Q&A with Melina Fakitsa Mosland

On the Artist

Where are you currently based?

I am Greek-Norwegian and was born in Bergen, but I have lived most of my life in Athens specifically in the Pangrati, which is a neighbourhood really near the city centre. I pretty much grew up in the centre as my house is ten minutes from the central metro station and the parliament.

What’s led you to being an artist?

I think it is because my mother was the artistic type and she used to draw and do photography and make jewellery and things like that. I had a very artistic childhood; we had a lot of art books at home, we visited a lot of museums. I wasn’t always sure what kind of artist I wanted to be, when I was younger I wanted to be a fashion designer and then I wanted to be a photographer - it was always something artistic. When I was around fifteen I went to a preparation school to get into the university for fine arts in Athens. I got in and took painting as my main class and then I started experimenting with many different areas like ceramics, engraving, and mosaics.

“One piece leads me to the next one. It’s like I start by doing a painting, and then I get an idea for a sculpture while doing a painting, and then I go and do a sculpture and then I go back and do a painting”

How would you describe your practice?

David Altmejd, Spirit Transfer, 2019. Image: David Kordansky Gallery

Usually I work around one main concept or idea using a variety of media and materials depending on the needs of the concept each time. I express myself through sculpture and drawing, but I like to see how an idea could be expressed in different ways so I also play around with photography or installation. For my drawings I usually take a more illustrative approach; lately I use watercolour pencils and acrylics to realise them. For the sculptures, I use clay and found objects. I use collage in many different media so I also consider my sculptures as being collages. I often use found objects and everyday items that I then put together using different types of clay. With the paintings it is the same, I take many different elements from pictures and then make them into a painting.

One piece leads me to the next one. It’s like I start by doing a painting, and then I get an idea for a sculpture while doing a painting, and then I go and do a sculpture, and then I go back and do a painting, and then I do some photography. It’s like the pieces lead me in a way.

What are your inspirations?

In general I am fascinated with nature themes so many of my inspirations come from nature documentaries, literature and from mythology. I also have some artists that I really admire and that I get inspiration from, maybe my favourite would be David Altmejd. He’s a Canadian sculptor that I like because he uses the concept of hybrids which is something that I also use a lot. It fascinates me how he uses his materials to get the sculptures to feel like they are alive. Another artist I really like lately is Genesis Belanger. She makes great porcelain sculptures in pastel colours that are really smooth creating a dreamy feeling. I like the way that she deals with the concept of femininity and the body.

On Athens

How do you know Athens?

So as I told you before, Athens is the city I grew up in and I know the heart of the city, if you can say it like that. I don’t know, for me I think that the strongest element of Athens is that it is a city of many contrasts. I guess that is what makes it unique and a complex city.

Have you seen it change?

I don’t know, that’s a difficult question to answer in a specific way, because I feel like the city is constantly changing. There are always new things coming up, or you notice something that you haven’t noticed before although it was already there. I think it’s constantly changing, especially after the Documenta exhibition, it is a good thing that a lot of new, small arts spaces came up and things started to happen. I don’t know what is going to happen to all the cultural things that are left behind after the corona crisis. There is no help from the government and I don’t know how it will be in the future.

What are some of the contrasts in the city?

“ All over the place you can see ancient monuments and traces of the old Athens, and actually if you just dig a hole anywhere in the city you will find more ancient remains.”

This is one of the most characteristic things about Athens. All over the place you can see ancient monuments and traces of the old Athens, and actually if you just dig a hole anywhere in the city you will find more ancient remains. At the same time we have a lot of Byzantine churches, so you might see a church in every corner of the city which is from a different era. Then you see huge apartment buildings from the seventies and exactly side by side with them you can see a tiny old house with a garden.

The scene becomes everyday so you don’t pay so much attention to it, but now with the travel restrictions and the tough lockdown I think we are starting to pay more attention to our city and take walks and move around in a more curious mindset. Sometimes in my walks lately I have felt like I am ‘touristing’ in Athens as I walk around wanting to re-discover the city. There is always stuff that you haven’t paid attention to before and there are always things to explore.

How does Athens relate to its surroundings?

Athens is literally the capital of Greece in every way. This has begun to be problematic both for the city, but also for smaller cities and the countryside. For starters you can notice that by seeing from the traffic, the housing problem, that we are too over-populated. At the same time, we have a lot of abandoned villages in the countryside - ghost villages where nobody lives, or one person lives. It’s actually a big problem because there is not enough infrastructure in the countryside and they are cut off from the big city, but everything happens in Athens so people are not encouraged to go back to the countryside. I think that in the last years maybe it has started to change a little bit, I notice more things happening elsewhere: arts spaces popping up in small cities or there are some residencies that happen in the islands.

I try to travel and get more experiences of nature. In Greece we have a lot of vacations because of the long summers so I get a lot of my inspiration from that time of the year when I visit the islands. There are many natural habitats in Athens also, we just don’t pay attention to them because we have mountains surrounding the city. We have everything just like one hour away. It’s not difficult to get connected with nature if you want to.

If you had to describe Athens’ spirit in a few adjectives what would they be?

First of all I would have to say chaotic. Then I would mention the bitter orange trees that we have. it’s not usually a tree you find in a city, it’s more like a grandmother’s garden tree so it’s really funny that it’s all over the city. Multicultural also applies here a lot, and I would say fun as there is always something happening. I mean always, I think it is difficult to get bored.

Any upcoming projects to promote?

Lately I’ve been working on two different projects, one is a series of sculptures which are mostly human and marine animal hybrids. In this project I am mostly interested in the connections we share with the element water, and again it was inspired by deep sea documentaries and myths about sea creatures. The other project I’m working on is a series of paintings where I use photographs from different places and timelines and I combine them to form large scale storyboards.

I’m also preparing a similar piece for an upcoming exhibition at the Athens City Museum, where I have combined different pictures from women war photographers. It will mark the two hundred years from the Greek revolution and they wanted to do an exhibition centred around women in revolution and the war. I wanted to make a piece that will show women as part of such historical events, but not necessarily in the active way of being at war.