With(out) voice

The installation juxtaposes the weathered lips of an elderly woman, marked by decades of speech, silence, and migration, with the idealized, fractured stone genitalia of a kouros. This pairing invites reflection on the contrast between lived experience and static monumentality, between a voice that has been heard or suppressed and one that remains forever mute. The work suggests a tension between bodily decay and eternal form, and between personal history and cultural myth.

Raskopoulos employs stark black-and-white photography to emphasize texture and contrast: the creased skin of the lips, the chiseled lines of the statue, and the grain of the film. The compositions are minimal and deliberate, placing each image in close proximity to its counterpart without overt narration. The video component introduces motion and ambiguity, using low contrast and obscured imagery to evoke presence without clarity, reinforcing the theme of silenced or hidden expression.

The work draws from Raskopoulos’s personal lineage, honoring her grandmother’s experience as a migrant whose voice may have been muted by displacement and age. The inclusion of the kouros references classical Greek sculpture, a symbol of cultural heritage that the artist’s family carried across generations. The video’s Greek flag and obscured gesture connect personal memory to national identity, grounding the work in a specific diasporic context without explicit commentary.

Created within a broader artistic dialogue on gender, aging, and classical ideals, the piece engages with postmodern critiques of monumentality and the female body. It resonates with feminist and migrant narratives that question whose stories are preserved and how. The silent kouros, traditionally a symbol of civic virtue, becomes a counterpoint to the vulnerable, speaking lips of a woman whose history is not recorded in stone but in lived, quiet endurance.

The work contributes to contemporary art’s examination of the body as a site of memory and resistance. By pairing intimate, aging flesh with idealized antiquity, Raskopoulos challenges the permanence of cultural symbols and elevates the quiet, often overlooked gestures of personal history. Its legacy lies in its restraint, offering no resolution, only a space for reflection on voice, absence, and what endures.