About the Exhibition

ENTOPOLOGIO is a group exhibition and public programme presented on the island of Anafi from 29 May until 24 June 2026, emerging from the research and curatorial programme “Show Me Your Place,” a collaboration between the Anafi International Film Festival (AnafiIFF) and the artistic collective ASTRO.

From October 2025 until May 2026, artists Katerina Markoulaki, Antigoni Papantoni, Vasilia Sofroniou, and Kanella Petropoulou were invited to develop a series of artistic workshops on the island at different moments throughout the year, approaching Anafi both as a personal and collective place.

Through collaborations with the local community and collective workshops, the participating artists invited residents to “show” the island not only as a place of habitation or a tourist destination, but as a field of flows, transformations, and multiple identities. This process activated forms of collective memory and encouraged the exchange of experiences among participants.

ENTOPOLOGIO functions as an archive of place. The title derives from a playful linguistic reference to the Greek word “Phytologio” (herbarium), shifting the meaning from a collection of plants to a collection of experiences, narratives, and embodied knowledge. With the completion of the co-creation programme “Show Me Your Place,” ENTOPOLOGIO takes shape as a collective exhibition and public programme.

Just as herbariums function as “plant archives” — collections containing data and stories where each specimen becomes a reference point for the study of biodiversity, conservation planning, and the understanding of climate change — ENTOPOLOGIO operates as a “library of place” focused on Anafi during the period of 2025–2026.

The works that comprise the exhibition are developed through site-specific practices and close collaboration with the local community and the island’s public spaces. They draw from the island’s intangible cultural heritage, oral narratives, and embodied knowledge: its techniques, rhythms, and everyday practices.

Presented throughout the island — from the public school to local businesses and residents’ homes — the works do not function as neutral exhibition objects, but as living parts of everyday life and of the landscape itself.

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Curatorial Text

How does an island’s identity form through its own traditions and knowledge? How do we consume the landscapes we inhabit, and how do they consume us?

The title ENTOPOLOGIO derives from a play on the Greek word “Phytologio,” shifting the concept from a collection of plants to a collection of experiences, narratives, and embodied knowledge rooted in the island’s current inhabitants.

Just as herbariums function as “plant archives,” collections that contain data and stories where each specimen serves as a reference point for the study of biodiversity, conservation planning, and the understanding of climate change, ENTOPOLOGIO functions as a “library of place,” a community archive focused on a singular period in time.

The works comprising the exhibition are shaped through site-specific practices and close collaboration with the local community. Presented throughout the island’s streets — from the public school to local businesses and residents’ homes — the works unfold within spaces that are already active, inhabited, and continuously shaped through everyday life. Rather than functioning as neutral sites of display, these spaces become an integral part of the exhibition itself, dissolving the boundaries between artwork, place, and daily experience.

Through this process, the works emerge layered with complexity, where local ecology, economy, identity, and heritage intersect. They draw upon the intangible cultural heritage, oral narratives, and embodied knowledge of the place: its techniques, rhythms, and everyday practices.

Although created in collaboration with the island’s current inhabitants, the works also reveal collective memories, histories, and forms of knowledge extending beyond the present moment.

The works by Vasilia Sofroniou, Kanella Petropoulou, Antigoni Papantoni, and Katerina Markoulaki, co-created with the community members who welcomed them into their homes and spaces, address broader questions of cultural ownership, the role of non-resident artists within rural communities, and the challenges involved in building sustainable and reciprocal relationships between cultural initiatives and local populations.

ENTOPOLOGIO explores how creative workshops can move away from top-down models of knowledge transfer toward collaborative forms of knowledge production, validating local knowledge systems and positioning community members as experts and educators rather than passive participants.

Alongside the exhibition, a public programme unfolds, shifting the work from the exhibition framework into lived experience and inviting audiences into processes of co-creation. Through actions such as the curatorial kafeneio, which reimagines the local café as a “third space,” a cine-panigiri in the village square, and walks guided by residents, ENTOPOLOGIO expands into the public space, transforming Anafi into an open field of storytelling and collective experience.