Mnemosyne

Water, Memory and Landscape in Amorgos

Mnemosyne unfolds across the island of Amorgos through three interconnected exhibitions presented in parallel during July and August 2026.

Spread across three locations from north to south, the exhibitions invite visitors to travel along the island while following a journey through memory, landscape and the elements. Each exhibition explores a different aspect of the project and can be experienced independently, while together they form a larger narrative connecting water, place, time and human experience.

The journey begins in Aegiali with Remembrance (Anamnesi), a series of paintings by Yanis Zagorianakos. reflecting on personal memory and the traces a place leaves within us.

It continues in Chora with Whispering Water, an encounter between painting by Yanis and ceramics by Marina CoriolanoLykourezos, that explores water as a force of transformation, connecting pigment and clay, movement and form, presence and absence.

The journey culminates in Kolofana with Memory (Mneme), a collective exhibition bringing together artists from different disciplines in an exploration of memory as something that becomes embedded in landscape, materials, traditions and people through time.

Together, these three exhibitions form MNEMOSYNE: a journey across Amorgos and a reflection on the ways places remember, transform and continue to tell their stories.

The Origin of the Project

After more than twenty remarkable summers spent in the small house of Stavros in Kato Meria, beside two Byzantine churches, without electricity or running water, living in contact with the rhythms of the island, Marina Coriolano-Lykourezos and Yanis Zagorianakos return with a project dedicated to Amorgos.

The proposal emerged from many years of living on the island and from daily encounters with its landscape, seasons, elements and in particular water, materials and people.

The aim of the project is to reveal and document the memory of the place, the relationship between people and the elements—particularly water—and the importance of this relationship for the future of the islands of the Aegean.

Mnemosyne is dedicated to the memory of archaeologist and good friend Professor Emerita Lila Marangou (1938–2025), whose lifelong passion and work contributed profoundly to the study, preservation and understanding of the cultural heritage of Amorgos.

It is also dedicated to Giorgos Fostieris, whose generosity and hospitality allowed us to spend more than twenty summers in Stavros, living close to the landscape, seasons and rhythms of the island that inspired this project.

Finally, it is dedicated to Molly and Jehanne, two ladies who made Kolofana their home for more than thirty years and devoted themselves to the education and care of generations of children in Amorgos. Their presence, kindness and connection to this place remain part of its living memory.

Mnemosyne proposes that water is not merely a resource to be managed, but a living presence through which we may reconsider our relationship with time, landscape, memory and one another. The three exhibitions explore memory as a living force connecting past, present and future through water.

Together, Remembrance, Whispering Water, and Memory form Mnemosyne: the ongoing process through which a place remembers, transforms and continues to tell its story.

In Greek mythology, Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, was considered the source of knowledge, language and culture. Zeus spent nine nights with her, and from their union the Nine Muses were born. The myth suggests that memory is not merely a record of the past, but the source from which art, creativity and understanding arise.