MEDORA

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In Lydia Venieri’s work, the semi-translucent veil of Medora transforms into a full-body tsipa (sheath) that envelops the veiled figure. 

As a finely woven kridēmnon with which the “respectable” women of Byzantium covered their foreheads, cheeks, and chins, the tsipa served as the sartorial signifier of feminine modesty, while its absence was an indication of shamelessness. However, the meaning of the term is not confined to the delicate fabric. The same word describes the thin fatty membrane surrounding an animal’s viscera, as well as the similarly structured tissue on the face of newborns.

The multifaceted dimension of the tsipa, as both a distinguishing factor in the moral evaluation of women and an apotropaic symbol of social stigma, is balanced by its protective qualities, functioning as a visceral membrane that encases the figure. Nevertheless, the depicted figure is nothing but a ghost, an absence. These are the girls of our contemporary Vourla brothels, the witches whom society has rejected and exiled, like 46-year-old Cuban Anna, found dead in a pool of blood.

In Fellini’s Amarcord, the children mocked the old prostitute who lived like a witch in the decaying boats—an outcast, exiled from society, no longer belonging to the world of the living. Similarly, in the rotting boats of Piraeus, the women of the Vourla brothels met their end, cast away as unworthy of sexual use once they reached their forties. These violated beings, broken and discarded, were considered undeserving of compassion, love, or warmth. Caught in a liminal space between life and death, they existed in a timeless, stagnant state, akin to restless spirits. Feeding on moss and emitting inarticulate cries, they would eventually rot in anonymous graves.

Our city is full of such living phantoms—trapped in the cracks of Psirri and Metaxourgeio, waiting in the arcades for the Second Coming.