Leeszaal in Rotterdam hosted on Monday 24 March 2025 a very important public moment.

Among the works exhibited was the second part of the project "Labels, but not for clothes".

What was presented:

A "game", demonstrating how systemic exclusion supports labeling, based on the actual directives of the latest US administration.

A video piece with main source material TV ads from the 80's and 90's setting impossible stereotypes through repetition.

As part of a bigger, collective project and following the subjective map of Rotterdam this project was adapted to fit the city of Groningen. Inspired as always by infrastructure, it grew to include Eemshaven and to pose questions regarding the cost of development and of our increasing needs in energy and data. Below is the video produced from footage of Eemshaven and the city of Groningen, juxtaposing liminal and gentrified (or on the verge of gentrification) spaces and the ever-expanding energy and data factories of Eemshaven.

An ever-changing mobile population
Our mixed paths
Our lost orientation
Making history that soaks into
An angry earth


A greedy machine is marching
From the end of the world
A new order
A dark mirror.
 
We remain

Stoic like oaks
Entangled
In deep rooted feeling

Or

Anchored like house boats
In half-deserted ports
Rocking with the waft
The ebb and the tide.

In a playful manner, the project also speaks about and celebrates the mundane but magical corners as met by the curious eyes of a stranger.

Here are some pictures of the project in its natural environment: SIGN Project Space, commissioned and hosted the work from 26 September to 6 October 2024. The relevant object which compliments the video was created with SIGN's DIY approach in mind. It incorporates elements of temporality, temporariness, orientation as experienced from the viewpoint of the visitor, thoughts on the big issues of the city and 3D-printed GPS logs.

A subjective, interactive map of the infrastructure of Rotterdam. Each layer of thread represents a different level of infrastructure and each pin is connected to a touch sensor that triggers different media files related to the city and displayed on the screen in the center. One of these files contains the poetic piece "Infrastructure". The piece aims at making the viewer conscious of the networks of infrastructure surrounding her and asks her to consider her position and role in an elaborate design where everything seems to be connected. 

The work, that was completed both as an idea as well as an object with the tireless help of Rosa and Victor, was presented in S/ash Gallery, Rotterdam, from 27 June to 2 July 2024, as part of the collective xpub Special Issue #24.

I am happy to announce that the poem "Seasons (het jaar rond)" that Alida van Leeuwen and I wrote in collaboration has been published in the newspaper LisserNieuws on October 1st. "Seasons (het jaar rond)" is a two languages experiment, and the result is quite interesting. Here is the poem (without the spelling mistake that appears in the paper):

Seasons (het jaar rond) - Duo dicht Maria Exarchou/Alida van Leeuwen

It starts in winter as a distracting recollection
of poppy red dispersing in the late afternoon sun.

Ik voel de eerste zonnestralen
zie zonnig geel en vurend rood
en spring vol vreugde de lente in

Riding the tip of the rainbow I shed my old skin
freed by the explosion of purple in the meadows.

De warme kleuren van de zomerse zon
geven alles een nieuwe tint
Mijn zonnebril beschaduwt de wereld

I don't want this life to end. I find closure in
silver autumn clouds: Like seasons, we'll return.

Een zucht vol winterse geuren
vullen mijn daagse dromen
De temperatuur daalt