*unpacking*

I zip my suitcase open, remove the objects from it, peeling away tape and layers of protection. *** I invited seven artists based in Denmark to contribute works for this group show. The artists are not here. They appear only through their packages and instructions. Over the summer I collected their works in my apartment, and later I brought them with me to Athens. None of these artists have ever been in this room before. Actually, they have never been to Athens at all.  I told them that I’m going there with a big suitcase for their art works. They wanted to know what kind of exhibition space this is. They wanted to know about the room. They wanted to see pictures of it.  I told them I didn’t have any pictures of the space. They wanted to know how the space is. I told them I didn’t have any measurements, but I had the measurements of my suitcase: 72 x 50 x 30. This was the space I had, to contain all their works.  I told them that the space has two floors. The staircase that leads up to the first floor is narrow and winding. It is olive green and made of steel. There is a grey curtain. It is large and heavy. You can pull it to divide the space if you want. The floor is terazzo, made of black, grey, and white stones, sometimes with pink fragments and wide yellow stains. There is a hole in the floor. It is deeper than you first expect. Standing close to it you notice a smell like burnt wood. If you lean over it you can feel a faint current of air rising. There is also a sink. I like this sink very much. I do not know if anyone ever uses it. I once drank from it during an exhibition. The water tasted clean with a trace of iron. Above it hangs a mirror in a golden frame. The frame is decorated with repeating square shaped waves. When I look at myself in this mirror I never smile. I know that I smile often in daily life. People close to me must know my face in ways that I cannot see. They know how it shifts in laughter. Some also know the version of my face that cries. I like to watch how mirrors in public spaces change people passing by. This is especially true in art spaces. Mirrors create a strange collaboration with the works around them. Don't you think so too? The ceiling is higher than I first noticed. It has a pale grey surface, uneven and slightly cracked. In the middle of the ground floor a round support pole rises. If I stretch out my arms I can just make my fingertips meet around it. The artists came to the apartment where I lived during the summer, one by one, carrying their works wrapped in cardboard, bubble plastic, tape. I kept them in my room in Copenhagen before leaving for Athens. I felt like a child on christmas eve. I was asked not to open them until I returned. Instead I asked the artists to describe their works, since I couldn’t see them through the packaging.