Eliana Otta | Tracing traces of traces

This project will be developed in the Eleonas Bazaar (aka ‘Gypsy Market’), a large flea market that changes over time, adapting to the dynamics of its location, situated near the Eleonas metro station in a former industrial area of Votanikos. The market is now in danger of disappearing or, at the very least, undergoing a drastic transformation due to the construction of the upcoming Panathinaikos New Stadium. Elianna Otta will follow closely what may be the last period of its current form, producing an archive of sound and visual material, including conversations with the people working there and participatory activities on site.

Otta understands the market as an accumulation of traces: its configurations and dynamics tell of the multi-layered history of the neighborhood, linked to one of Athens’ most marginalized migrant communities. Likewise, the objects it offers are remnants of past epochs, cultural trends, economic phenomena, and the circulation of goods in the region where Athens is located. The project will connect traces of habits of consumption, production, and the ideas about fashion, use, and modernity that traverse our bodies and the cities we inhabit.

The interviews will provide insights into the memories, affects, stories, questions, and dreams of the vendors, expanding the narratives about this place while challenging hegemonic discourses of development and modernization. By offering glimpses of marginal experiences and subjectivities, this project invites us to understand Athens in a different light, engaging with the communities it excludes.

Otta’s first solo show, in 2008, was about the main flea market in Lima, Tacora. She started going in 2000 and had seen it change and adapt to the authorities’ failed attempts to eradicate it. It was founded in the 1950s by migrants from the Peruvian highlands, and although it was portrayed as dangerous and dirty, to her, it was a living testament to the migrants’ ability to survive in a city that mistreated them. When she first came to Athens in 2017, she was struck by how Eleonas reminded her of what Tacora used to be, a place where one could find literally anything, suspending normal understandings of exchange and value. Tacora changed in recent decades, as has all of Peru’s capital, becoming domesticated, gentrified, and homogenized under capitalist imperatives.

Since Otta’s first visit to Eleonas, when there were still minivans to transport visitors to the more distant fairs, the market has undergone constant change, much like an organic being. But the upcoming stadium will affect it in an unprecedented way, transforming an area that until now was neglected and left to the most excluded communities, Roma and refugees (a camp used to function there). In this sense, the project responds to the abrupt changes taking place in Athens, a city experiencing a violent loss of public spaces and its transformation into a source of profit and speculation. By engaging with the material, subjective, and affective memory of the market, this project will broaden discussions about our memories and desires regarding the places where we live.