I Unchain My Heart

REALITY VS SHADOW

DREAM IN A WINDOW VS

DREAM REFLECTING THROUGH A WINDOW

BLACK & WHITE VS COLOR

All fotos by Maria Garozi

March 27,2010 nyc

The Photographer's "second sight" does not consist in "seeing" but in being there. - Roland Barthes

-THE POETS SOLO

.ACT -

Its with this sadness that
I am removing from my pale body
this costume now -

It kept me company
It did me good
But now its time
to go back for one
last time
in the years of the endless hapiness

in the years of eternity in the aroma
of those summer nights filled with the burnt smell of kantili
and my Aunts; lullaby

Its time to breathe through my desires
Its time to breathe through my haunted pasts
And realize who I have become
And who I am still to become -

- Maria Garozi

Foto of the first stoop. First home, E.P.'s home on 18th Street

Friday March 19, 2010
5:30pm
I saw her seating at the stoop on 17th street and 3rd Avenue. She rarely leaves home. So, seeing her out was a suprise. Mumbling on her own.
She looked at me and said: How much I would like for the journey of my life to start all over again.Now I know who I've become. And that knowledge haunts me dearly -

I would like that as well I replied.

Would you do it all over again, she asked? Even with all that suffering? The struggle of the first years in America? All the tears missing homeland?

Garia: Yes all. All over again.

Maria: Look at us now. You and Me. Thats all Garia. Thats all thats left. We never escaped from our old self. We just escaped from Greece. Are you satisfied?

Garia: YES. I AM. AND I HAVE MORE LANDS TO GO TO,MORE TO SEE AND DO AND CREATE AND LOVE.AND I WOULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN THE SAME WAY - ALL THE WAY -
Go home now Maria, put some makeup and cover the shadow thats keeping you in this sadness.Why dont you see all the amazing things we have created here in America while finding our true self. Why do you only think of the sad parts? WE ARE NOT GOING BACK HOME -
The homeland is far away. We Left that.Do you miss it? Is that what's all about?

Maria: Yes....I miss it.NOT ALL of it.But I want to see for one more time again my summers at Gialtra with Kotsifas.Please take me there. I beg you. Its so lonely here now.Where did they all go?
Kotsifas? Dionysia? Aunt Nitsa? Giagia? Uncle Andrew?
I cant find them anywhere around..Even here at this stoop across of the Greek church I cant find Aunt & Giagia.Did they give up on me? They FORGOT OF ME BECAUSE I LEFT?

Thats what haunts me more. Being forgotten from my own skin.....
and upon my return one day finding lost ruins of the dear parts of a past -
The past that I left -
I will never find peace for leaving Greece and never going back-
Never -

Fernando Pessoa and Constantine P. Cavafy once boarded the same ship to America but didnt end up arriving at the destination. The ship had to return suddenly halfway back to Europe.
After that attempt, both poets wrote endless times about the Journey although they never ended up leaving their homeland. Maria Garozi left her homeland and is living that journey the poets always wrote and dreamt about. The only thing the two poets didnt know was that on the other side of the journey what was awaiting was the same exact loneliness with the one they were feeling being at home. Or, could it be that they knew and thats why they never left?

The City
You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this.
Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;
and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried.
How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see the black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years, and ruined and wasted."

New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow gray.
Always you will arrive in this city. To another land -- do not hope --
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1910)


- Garia August

This writing was highly influenced by the movie "The night Fernando Pessoa met Contantine Cavafy" directed by Stelios Charalampopoulos.

Mr. Lourelien IV La Passione Letters of the Lovers

Foto by Peter Lindbergh

My dear Sandrine,

I cant be close to you for few more weeks.

I am sending you a ticket to go to Berlin. A woman who has named herself after the famous Anita Berber will wait for you upon your arrival to take you to a very special place where you will meet someone to replace Mathilde. At least for a while.

Mathilde left. That's who she is. She will always come back to you though.

Feel free now. There is always someone new to cover your desires.

Wear the mask that you shall be given and watch Isabella’s semi naked body dance for you.

Stay pure for me from a man's touch till I come to you.

Yours,

Lourelien

Foto by Peter Lindbergh

Ma chere Mathilde,

Isabella is sleeping now.
Its Wednesday March 18th, 1:50am.

I am at Berlin for few days. Lourelien sent me the ticket. He ordered me to go admire another woman's nakedness at an underground cabaret.

As soon as I arrived at the place, three girls removed my clothes and Anita covered my eyes with the same mask Lourelien had on the first time he watched you and Isabella dancing together that night in Prague.

Anita told me your whole story.

At 3:00 am Isabella asked me to follow her to Hotel Gelabeck.
She undressed and wore a costume from which I could see her skin in those places that it is more curvy and more fragile.

La Passione made me give in to a lover other than you.

Isabella is sleeping now. And my heart is feeling like an angel free to fly away.I am seating alone thinking of her touches and sounds. I feel released knowing that a new lover could fall in to my existence.

Temporarily.
Cause forever doesnt exist.

Je t’embrasse,
Sandrine

Foto by Peter Lindbergh

Sandrine my Angel,

Did you still smell me in the sheets of your new lover? That’s all that matters. We shall be together again. I am sending you some fabric from my new night gown. Its made of red dentelle.I need you to feel what I am wearing.

Cover your new lover's sex with it.
Your eternal lover,

Mathilde

This post was highly influenced by the theatrical play 'Oh, Those Beautiful Weimar Girls,' , conceived and directed by Ildiko Nemeth, a native of Hungary, and performed by an amazing group of young actors back in February at La Mama Experimental Theater in East Village

- Garia August

C.G.

Foto by: Micha Bar-Am

At the desk there is one photo shot by Micha Bar-Am. The photo is taken during a Wartime. Every day, I look at the face of this woman who probably had just given a war speech, and I wonder what she was thinking having that cigarette.
I never really searched who she is. I kept this photo close to me because I liked the look of that woman, the overall feeling of the photo.

Till one day a friend who came home and saw the photo told me: Why do you keep a photo of the "Iron Lady" Golda M. at your desk?

Monday, March 15:

Like every Monday, once again I have received an email from C.G. He always cares, he always asks first how I am doing and then he shares personal or generic news from my country together with some song lyrics. Today he sent me some lyrics from the Rolling Stone song Paint it Black together with some words he recently read in a newspaper article.

I guess he thought I should read them carefully -

The Greek poet Kiki Dimoula, whose raw poetry in its personal tone has been clearly an ally to me these past months mentioned in the article interview C.G. sent:

it was never easy to communicate with others.
neither could i understand why others are so different than me.
Obviously that was very naive from my end, but also very useful.
Because it had me in a constant anxiety, in a continuous argument, and in a very mature sorrow...
On the other hand, I had a kindness, that completely destroyed me!
It kind of blocked my life many times from taking its own course.
I waited and suffered things that I shouldnt have suffered, with the reasoning of the kindness that I would bitter, I would make others suffer.That was a failure.
A clear failure.....

Somehow I can connect to her words.
A clear failure....a feeling of being in a constant battle with yourself trying to stop having the same kindness, and wait and suffer in those situations that you know will destroy you again and again.

And realizing that you failed once again. You were too kind.You lost the battle from your own self. You betrayed your own self.

A difficult type of betrayal and failure to recover from. One, that makes you suffer a lot and maybe makes the ones who love you also suffer.

But maybe a needed battle, a needed betrayal, a needed FAILURE to keep the life story STRONG. Maybe this kindness doesnt block the life course but it signals its REBIRTH -

It just haunted me writing this post.
I know why I have this photo at my desk and I am looking at it every day!Because, it reminds me of the look C.G. has when he smokes! With that calm mature thoughtful sorrow that never drifts away from his face.I always used to wonder what he was thinking having his cigarette.

Mpampa se agapaw poly. I am sorry for every time that I have betrayed my own self,waited and suffered things causing maybe also sorrow to you. Do you still have that sticker I gave you and Mom when I was 11 years old?We were all together for summer vacation at Aunts' house in Aidipsos......

- D.X.G.

- THE IDEA BEHIND THE "SILENT MAN, A POEM"

For the past weeks, while Maria is working on her book project "Finding Eidothea", I have been working on a first draft & mockup for a book I am writing and will put together with a great artist who is going to do the illustrations.

The book is called "Silent Man,A Poem".Is the poetry diary of a girl who met the same man at his 40's, his 30's and his 80's.

The exploration of how love makes us weaker and stronger.

The dynamic forces between a mysterious Single Man and a Girl.

The creative forces between a boy who is trying to become a Man and a girl who is trying to become a Woman.

The dry memories of a man who had 5 unsuccessful marriages but shares a love of wisdom with a Girl.

In Reality

The 40 year old Silent Man is in Japan. I cant wait to show him the mockup.

The 30 year old Silent Man made his first dream come true and is starting a great career as an artist.I cant wait to be the silent viewer of who he is becoming and love him from afar.

The 80 year old Silent Man is home alone. I cant wait to visit him tonight after work and have a beer with him.

- Garia August

Mr. Lourielien III

Foto by Ellen Von Unwerth

Mon Cher Lourelien,

The moon is down now.
Its Wednesday March 11, 12:26 am.

It has been already a month since the night you left me at the rooms of Madame Geromeaux. She has taken good care of me and she introduced me to Mathilde as you have ordered.

But your absence is repeatedly keeping me in a great darkness no matter how hard I try to convince the voices of my thoughts that you are just a fantasy.

My days pass by calmly. I am working on a dress made of pallietes and chiffon. It is for a very special client of Madame G.

My nights are very lonely. Sans Mathilde.
She is away for two weeks. All she left is her blue dress.Madame said it is the one you liked the most cause you could see the skin of her sex from its thin garment.

The moon is down now. And my heart is asking for pleasure. I am walking upstairs in the upper rooms of the house longing for the smell of her perfume "Safran Troublant".

I still wonder why you never touched me.
Maybe you will.Soon.

Yours,
Sandrine X.

SUNNY -

Finally this past weekend she felt like home.

Somehow that car drive with Lexi, Malcolm, Sasha & Lauren broke the chain of sorrow.

Maybe it also was the visit of C.N. and M.G.P. from Milano. The beauty farm, La marmelata, the joke "sono preta",just the view of C.N. being happy and smiling to her.......


the endless rounds all over manhattan to capture fotos for a magazine story that who knows if it will ever be on print.
meeting S.B. with his friends at soho randomly..

That little Girl at the VOGUE Bambini Fashion Show who wanted to hold her hippo toy during the whole runway and when she realized that it was time for her to get on stage whispered to the hippo: Now its just you and me; but you are not alone. I am here. I LOVE YOU -

that guy who simply stretched his feet out of the window on St. Marks street




and the cute couple walking calmly towards the Bowery Hotel

All that probably made her feel sunny at last.

- Maria Garozi (All fotos by Maria Garozi)

Foto of Vogue Bambini Fashion Show by G.Fortunato