οἶνοψ πόντος (oinops pontos)

οἶνοψ πόντος (oinops pontos)

Klitsa Antoniou employs clay vessels, sound, and video projections to create an immersive installation that is intended to evoke multiple senses. Skillfully, the interplay between the visual and auditory components gives the artwork context and interpretation. The sounds that emanate from the vessels are almost reminiscent of the waves crashing against the coast or the wine fermenting. The film’s red abstract palette, concurrently competes spatially with the visible text, creating a writing and erasing effect. Both elements attribute the title of the work οἶνοψ πόντος, which translates to “wine-dark sea,” a term that Homer used to depict the color of turbulent waters.
The phrase/epithet is frequently reiterated throughout the Odyssey, prompting inquiries among contemporary researchers of wine history, and remains an unresolved enigma to this day. Was the use of the phrase a result of the absence of a word for “blue” in the ancient Greek language? Was it a symptom of congenital color- blindness? A meteorological explanation? Or some poetic technique to evoke the sea’s turbulence rather than just its darkness? Did the ancient Greeks see and describe colors differently? What the title immediately alludes to, is that vision, which has been prioritized by western discourses from the 19th century onwards to the detriment of the other senses, is a very subjective sense. The installation challenges the supremacy of vision in Western discourses but also importantly brings to the fore the fate of the Mediterranean - the wine dark sea - the sea that used to ferry the wine for many centuries and which has been transformed in the past few years into a death trap for migrants attempting to cross it.

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