Cosmic Eleusis
“But secretly he gave her a honey-sweet pomegranate seed to eat, distracting her, so she wouldn’t remain with holy, dark robed Demeter forever “ [v. 371, Homeric Hymn to Demeter]
This work is inspired by the Eleusinian Mysteries and in particular by the concept of initiation, as a process of symbolic death and rebirth which allows the spiritual passage from one state to a higher one through the performance of ritual acts. As their name indicates, the exact content of the Mysteries remains unknown. What is known, however, is their constitutive myth concerning the worship of Demeter and Persephone (or Kori, daughter in greek) and ultimately of Nature and Life. Through jewelry, the Cosmic Eleusis series is an artistic narrative approach to the myth and its symbolisms, an homage to the ancient city of Eleusis and its Mysteries. More specifically, Cosmic Eleusis follows Demeter and Persephone according to the episodes of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and is structured in four sections: the Descent, the Wandering, the Ascent and the Cycle.
The basic unit that is repeated to form the jewelry pieces emerges as a morphological reference to the pomegranate seed, which is a focal point of the agreement between the Upper and the Under World and determines the final outcome of the myth. Drawing from the world of ritual and theater, these objects can be paralleled with costumes and masks, that is with sacred, symbolic and even magical objects which allow the users to transform, to change or to expand their identities, to approach the transcendent and finally to experience the process of initiation. In this context the pieces in the series are conceived as contemporary objects of initiation, an act that begins at the stage of their construction and, through their final form, opens a dialogue between the creator, the wearer and the myth.
