At the core of the work is the Bamboo River Hammock, co-created with choreographer Alejandro Toledo. This ongoing project facilitates close observation of the river’s tidal shifts, environmental changes, and growing plantation. Suspended above the water, the hammock becomes an ecotonal space where the body attunes to the shifting rhythms of the landscape. Nasia and Alejandro continue to reflect on and develop the project through long-distance dialogue and writing.
There Are Still Rivers explores the porous intersections between body, ecology, and movement, tracing the spiritual and ecological flows of water while engaging with the thresholds—ecotones—that exist between human and non-human bodies, land and water, stillness and change. The project itself evolved into an ecotone, fostering a generative space of encounter between disciplines, practices, and presences.
Originally presented as an eight-channel video installation at Fundación Andreani, Buenos Aires, There Are Still Rivers continues to evolve as a platform for somatic inquiry, ecological sensitivity, and site-responsive practice.
The work was developed through the creative and collaborative contributions of:
Alejandro Toledo (choreographer and co-creator of the re-designed Bamboo River Hammock)
Sara Ortolani, whose co-authorship of the River Monologue (Like mud video) emerged through our remote embodied practice.
Emilce Giroldi, Belen Ronde, Alejandro for their honouring presence performing with the river hammock.
The local community and friends of Monte whose presence and dialogue informed the process and the extraordinary time there.
Tragadero River for permitting me to work alongside its presence.
Subsurface Springs Tablet video: by Nasia Papavasiliou
Projection Drone video: Filmed by Alvaro Rocha.
Production and assistive curation: Juan Sorrentino and Camila Ponte
Special thanks to Fundacion Andreani for hosting the work, big thanks to their incredible team some of which Luchia Arturi MMercedes Urquiza Mili Velasco.
And at last, Monte Residencia for being such an incredible experience from the beggining to the end.
Supported by: Cyprus Ministry of Culture
Curated by: Gonzalo Morales Leiva
Credits:
Super8 filmed by: Maya Russel Campbell
Live camera operation: Odelia Toder
Lighting: Andres Aguilo
Special thanks to the Vorfluter team, Jonas, Kai, Wiebke.
Salt, here, is more than material, it symbolizes a cycle: the breaking down of matter into elemental form, purification, and reintegration. In our tears, as in our bodies, salt lingers like a trace of the ocean we carry within us.
The project employs diverse media and material expressions of salt architectural salt bricks, Dead Sea cubes, industrial road salt alongside performative gestures inspired by the traditional practices of mastic cultivation. The installation becomes a space where material, gesture, and memory flow into one another—blurring the lines between human and elemental, past and present. In this convergence, connections emerge between material processes and embodied experience, echoing gestures of care, repetition, and transformation.
The exhibition ‘Αλς - Als’ consisted of:
A floor of 100KG of road salt. 50KG Saltbricks.
Ceiling Projection: Mastic tree - Chios 2021 Special credits: Eftychia Sarri
Floor projection: Body and salt bricks - Berlin 2022 Special credits: Anabelle Paran
Overhead Projection: Moon projection made out of: salt crystals, Salt cubes from the Dead Sea, and a sieve basket.
Salt brick sculptures.
Small screen: 3 video compositions Large screen: The “Gathering” film Credits: Anabelle Paran, Zane Prater, Sophie Peters, Eloise Gillow.
The audience was free to interact with the installation space on the second day of the exhibition.
1st Performance :
The work evolves with a performative activation of the space. The space shifts and overlaps through live camera, projection, live sound and live visuals. Performed by Nasia Papavasiliou and the Guest artists Katarzyna Debska https://www.katarzynadebska.com (v-jaying and performance) and the live sound of Jerzy Maczynski. https://jerzymaczynski.com
Special credits: Chios island videos: Eftychia Sarri Grunewald Forest videos: Jerzy Maczynski, Katarzyna Debska Kreuzberg: Anabelle Paran
2nd Performance: Performed by the artist. De-activation of the space. The Last Phase of the work.
Funded by Cyprus Ministry of Culture
The piece reflects on how environments are shaped by forces beyond the human scale, while still bearing traces of human presence. Accumulation, dissolution, and migration unfold slowly. What we see is only a brief moment in a continuous process.
Different forms of salt, both running and solid, reveal visual contradictions that echo themes of fragility and endurance. Framed by the street-facing windows of Glogauer Strasse, the surrounding urban landscape becomes part of the work, adding tension and contrast to the installation.
I refuse to mention the name and institution that hosted this event as a Political stand. Thanks to all the artists involved.
The project reflects on the permanence and ongoing transformation of Cyprus' divided situation. Through human intervention within the same space each week, the work draws attention to both the temporal and the eternal, symbolizing the tension between static transformation and the fleeting nature of time.
Credits: Aline Derderian, Diamanto Hatzizacharia, Svenja Bjul, Eva Papavasiliou, Panos Malactos, Delia Boyano, Katarzyna Debska, Mihalis Intzieyianni, Michael Angelos Dousias, Kassiani Kapelos, Georgia Pazarloglou, Adam Paroussos.
Joya - Spain
Video and still image.
The work was created during the Joya arte y ecologia residency in Spain that focuses on the arid zone struggling against the combined forces of climate change, global markets and land degradation.This work responded to a fieldwork research in the surrounding area of Los Gázquez - five beautifully restored farmhouses located in one of the dryest areas of Europe.
Credits: Lucy Olivia
The work reflects on the psychological and physical impact of division, displacement, and negotiation of space. It moves between personal and political terrain, questioning how borders are experienced, remembered, and embodied.
“The city is divided above ground but unified below, because gravity and economics conspired to prevent the duplication of water and sewage infrastructure. For sewage, there is no obstacle.”
—Nevzat Öznel
Scenography, direction and implementation: Nasia Papavasiliou
Performed by: Svenja Bjul