What kind of experience could negate the cultural amnesia about ecology and sustainability and speak about social and environmental justice? Could the mnemonic trace of this experience for each individual be captured and recorded in a fruit pit-remnant? Could this constitute not only the basis of our nutritional and ecological salvation but also a poetic means of assertion of ethical, just and sustainable coexistence?

The above questions are explored by Eleni Panouklia with Mystery 47 Mnemonic Garden and its site-specific version in two empty spaces in the declining commercial fabric of Elefsina in the context of the second Ecoculture Festival. The work-action initiates the public into the collection, care, and activation of the seeds that are left over from the consumption of fruits in a laboratory environment-nursery which is formed by plastic media and participatory practices and which attempts to create a new condition of common locus in the form of enclosed places-landscapes in microscale.

Just as the recording and recall of memory in individual experience is subject to alterations, in the Mnemonic Garden individual mnemonic traces are transformed into collective memory after having been subjected to compression, alteration and discontinuity. Thus, personal stories shed the characteristics of individual narratives, expanding and multiplying perceptions of the Other, of nature, and of common experience. As these memories come to fruition in the Mnemonic Garden and its symbolic versions, the work invites the participants  to imagine and try for a better future together.

Supported by NEON through its annual Grants Scheme.