PANAGIA GORGOEPIKOOS
Artist book with photos, texts and research material. Residency & project in Athens, Greece. 1991-93
Panagia Gorgoepikoos is a small 12th-century Byzantine church located in the heart of Athens. The building is a puzzle constructed of deconstructions, since the reliefs were parts of other monuments or buildings in the past. There are about 100 marble and sandstone slabs built into the exterior walls, spanning a period of roughly 1,500 years. There are symbols, images, inscriptions and ornaments from different times, cultures and areas, such as Persia, Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, The Roman Empire, Jewish, Coptic, Orthodox, Catholic and Islamic.
Jadran Sturm & Åsa Lie researched the history of this church and its relevance through interviews, recordings and photographic work in 1991-93. In one of their texts, they compare the Byzantine Empire to the European Union, both multilingual and multi-ethnic entities.
At the time this book and its layout was rejected by publishers as it was "not scientific enough" for the academic world and not "arty enough" for the art world.
Åsa Lie in conversation with art historian Raf Wollaert. Brussels, 2025.
Archived research material from 1992-93
The artist book Panagia Gorgeopikoos and its layout remained unnoticed in the archive for almost three decades. With support from Flanders State of the Art, it was published and exhibited for the first time in 2021, alongside research material and a soundpiece.
The event was accompanied by performance-lectures by Ekaterina Vorontsova (curator and art historian majoring in Eastern European art), Samuel Hus (activist and co-founder of The Museum of Capitalism), Melanie Weill (pole dancer and philosopher, with a phd on Henri Bergson) and Raf Wollaert (art historian, University Antwerp / Research Centre for Visual Poetics).
Excerpts from the performance-lectures filmed by Pim Heerkens.
In 2022, the book and research material were on display in VITRINE #134 @ LUCA, Bibliotheek Sint-Lukas, Brussels. For this exhibition Åsa Lie made a new film titled Birds, with video material from 1990, shoot in Athens and Copenhagen. It is about birds and migration with Athens panoramas, the content of a shop vitrine, and a talk with Jadran listening to an ornithologist.
In 2024, the artist L. Puska brought the book Panagia Gorgoepikoos to Athens and developed a new art project titled Performing Thing I – from a series of attempts to arrive at the intersection of human and non-human performance. This is a work in progress and dialogue with Åsa Lie.
In 2025, Åsa Lie gave a presentation to Mixed-media students at LUCA School of Art, Gent. Afterwards they took the book with them on a study trip to Athens and made new works inspired by this.
As part of the M HKA and Jubilee Research Summit, Åsa Lie, her daughter Merzedes Sturm-Lie, and artist L. Puska gave a presentation on Panagia Gorgeopikoos and its various activations. Simultaneously, a wet proof with details from the book was exhibited in the Jubilee group exhibition Archipelago of Artistic Practices, Geopolitics of Infrastructure at M HKA – Museum for Contemporary Art Antwerp. (2025)
Photos from various activations
The Panagia Gorgoepikoos project was realised in 1991-93 with the support of Konstnärsnämnden / The Swedish Art Council, a grant from the Swedish embassy in Athens and the Natsios family.
The book was published in 2021 with the support of
