Tania Bizoumi | Láfyra (working title)

The first layer of research centered on material objects: the relics of Catholic saints as vessels of divinity, Pacific material cultures where objects containing human teeth maintain a connection with ancestors, apotropaic objects, amulets, witchcraft practices, and animist traditions, all pointing to a long history of objects seen to hold presence and power beyond their form and function. Victorian love tokens and courtship gifts anchored the work closer to the intimate and the domestic.

From material research, I moved to theory. Igor Kopytoff on object singularization, Sarah Ahmed on sticky objects, both useful for thinking about how emotions adhere to objects and how things shift and drift once removed from their original context. An unexpected source of inspiration was the field of quantum physics, specifically the concept of superposition, where properties exist in multiple states until observation collapses them into one. From this, I developed the concept of affective superposition, where meaning is not fixed but produced through contact, shifting with the emotional state of whoever is observing it.

Being deep in ideas of unstable definitions and fluid meanings, I found myself seeking rigor. I tried to build a taxonomy to map object categories and their intersections, tracking all the states one thing could move through. The more I worked on this, the clearer it became that it was a fool’s errand. The refusal of these objects to fit into clean categories was not a problem to solve through structure, but rather the central argument. The work centers on the instability and tension between emotional attachment and our desire for clarity.

A core idea that emerged during the residency was the concept of “museums of life,” solidified through a visit to the Cavafy Archive and conversations with Marianna Christofi. The objects we decide to keep from personal archives always involve curation and meaning-making, reflecting WHAT we wish to remember and HOW we wish to be remembered.

The performance text took shape, blending prose, poetry, humor, and essayistic fragments that defied a single register. Having established an “inner” monologue in the text, I wanted to introduce a disruption that would make the tension between internal emotional worlds and the order that external systems try to impose felt rather than described. Through conversations with Nefeli Myrodia, Sotiria Smyrnaiou, and Ioanna Zouli, my idea of a love loot auction took shape. In the performance, this arrives as a real interruption: the spoken word performer is cut off, the auctioneer takes over, and the room is pulled into a capitalist ritual dealing in singular objects whose value is produced entirely through narrative provenance, forming an ephemeral community around the transfer of something no one can quite price.

I interviewed people and gathered real pieces of love loot with uncertain afterlives. Without fictionalization, I processed each object as a luxury auction lot, drafting provenance, condition notes, and dating from the real stories their owners shared.

The mechanics of the auction were developed in conversation with Mirto Makridi and Vasia Attarian from NTOUTH theater group, landing on Yes/No questions answered by paddle raise. Katerina Mavrogeorgi took on the role of auctioneer with an instinct for the emotional stakes underneath the absurdity. Each object changed hands during the performance, and each original owner received an instant photograph as a record of the exchange, akin to a ritual of purging that could be read as mystical or taboo outside the acceptable frame of a transaction.

Accompanying the performance was a brief poem: “A Practical Guide to Managing the Plunder from your Failed Intimate Attachments OR How to Handle Your Love Loot OR 52 Ιδέες για τη Διαχείριση των Λάφυρων του Έρωτα” made into a handmade booklet, the visual concept developed with Natalia Tsalli, screenprinted and bound by hand by Mirela Adam, and distributed to the audience at the end of the performance. The booklet is itself a small “láfyro” charged with the same questions as the work. It’s something to take home, keep, lose, or be unsure what to do with.

Sound, co-created with ELEVENTH HOUSE, functions as a continuous atmospheric layer. A love letter read aloud in Greek, a sound carpet assembled from pencil on paper, turning pages and a wisdom tooth resonating against various surfaces, ruptured by the jarring arrival of jazzy elevator music for the auction.

Seeing the performance land with the audience during the Open Days was meaningful. The live feedback and energy in the room became critical input for the final piece. A huge thanks to Anna Pasparaki, Fay Minopetrou Kasimati, and the whole production and technical crew who made it real.

“Láfyra” does not offer closure. The objects change hands, but they do not find resolution. What it reveals is that everyone is holding on to something, and that attachment can get strange, stubborn, and difficult to explain. Transactions offer a soothing distance from complexity, instructing our behavior even when meaning and context collapse.

Somewhere, someone still has a tooth that belongs to someone else.