Sterna; after all, a brand is the essence in the unique personal experience of each of us.

Ultimately, how can the energy from the volcano be conveyed without an explosion?

With the support of NEON.