The Monsters
I Live With
design exhibition

The design exhibition "The Monsters I Live With," curated by Vassiliki-Maria Plavou, will be hosted from July 17 to September 28, 2025, on the first floor of Paramythias 11, in Kerameikos (above the innovative PROVELEGGIOΣ restaurant).

Vassiliki-Maria Plavou turns to myth as a tool for reflection, as a language of the collective and the sensuous. The question is: When do myth and design meet? What is its role and how does it inform the objects we live with? What monsters do we carry in our daily lives and how do they become forms of storytelling, memory, and creation?

With works by Panos Profitis and Ludd, Dimitris Tampakis, Niki Danai Chania, Despina Charitonidi and the creative duo Astronauts, consisted of Danae Dasyra and Joe Bredford, the apartment of PROVELEGGIOΣ becomes the field of this research approach with creative reinterpretations.

 The exhibition is based on the shift it suggests, where functional, ergonomic, rational design defined by modernist design culture transforms into a type of design narrative that involves memory and emotion. The objects presented carry multiple meanings, become perceived as surfaces of memory, articulated as sculptures that carry cultural imprints. The design resists cold progress and reconnects with place, materiality, narrative, and tradition.

 In “The Postmodern Condition” Jean-François Lyotard notes that “The criterion of progress excludes recourse to metaphysical reasoning, it requires the abandonment of myths, and demands sharp minds and wills” . According to the philosopher, evolution presupposes, on one hand, the abandonment of myth and the metaphysical and on the other hand, it puts forwards cold rationalism stripped of emotionalism and collective narratives.

How can one distance oneself from a myth when its mythological patterns and universal symbolism are at the core of the global cultural narrative? Myths reproduce meanings and allow us to understand the emotional dimension of our daily lives more deeply while showing us ways out of our pressing reality.

The participants share the experience of an informal collaborative forum, organized every year, with the island of Tinos as the central focus. Interacting with local artisans allowed them to become familiar with long-standing, traditional, applied arts and techniques, recording and re-activating the wisdom of the land. Manual labor, traditional tools, and the knowledge of artists in the field of experimental design ensure the preservation of tradition in a contemporary open dictionary.

Contemporary design, as proposed through the works of the participating artists, is not limited to simply referencing mythological narrative with an illustrative depiction, but it reasserts the narrative of the myth and its conceptualizations. It becomes a tool of answering existential questions.

Panos Profitis, draws inspiration from traditional gorgon forms of Skyrian woodcarving, Despina Charitonidi revisits the myth of the Potnia Theron, Dimitris Tampakis examines the power relationships between the ancient gods, specifically between Athena and Poseidon, prompted by one of their victims – Medusa, Niki Danai confronts the myth of the Sphinx and Oedipus, while Astronauts “intervene” in the birth of the monsters of antiquity.

Design as a practice oscillates between functionality, technological innovation, and narrative identity. It is the quintessential reflective practice that directly and tangibly connects myth with innovation. The exhibition "The Monsters I Live With" celebrates design as an act of cultural reconnection, where logic and imagination coexist. Above all else, it is an invitation.

Curation: Vassiliki-Maria Plavou

Participating artists: Astronauts (Danae Desyra and Joe Bradford), Panos Profitis in collaboration with Ludd, Dimitris Tampakis, Niki-Danai Chania, Despina Charitonidi

Visual Identity: Stephanos Koutroulis
Exhibition Design: Manos Babounis, Vassiliki-Maria Plavou, Maria Skeva

Hosted by: PROVELEGGIOΣ
Production: TRAIL [practice]

Communication: Katerina P. Trichia
Invigilator: Eleftheria Belpa
Phortographs: Panos Ntaoutis

Address: Paramythias 11, Keramikos (1st floor, above the restaurant PROVELEGGIOΣ)

Opening: July 17th 2025, at 20:00 (till 23:00)
Duration: July 17th – September 28th, 2025
Visiting hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 19:00-23:00