Loukia Alavanou's VR docufiction at Greek Pavilion reimagines Sophocles in Romani ghetto

Loukia Alavanou represents Greece at the 59th Venice Biennale with a virtual reality film shot in a Romani settlement on Athens' outskirts. The work adapts Sophocles' ancient play Oedipus at Colonus, using non-professional Romani actors after a year of community engagement. Alavanou connects the 2,500-year-old drama's themes of exile and outsider acceptance to contemporary realities. Her pavilion installation incorporates visionary architectural concepts from 1960s Greek architect Takis Zenetos, whose hemispherical 'cloud colony' designs anticipated digital existence. The artist rejects nationalistic labels while acknowledging cultural influences, citing Greece's historic traveling theater troupes (bouloukia) as methodological inspiration for her VR approach. She notes VR creates an inclusive, amphitheatrical space rather than ethnographic observation. Alavanou highlights the patriarchal challenges in Greece's art scene, where institutional support remains limited despite vibrant post-dictatorship generation artists. The Venice Biennale runs from April 23 to November 27, 2022, with the Greek Pavilion located in the Giardini. Alavanou recalls being profoundly affected by Tino Sehgal's 2005 German Pavilion performance and anticipates discovering female artists in Cecilia Alemani's main exhibition The Milk of Dreams.