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“Béchamel”: The Taste of Public Memory, Forgetting and Discipline in Athens and Skopje. An Approach Between Art and Anthropology

« Béchamel » : le goût de la mémoire publique, de l’oubli et de la discipline à Athènes et à Skopje. Une approche entre art et anthropologie
Sofia Grigoriadou

Résumés

Mon installation-performance « Béchamel » fait dialoguer les formes de mémoire publique, d’oubli et de discipline à Athènes et à Skopje avec un livre de cuisine populaire en Grèce tout au long du xxe siècle. L’auteur de ce livre, le chef Nikolaos Tselementes, entendait « discipliner » et « civiliser » la cuisine grecque par le biais de la sauce béchamel. Dans cet article, je retracerai la conception, la production et l’exposition de l’œuvre d’art dans les deux villes, en abordant de manière comparative les attentes et les performances en ce qui concerne les récits nationaux, le patrimoine, le genre et l’espace public. Je mènerai une réflexion critique sur ma propre participation au « terrain » en tant qu’artiste et anthropologue, ainsi que sur l’interaction entre l’anthropologie et l’art contemporain.

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Notes de l’auteur

This research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund- ESF) through the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning” in the context of the project “Strengthening Human Resources Research Potential via Doctorate Research” (MIS-5000432), implemented by the State Scholarships Foundation (ΙΚΥ).

Texte intégral

Introduction: Food, Nation, Europeanness

  • 1 Installation: art genre that (often) temporarily arranges a space, physical or digital. Performance (...)
  • 2 A previous version of this article was developed in the context of the 2nd International Seminar fo (...)

1My installation-performance1 “Béchamel” (2017-2019) examines, through food, forms of remembering, forgetting, and discipline in relation to national narratives, heritage, gender, and public space in Athens and Skopje, where it has been exhibited. “Béchamel” emerged in the context of my doctoral research in anthropology. My PhD dissertation comparatively explored ways in which contemporary art responds and/or contributes to changes that have taken place in the two cities over the past decade, during which my discussants experienced what they often described as “crisis”: economic in Athens and political in Skopje. In this article,2 I focus on the production and exhibition of “Béchamel,” critically reflecting on my participation in the “field” not only as an anthropologist, but also as an artist from Athens engaging in art events in both cities. I touch on the interplay between anthropology and contemporary art as I comparatively examine performances, expectations, and claims around nation, food, and social gender, as well as attitudes regarding the European Union (EU) and stereotypes of belonging to the “West” and/or “East” in the two cities.

  • 3 Adapon Joy, Culinary Art and Anthropology, Oxford, New York, Berg, 2008.
  • 4 Zika Fay, Aporía tékhnes kai sképsis katergázetai: philosophikés erevnes sti sínkhroni tékhni [Arts (...)
  • 5 Knight Daniel M, “Wit and Greece’s Economic Crisis: Ironic Slogans, Food, and Antiausterity Sentime (...)

2Food is at the core of my installation-performance for a number of reasons. As a means of perceiving and interpreting – even integrating – the world,3 food offers multi-sensory possibilities for communication between artworks and exhibition visitors. During my ethnographic research, food was often present, both as a (multi-)sensory experience4 and as a topic of discussion. My participation in taste exchange helped me to deepen relationships with my discussants and familiarize myself with aspects of the society of North Macedonia, of which I knew little before moving there for the research. What is more, it brought to light ambivalences, contestations, and claims in terms of the “national,” the “local,” and the gendered. As an artist and anthropologist, with “Béchamel” I intended to comment upon the ways in which hegemonic national and gendered narratives are inscribed in urban public space. Food could offer useful metaphors, as it is intimately associated with such narratives.5

  • 6 Petridou Elia, “Tirí kai éthnos” [Cheese and Nation], in Efthymis Papataxiarchis (ed.), Peripéties (...)

3In both countries, there are plenty of examples linking food and the nation. Social anthropologist Elia Petridou describes the “battle” for the international registration of feta cheese as a Greek product with a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) in the 1990s and 2000s.6 She notes that the obstacles posed by EU member states also producing white goat/cow cheese took on the dimensions of a national issue in Greece. Furthermore, the Greek press often paralleled the “battle” over the name “feta” with the one over the name “Macedonia.” Debates on the latter had intensified during the same period, following the break-up of Yugoslavia.

  • 7 Anthropologist Miladina Monova historically links ajvar to Yugoslavia and to mass consumption and i (...)
  • 8 Ames Paul, What Feta and Reindeer Meat Have in Common, in The World, 2009, online: www.pri.org/stor (...)
  • 9 After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the independent state of today’s Republic of North Macedonia a (...)
  • 10 “Zaev: I jas na 30-ti nema ajvar da pravam oti možeme da pravime otkako ḱe izglasame na referendumo (...)
  • 11 Kolbe Kica, “Referendum ili ajvar” [Referendum or Ajvar], DW, 2018, online: www.dw.com/mk/референду (...)

4On the other side of the border, ajvar, a “traditional,”7 – as it was introduced to me – spread made with red peppers and sunflower oil, has also become embroiled in national claims over official PDO certification. In the 1990s, for example, a Slovenian company unsuccessfully attempted to register the name to exclusively use it. The brand name “Macedonian Ajvar” has been registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization.8 What is more, on the occasion of the 30 September 2018 referendum on the Prespa Agreement,9 Prime Minister Zoran Zaev publicly declared that he would not make ajvar on that day – September being the month for ajvar preparation – thus encouraging citizens to vote. In one of the numerous ajvar-related memes using the hashtag #bojkotiram [I boycott], the sun on North Macedonia’s flag emerges from a cauldron in which the popular spread is cooking.10 Pro-EU commentators saw the #bojkotiram mobilization as an “escape” into tradition, into “the archaic and the ritual” out of a “primitive, irrational fear” of change, and in contrast with EU values.11

  • 12 In North Macedonia, the part of the geographical region of Macedonia belonging to Greece is often c (...)

5Lastly, the salad I knew as “Greek,” is often mentioned as “Aegean” on restaurant menus in Skopje.12 When I visited one of them after the ratification of the Prespa Agreement, I opened the menu only to realize that the salad had ironically been renamed “South Macedonian.”

  • 13 Low Kelvin, “Gastropolitical Encounters and the Political Life of Sensation,” The Sociological Revi (...)
  • 14 Buden Boris, “Is There Still East After the Collapse of Post-Communism?,” YouTube, online: www.yout (...)
  • 15 For an account of how another popular dish in former Yugoslavian states, burek, intervenes in the r (...)

6The examples I have gathered above testify to “food as a political object,”13 in the aforementioned cases as a field of public contestation between the “national” and the “European.” These categories are fluidly conceptualized as compatible or opposite poles, depending on the occasion, while orientalist (or Balkanist) stereotypes of “backwardness” are often at play.14 Food is involved in the formation and performance of attitudes towards the EU, national claims, and political antagonisms; it intervenes in relations between states and international institutions; it can be a collective refuge, soothing national anxieties.15

  • 16 Zika, Aporía tékhnes kai sképsis katergázetai, op. cit.
  • 17 Some recent examples that fall within the timeframe – roughly the 2010s – and places of my research (...)
  • 18 See, for example, my audiowalk “Around the Market” (2013, in collaboration with Escoitar) developed (...)

7Food has also been historically linked to art: food and cooking have been discussed as a form of art in themselves;16 what is more, a buffet of food and drinks is a common component of exhibition openings; predominantly, food is a multidimensional artistic medium and a centuries-old reference for artists.17 It is a recurring element in my own work as an artist, too.18 Food’s use particularly in “Béchamel” brings me to the gendered narratives it is associated with.

A Glimpse into Tselementes’ Cookbook

  • 19 Tselementes Nikolaos, Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís. Paniyirikí ékdosis simpliroméni [Cooke (...)
  • 20 These tips, reproducing patriarchal notions about the role of women in marriage, belong to Carmen S (...)
  • 21 The construction of “national” cuisines through cookbook pages aimed at women has been observed els (...)

8In 2017, I came across an edition of Nikolaos Tselementes’ Cookery and Confectionery Guide that immediately caught my attention.19 It is a popular book that has been republished and enriched several times since its first edition in the early twentieth century. Its pages, illustrated with sketches of smiling young women in aprons dedicated to housework, contained more than recipes: they encapsulated an ethno-patriarchal understanding of how women should behave, how they should arrange their modern kitchen, and what values they should believe in. I was struck by a “Decalogue for the Ladies” with admonitions such as: “Keep silent and be sure that your reticence will give you victory” or “If you see that your husband has no heart, do not forget that he has a stomach. Take care of him and be sure that you will also conquer his heart.”20 Through images and texts, the guide attempts to silence and discipline female readers, and to put them at the service of their husbands and the nation.21

  • 22 For different versions on the establishment of béchamel in the cuisine of other neighbouring culina (...)
  • 23 Tselementes, Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís, op. cit., p. ΧLV. On “authenticity,” “continuit (...)
  • 24 Tselementes, Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís, op. cit., p. XLV. Laudatory reviews of his work (...)
  • 25 Herzfeld Michael, Anthropology Through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Eu (...)
  • 26 Pastitsio is a baked dish, and its main ingredients are pasta, béchamel, and minced meat. Its name (...)
  • 27 Tselementes, Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís, op. cit., p. XLV. For the impossibility of talk (...)

9Tselementes takes on a similar approach to food. In his cookbook, he justifies two major shifts he introduced into Greek cuisine at the beginning of the twentieth century, which are now considered “traditional”: the use of béchamel sauce22 and the restriction of spices. Bringing the narrative of classical Greece as the cradle of European civilisation to the dining table, he argues that French cuisine has its roots in ancient Greece. Thus, by borrowing characteristic elements such as the béchamel sauce, and by removing or concealing what he considered “oriental,” he sought to set dishes free from “the influence and degradation they had suffered from the tastes or preferences of the various oriental peoples” and their consequent “unsightly appearance.”23 While the marble-like whiteness of feta is implicated in confrontations between the European South and North, the opaque whiteness of béchamel proclaims Greece’s allegiance to the “civilised” West. Tselementes’ understanding of “European superiority” and his perception that foods that resisted classification as “Eastern” or “Western” constituted a threat to the Greek nation24 recalls anthropologist Michael Herzfeld’s observation that anything that taints the purity of Greek cultural heritage is dominantly understood as an outcome of the “Turkish” domination.25 However, Tselementes did not simply “Europeanize” the dishes he found unruly; rather, he ended up with a particular, to a certain extent hegemonic, hybridization, inventing famous “traditional” dishes, such as pastitsio26 and Greek moussaka. Even though he approached food in terms of “purity,” at the same time he pointed out that, with the “mixing over the centuries in the pots of the various peoples, it becomes difficult to distinguish” and strictly define “Greek” dishes.27 In consequence, the “European” or “Greek” character he sought to achieve could never be “clear” because of what was lying hidden under the sauce.

  • 28 Ivanoska Hristina, “Rosa Plaveva i Nakie Bajram” [Rosa Plaveva and Nakie Bajram], Forum, vol. 162, (...)
  • 29 This text includes little about the political and ideological environment in which Skopje 14 emerge (...)
  • 30 Crvenkovska Risteska Ines, “It’s Time for a Baby! Motherhood and Nationalism According to Examples (...)
  • 31 Ibid.; Véron, Deconstructing the Divided City, op. cit.

10I came across Tselementes’ cookbook at a time when, as an artist, as a researcher in anthropology, and on a personal level, I was concerned with issues that resonated with the book’s content. These included, for example, unequal gender dynamics and the lack of women’s representation in public spaces and spheres in both cities. In my preparatory research on Skopje, I found out that the vast majority of the city’s street names commemorated men.28 The same was true of new monuments erected in the framework of Skopje 2014 (2010-2018), a costly urban “regeneration” programme initiated by the conservative, Christian-democratic, nationalist ruling party VMRO-DPMNE.29 What is more, during its term in the government, this party pushed through a revision of the law on abortion that created obstacles to legal and safe termination of pregnancy.30 In this realm, it seemed that women were hegemonically imagined away from public participation and commemoration.31 As far as Athens is concerned, my walks around the city had revealed that public sculptures and street names also mostly commemorated men. The absence of women from public memory is intertwined with inequalities and attitudes deeply rooted in Greek society, and exemplified in Tselementes’ cookbook, which defines the “ideal” woman as silent and submissive to patriarchal authority. Continuous threats to the established right to abortion as well as the alarming number of femicides reported in Greece in recent years are quite telling of the general climate.

  • 32 Douglas Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London, New York, (...)
  • 33 Gourgouris Stathis, Éthnos-óniro: diaphotismós ki thésmisi tis sínkhronis Elládas [Dream nation: Εn (...)
  • 34 Mattioli Fabio, “Regimes of Aesthetics: Competing Performances Surrounding the Skopje 2014 Plan,” i (...)

11Tselementes’ guide seemed to contribute to shaping the Greek national narrative in terms I was already familiar with: those of “purity and danger,”32 of “authenticity,” of stigmatisation and exclusion, of official forgetting and covering up of historical discontinuities,33 of heritage and national identity, and of (often internalised) normative ideas of “Europe.” Such concepts and phenomena, as well as the ways in which they intersect in / with public space in Athens had already been central to my artistic practice and ethnographic research, which had emerged in dialogue with the specific post-recession political, economic, and artistic circumstances I was experiencing. When I first visited Skopje in 2014, it was inevitable to approach the city through the lens of my current research. As I walked through the streets of Skopje and then Athens again, it became inevitable to think about public space in one city through my experiences in the other: the ethnocentric, eclectic regime of aesthetics34 that Skopje 2014 attempted to impose was reminiscent of the construction of a “purely” Greek national narrative through interventions in Athenian public space after the establishment of the Greek state. The relatively rapid succession of official narratives over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in Skopje in turn exposed the constructed “eternity” of the Greek.

12Despite the different histories and socio-political circumstances in the two cities, I was able to identify several common points of reference, among them “Europeanness” as a model and a policing mechanism, as well as a source of hope, trouble, and anxiety. Particularly, in different occasions (and by different agents), the two cities have been presented as “cradles of European civilisation” and as peripheral cities looking forward to European help; as members (or future members) of a European community sharing common values and as “poor relatives,” unable and unwilling to meet European requirements. Other comparable observations were the legitimization of power through associations with a glorious past; the poor public official representation of diversity; the interweaving of official national narratives with (crypto)colonial ones (the use, for example, of neoclassical or historicist references in public space, in different times, to establish or glorify a nation-state; or narratives of European superiority, and self-identification with it); and finally, the promotion of national claims through interventions in the city.

  • 35 Interestingly enough, other Greek artists approached béchamel sauce in the same period (2017-2020). (...)
  • 36 See also: Herzfeld, Anthropology Through the Looking-Glass, op. cit.
  • 37 Ahmeti Safet, “Desperately Seeking Europe,” unpublished paper, 2011; Amygdalou Kalliopi, “‘Skopje 2 (...)

13It was such observations and thoughts, as well as my encounter with the Cookery and Confectionery Guide, that motivated me to produce “Béchamel.”35 I soon began taking notes which would later constitute the basis for the artwork. With the “freedom” that my position as an artist allowed me, I implemented an artistic and ethnographic practice of “reflections”36 in the double sense of the word, as both mirroring and critical thinking. Using reflections as a methodological tool, I brought into dialogue all that was unfolding before me: the guide’s advice to women to silence their desires and disagreements reflected their silencing and absence from public memory and lack of representation in monuments and street names. Disciplining women’s bodies and the attempt to mould them into becoming nurses to the family and the nation (in the guide, but also in public space and through law) reflected Tselementes’ “taming” of dishes that he could not classify as clearly “Eastern” or “Western.” The attempts to “civilise” the Greek cuisine and cover any “oriental” “inelegance” under thick layers of béchamel reflected the concealment of Skopje’s predominantly Muslim neighbourhood, as well as its socialist brutalist architecture, behind new historicist buildings and white facades in the context of Skopje 2014 – both aspiring to offer a more “European” look to certain dishes and to the city, respectively.37

  • 38 Hamilakis Yannis, “Lives in Ruins: Antiquities and National Imagination in Modern Greece,” in Susan (...)
  • 39 In the case of the Acropolis, that which did not belong in the Classical period was “contaminating” (...)
  • 40 Dimova Rozita, Ethno-Baroque: Materiality, Aesthetics, and Conflict in Modern-Day Macedonia, New Yo (...)
  • 41 Ingold Tim, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture, London, New York, Routledge, 2 (...)
  • 42 See also: Marcus George E., “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethno (...)

14These actions, in turn, reflected changes in the Athenian urbanscape since the nineteenth century, aiming to connect it to the idealized imaginary landscape of classical antiquity, much admired by Western visitors and officials.38 Furthermore, the removal of “oriental” spices from Tselementes’ recipes mirrored both the silencing of historical periods and the demolition of buildings that indicated discontinuities in the Greek national narrative39 as well as attempts, already mentioned, to erase the Ottoman and socialist past in Skopje.40 At the same time, “Béchamel” itself reflects in artistic contexts and media the research I do in anthropology and vice versa; finally, all these thoughts reflect my own position as an artist and researcher that moves between and interweaves the two cities, theory and fieldwork, anthropology and art.41 It was precisely this constant motion and my in-between position that led to a continuous critical and comparative (“syn-kritiki,” in Greek) examination of what I witnessed or participated in during my research.42

Appetizer: Food and Ambivalences

  • 43 Except for friends’ flats, it was also presented in the context of the project “About Food,” organi (...)
  • 44 See, for example, Brown, “Burek, Da!,” op. cit.; Klumbytė Neringa, “The Soviet Sausage Renaissance, (...)
  • 45 Seremetakis, The Senses Still, op. cit.; Sutton, Remembrance of Repasts, op. cit.

15I presented a first draft of “Béchamel” in 2017 both in gatherings of friends and among fellow artists in Athens. At that stage, it was presented as a lecture-performance in which I unfolded the above-mentioned mirroring-reflections, while projecting images from the cookbook and cityscapes from Athens and Skopje.43 In these first presentations, mixed feelings emerged about dishes that contain béchamel and are widely perceived as part of the Greek gastronomic heritage, such as pastitsio or moussaka. Attitudes towards foods that are considered “national,” “local,” or “Balkan” have often proven to be ambivalent.44 In this case, the awareness that the presented dishes have played a part in the construction of the nation resulted in them “sitting heavy on us,” as someone said, an expression used in Greek both for a food that is difficult to digest and for someone or something that causes discomfort. A large piece of buttery moussaka or pastitsio is usually called a “brick,” but in this case it was not the size but the uncomfortable knowledge that “sat” in the stomach like cement. On the other hand, however, foods made with the famous sauce remained “favourite”: their rich taste and texture made them a vehicle for mostly pleasant returns to an idealized childhood.45

  • 46 Papanikolaou Dimitris, “Archive Trouble,” Society for Cultural Anthropology, 2011, online: https:// (...)

16My friends’ ambivalence about béchamel sauce offered material for discussions about whiteness and purity, the concealment or masking of what is considered “non-European;” the complex composition and history of foods perceived as “national;” “Europe” as a desire and a control mechanism; the “indigenization” of French cuisine, or “local” dishes’ “colonization” by it. “Béchamel” sought to engage with these issues in a multi-sensorial way and to “trouble”46 bipolar stereotypes such as “West” versus “East” or “tradition” versus “modernization.” In the next steps of the artwork, I planned not only to show but also to serve the sauce. I aspired to provoke reflections beyond the pleasant atmosphere often associated with a meal or a buffet offered at an exhibition opening. I wondered what kind of associations, experiences, and emotions its degustation would evoke, especially in an exhibition space, where visitors are usually not allowed to touch the artworks, let alone swallow them.

17Finally, by exhibiting “Béchamel” in the two cities where my ethnographic research was taking place, I wanted to communicate and discuss thoughts and observations with the very subjects of this research (artists, curators, exhibition goers).

Salad: Adjusting “Béchamel” for Its Exhibition in Skopje and Athens

  • 47 Exhibition participants: Nehat Beqiri, Sofia Grigoriadou, Andrej Mitevski, Monika Moteska, OPA (Den (...)

18The opportunity to exhibit “Béchamel” did not come until the spring of 2019, when I was invited by curator Aleksandra Zinovski-Viliḱ to participate in a group exhibition at the Youth Cultural Centre (MKC - Mladinski Kulturen Centar) in Skopje. The exhibition title was “Molk Za” [silence/silence for], which allowed me to highlight the idea of silencing in history and in public space already touched upon in “Béchamel.”47 For the exhibition, I printed on sixteen placemats images from Tselementes’ cookbook, photographs documenting cases of concealment and monumentalisation in the two cities, as well as a text based on my reflections. The placemats were arranged on a long dining table, covered with a golden-coloured plastic tablecloth with floral patterns and disposable paper plates in the same colour. These choices sensorially commented on the baroque and neoclassical “timeless” references of Skopje 2014, which, however, were implemented on public buildings using (“disposable”?) poor-quality materials that had already become worn out by the time of the exhibition (see figure 1).

Fig. 1. Béchamel 1

Fig. 1. Béchamel 1

The “Béchamel” table set before the performance in Skopje.

Credit: Zorica Zafirovska

  • 48 Bishop Claire, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London, New Y (...)
  • 49 Papazymouris Dimitris, “I afthentikí sintayí tis Besamél se 10’” [The original Béchamel recipe in 1 (...)

19The installation hosted a performance in which I, dressed in an airy white blouse with ornamental ruffles – a reference both to the aesthetics of Skopje 2014 and to the nostalgia for classical antiquity in the official Greek narrative – proposed a rather unexpected food degustation. Art historian and critic Claire Bishop observes that well-intentioned attempts to create a convivial atmosphere within an idealized participatory framework can often deny dysphorias and tensions – and thus the very democracy they invoke with participation.48 Taking her critique into consideration, I experimented with ingredients that are considered incongruous. I served “national” or “local” dishes, common to both countries, such as beans, dolma, pies or burek, and kebabs covered in Tselementes’ thick version of béchamel sauce. Unlike the more liquid French version, it has been described as standing on top of the dish “like an ancient helmet.”49 With this texture, the pieces of food appeared to be “built” under the sauce, which I spread using construction tools (spatula, tape measure, spirit level) – an allusion to recent state interventions in public space in Skopje. At the same time, as a feminine (undermining of the masculine) Tselementes, and in order to provoke reactions and discussions, I was repeating that the dishes I offered to visitors sought to “improve” the existing recipes, giving them a more “elegant,” “European” look (see figure 2).

Fig. 2. Béchamel 2

Fig. 2. Béchamel 2

Tools used for the performance in both cities.

Credit: Sofia Grigoriadou

  • 50 Asad Talal, “The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology,” in James Clifford (...)

20One major adjustment I had to make to the artwork was the translation of its original Greek text into Macedonian. The word that puzzled me the most was “placemat.” The translator I worked with, Živko Grozdanoski, and the artists who participated in the exhibition informed me that the translations “podmetka” and “podloška” or the Serbian loan “podmetač” have the abstract meaning of a surface placed under something in general. They are also rarely used, so there was room for misunderstanding. The word “podmetnuvač,” which we eventually used, is closer to the meaning of placemat; however, it comes with a double meaning. The verb “podmetnuva” also means “to plant” something somewhere, possibly aiming to incriminate someone. This double meaning opened up possibilities for further readings of the work. It also brought to light how “Béchamel’s” translation – a concept central to anthropology50 – is an intrinsic part of the artwork. It proved translation itself a field of ambiguities and, as it turned out, ambivalences. An interlocutor from the art community in Skopje argued that podmetnuvač” could cause misunderstandings given the tense political atmosphere precisely because I came from Greece – it was only a few months after the name change and the country’s presidential elections were about to take place. Although my interlocutor’s fears were ultimately not borne out in the exhibition, they reveal the tensions in the air in both Skopje and Athens during the period. After discussing and reflecting together with other exhibition participants, we agreed that the ambiguous word “podmetnuvač” was the most appropriate solution for a work like “Béchamel.”

21Another adjustment I made to the original 2017 text for “Molk Za” was to limit the explicit reference to Skopje to a single placemat. Behind this decision lay observations from my ethnographic research: discussions around Skopje 2014 and the political “crisis” seemed to have exhausted my interlocutors living in the city. After all, the exhibition audience already knew experientially and often also traumatically about the programme. Moreover, it monopolized the attention of many visitors, artists and researchers alike, who did not seem to be equally interested in what was happening in the city beyond and after the revamp programme. Therefore, I thought it would be sufficient to only briefly mention it, taking into account also my own, similar feelings from foreign visitors’ great interest in Athens during and because of the so-called “Greek crisis.”

22Another related reason why the artwork’s reference to Skopje was significantly reduced was my concern about my positionality as a researcher from Athens, at a time when the ratification of the Prespa Agreement was still fresh. Some of my discussants in Skopje felt that the Greek state was forcing their country into an unpleasant decision to join the EU. In these circumstances and from this position, I did not want to approach the aesthetic regime and the national narrative inscribed in their city in a way that could be perceived as “didactic.” On the contrary, I aspired to offer a new perspective by problematizing these changes through comparison. Thus, I hoped that the use of construction tools to spread the famous sauce, as well as the many references to similar but different developments in Athens, would evoke relevant associations and give rise to further reflections-mirrorings.

  • 51 The “Lykeion ton Ellinidon” [Lyceum of Greek Women] is a non-profit association founded in 1911 wit (...)
  • 52 Exhibition participants: Alexandra Anagnostopoulou, Marilena Aligizaki, Giannis Delagrammatikas, Ol (...)

23The right opportunity for a comparative perspective came a few months later, when I received an invitation from Tania Veliskou, the museologist and curator of the Costume Museum of the Lykeion ton Ellinidon (CMLE).51 The group exhibition that Veliskou invited me to participate in, entitled “Travel Notes: Contemporary Travellers,”52 was informed by contemporary trends in museology. It would take place in the context of the celebration of “International Museum Day 2019,” which forwarded the contemporary conception of museums as extroverted institutions that relate not only to the past and to heritage, but also to contemporary cultural production. I found this framework suitable for “Béchamel,” a multi-sensorial work of contemporary art dealing with the past and the present of cultural heritage and with questions of public space.

24Since I was interested in a comparative approach between Athens and Skopje, I decided to keep the performance, props, utensils and tools almost the same. The tablecloth, this time, did not refer to the aesthetics of Skopje 2014, unknown, most likely, to the expected visitors. On the contrary, it belonged to the catering equipment of the Lykeion ton Ellinidon, thus organically accommodating the work in the exhibition space. I wondered if and how the correlations I was suggesting between the two cities would be commented on. I was also curious whether the degustation of béchamel would be perceived differently in each city, given that the sauce is much more prevalent in Athens than in Skopje, because of Tselementes’ work. Lastly, I was eager to see how “Béchamel” would converse with the neoclassical building which houses the CMLE, with the aims of the association, and with its predominantly female audience, whom I expected to be interested in tradition, and who would visit the exhibition, in addition to the expected contemporary art exhibition goers.

Main Dish: Presenting “Béchamel” in Skopje and Athens

  • 53 The exhibition in Skopje was visited mostly by people from the field of art and culture, as well as (...)
  • 54 See: Farquhar Judith, Appetites: Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China, Durham, Duke University Pres (...)

25In both Skopje and Athens, “Béchamel” activated interactions between me and the visitors, but also among the visitors themselves.53 One observation from both exhibitions is that people who had no prior knowledge of the artwork or who had not yet read the text on the placemats were more open to trying the food combinations I suggested. In contrast, people who knew what it was about were more hesitant because they thought that they would feel, as some put it, “disgusted.” Some of those who eventually did try the food said that the combinations were repulsive, and performed their aversion with expressive movements and grimaces. Particularly in Skopje, where the memories of the urban “regeneration” programme were recent and quite painful, the degustation of my dishes felt even more repulsive. Sensory and sociocultural or political aspects of food and taste are in close interplay in determining whether a food is “tasty” or not.54 The resentment caused by the state interventions in Skopje seemed to affect the flavours offered by “Béchamel.” My friends in Athens had earlier mentioned an equally uncomfortable digestive “burden” due to the uncomfortable knowledge that certain “beloved” foods have been involved in nation-building, exclusion, and the perpetuation of stereotypical gender roles.

  • 55 Leahy Helen Rees, Museum Bodies: The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing, Ashgate, Farnh (...)
  • 56 The historian of culture Constance Classen points out that, in the first museums and collections in (...)

26Another observation from the exhibition of “Béchamel” is that the very idea of purity, commented on by the artwork, ultimately interfered with the ways “Béchamel” itself was exhibited after the performance in both cities. My original wish was that the used plates, cutlery, food leftovers, and napkins would remain in the exhibition space after the opening day, just the way visitors had left them. In both cases, however, the curators and the hosting spaces’ personnel explained that this would not be possible, as leftovers would smell or invite rodents and insects. Respecting the “purity” and cleanliness traditionally associated with exhibition spaces, I removed used plates and leftovers from the table, leaving only the stains on the placemats, as evidence of the performance. According to a performative museological approach, museums and exhibition spaces subject visitors to specific ways of seeing, listening, and moving. They impose prohibitions and allow specific performances that form particular practices.55 I noticed such practices adopted by visitors who refused the food offered “so as not to spoil my work,” out of respect for the perceived “sanctity” of Art (capitalisation intended).56 Others expressed their excitement that I was bringing the strong smell, or “stink,” as they described it, of kebabs into the gallery, thus disrupting, if only temporarily, the usual museum or exhibition rules (see figure 3).

Fig. 3. Béchamel 3

Fig. 3. Béchamel 3

Leftovers after the performance in Athens.

Credit: Sofia Grigoriadou

  • 57 The term “white cube” refers to an understanding of the ideal exhibition space, particularly popula (...)

27Nevertheless, it is due to developments in contemporary art and museology that it has become possible for museums and art galleries to host works such as “Béchamel,” that make the space and the visitors’ hands “dirty,” even if only temporarily. Moreover, neither exhibition space is a closed system. It was not the first time that food “invaded” the Lykeion ton Ellinidon: a visitor protested the “reduction of the portions.” After my initial surprise, I realized that she had confused the table where “Béchamel” was set with the established buffet of other events. Unlike the neoclassical building of the Lykeion, with its heavy furniture and paintings that remained on the walls during the exhibition, the exhibition space of MKC in Skopje retains many characteristics of a white cube.57 At the same time, however, it is part of a youth centre with a bar and other rooms, where parties, concerts, film screenings, and more activities also take place, sensorially affecting the experience of exhibitions. Its white-cube isolation was also called into question when, at the opening, two guests quickly ate a lot of the food I offered, ignoring my attempts to perform the time-consuming ritual I had planned, which involved building the dishes in béchamel, as well as my efforts to reserve one portion for all visitors. I later learned that they attend cultural events precisely to have access to food, something that also happens in Athens.

28Thus, while “Béchamel” invaded the exhibition space with its smell and stains, in the end, it was also “invaded” by the rules of the exhibition spaces and by visitors who were more attracted to the materiality of the served food than to other aspects of the performance, or the installation. Such incidents demonstrate that the boundaries of both art spaces and the exhibited works are fluid. They also illuminate the different ways in which an artwork can communicate with different audiences, and the ways in which participation can subvert preconceived exhibition scenarios. Both the unexpected (for me) visit to the MKC, and the confusion of the visitor at the Lykeion ton Ellinidon made me think of “Béchamel” as a work that allows a blurring of the line between itself and the usual exhibition opening buffet. It thus reworks the relationship between the exhibit and the exhibition context.

29I found that the sauce surprised visitors in Skopje. Some expected it to be sweet, while others described it as an unexpected but tasty addition. In Athens, where béchamel is a common culinary ingredient, visitors focused on the “correct” way to serve it (or to avoid it), echoing Tselementes’ corrective actions: the texture of the sauce “should be more fluid,” while the dishes I offered “were not supposed to be served with béchamel.” It seemed that I was not performing my female role “correctly”; instead of being comforting, fulfilling, and caring, the food I offered was cooked or served in the “wrong” way and caused some of its recipients to feel “disgust.” “Béchamel” therefore did challenge the stereotype of the woman-caretaker-good cook and, more broadly, the ethno-patriarchal values reflected in Tselementes’ work.

30Because of the history and activities of the Lykeion ton Ellinidon, in Athens, visitors were to a great extent women. They were more likely to comment on the gender issues raised by the artwork, often responding to Sylva’s advice to married women with laughter and mutual teasing. In Skopje, on the other hand, gender was mentioned, but rarely, as if it was not necessarily related to discussions focused on the seemingly genderless (but in both cities rather male-centric) public space. It is interesting to note that while the article on the exhibition by the male historian and art critic Nebojša Viliḱ overlooks “Béchamel’s” gendered content, female anthropologist Ilina Jakimovska does refer to the way the Cookery and Confectionary Guide treats its female readers.58

31In the exhibition in Athens, there were few references to Skopje, probably due to “Béchamel’s” very brief mention of the city, which would require spotting the right placemat. In any case, while little is widely known in Athens about North Macedonia and its capital, the interest to learn more is low, resulting in a perpetuation of ignorance. In MKC, on the other hand, the work did lead to reflections between the two cities. This was most probably due to the larger extent of “Béchamel’s” reference to the Greek capital, but also due to other reasons – my own presence as an artist from Athens, and current developments in the countries’ official relations – that affected residents of Skopje differently than those of Athens. Visitors discussed expectations and fears from the Prespa Agreement; the possibility of EU accession; differences and similarities in the cuisines and between the nineteenth century transformation of Athens into a capital and Skopje 2014; the concealment and/or museumification of Ottoman heritage in both cities; and hegemonic interventions driven by official memory and forgetting.

  • 59 Veselinovič Jaro, “Waiting and Hoping in Post-Socialist Macedonia,” EthnoAnthropoZoom, no 21, 2021, (...)
  • 60 For the ways artists have documented such avoidance, see: Ivanoska, “Rosa Plaveva i Nakie Bajram,” (...)

32In Skopje, national stereotypes were reproduced or problematized. Some people politely concealed from me (but not from others) that they did not like the food or refrained from complaining when I deliberately delayed serving them as I painstakingly “built” each dish in béchamel. When I later expressed my surprise to discussants from Skopje, they attributed this behaviour to a “passive” attitude that, in their opinion, characterized their fellow citizens. Residents and visitors often attribute what “doesn’t work as it should” to this attitude and consider it a socialist or Ottoman remnant.59 It reminded me of what others spot as “strategies” of obstruction or avoidance of responsibility by officials working in public institutions.60 Accordingly, the fact that “Béchamel” attempted to deconstruct the Greek national narrative made an impression, as visitors would have expected a “Greek woman” to confirm it. Such views seemed to be reinforced by the timing of the ratification of the Prespa Agreement in the Parliament.

  • 61 Vangelov Atanas, “Simbolot na šampita” [The Symbol of Šampita], Okno, 2017, online: https://okno.mk (...)
  • 62 Tilley Christopher, Metaphor and Material Culture, Oxford/Malden, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.
  • 63 Yalouri Eleana, Rikou Elpida, “Contemporary Art and ‘Difficult Heritage’: Three Case Studies from A (...)

33The exhibition also highlighted the use of food as metaphor. During the performance, I learned that when the modernist governmental building, designed by architect Petar Mulickovski, was covered with a white historicist façade, residents began to call it a “šampita, a white creamy meringue dessert, popular in the countries of former Yugoslavia. Due to the meringue, the pieces of šampita look bulky and solid, but in fact they are light and easily deformed. According to the poet, essayist and literary critic Atanas Vangelov, the facades of Skopje 2014 are deceptive on two levels: on the one hand (like béchamel) they conceal what lies behind them, thereby obscuring aspects of history that do not fit the official narrative; on the other hand, the material used to construct these facades is itself a “fraud”: while it is foamy like šampita, cheap and ephemeral, it seeks to give the impression of being solid, eternal, and expensive. The “lie” extends from public space, rendering šampita a symbol of the government’s actions at that time.61 These observations link šampita to béchamel. They demonstrate multisensory ways of perceiving the world and the dynamic role of metaphor.62 They also allow for contemplation of one city through another, through the lens – or taste – of food. Patriarchy, national memory, “difficult” heritage63 and its official management in both Athens and Skopje act, as the research shows, to “disgust,” and “sit heavy” on their recipients. They also conceal and deceive, like meringue and béchamel; however, the “stink” (for whom?) of what lies underneath keeps surfacing.

  • 64 Jakimovska, “Bešamelot kako malter na nacijata,” op. cit.; Risteski Ljupčo S., “‘Porta Makedonija’, (...)
  • 65 Laclau Ernesto, “Introduction,” in Ernesto Laclau (ed.), The Making of Political Identities, London (...)

34“Béchamel” provoked more metaphors. In her text about Tselementes, Jakimovska, inspired by the exhibition, describes béchamel as the “mortar” of the nation. Mortar acts not only as a surface finish, but also as an adhesive paste, the way national narratives and rituals do.64 In the case of Skopje 2014, the link between nation and mortar was materialized by covering modernist buildings with malleable materials – until they dried and solidified or “sedimented,”65 perhaps only temporarily, as is the case with official “truths.”

  • 66 Dimova, Ethno-Baroque, op. cit.
  • 67 Koteska Jasna, “Troubles with History: Skopje 2014,” Artmargins, 2011, online: https://artmargins.c (...)

35In his critique of the exhibition “Molk Za,” shared online like Jakimovska’s, art critic Viliḱ described how I “overflowed” “food bought in Skopje” with béchamel as a (symbolic) attempt to “westernise [...] the local culture.” His observation, on the one hand, resonated with the massive transformation of the city centre using forms reminiscent of the nineteenth century historicism in European capitals. Skopje was overflowed with buildings of neoclassicist, baroque (or “barok66), and other aesthetics attributed to “Western” genealogies.67

36On the other hand, Viliḱ’s comment brought to mind how some of my interlocutors perceived the then-current change of the country’s name as a process that would eventually lead to “westernization.” Whatever it meant, each time and for each individual, this idea caused fears and anxieties, and it felt promising at the same time. In Athens, respectively, I encountered similar mixed feelings, especially when some felt that the country’s position in the EU was not secure in the face of the so-called “Greek crisis.” Béchamel attempted to question the position attributed to the Balkans between the homogenising and closed categories of “East and West” or “North and South,” “Europe” and “non-Europe,” allowing for more complex and fluid uses of these categories to emerge, in the way food ingredients, practices, and cuisines mix with each other and become indistinguishable.

Dessert: Concluding Thoughts

37Although “Béchamel” was an artwork conceived in parallel with my doctoral research, it turned out to be a central part of the latter. Aside from the fact that my dissertation included a chapter on the production and exhibition of the artwork, “Béchamel” also functioned as a kind of index of my research interests, encapsulating many of the issues I eventually focused on. These included the ways in which ethno-patriarchal narratives, on the one hand, and architecture, urbanism, and public spaces, on the other, are mutually shaped. Moreover, both “Béchamel” and my interlocutors questioned forms of hegemonic administrations of memory and heritage. In my research, I approached such administrations in relation to public space; in “Béchamel,” I additionally examined them through food, a field that also found its place in the dissertation. In both cases, I was interested in connections and relationships between the two countries, but also with the EU, to which they belong or aspire. I examined cases of orientalism (or Balkanism) that colour these relationships, as well as (crypto)colonial control, often internalised. My research focused on how artists participate in all these questions, and on what they do in response, while “Béchamel” could be seen as such a response. Finally, both the artwork and the research explored the relationship between anthropology and art, an aspect I develop below with regard to “Béchamel.”

  • 68 Whitehead Neil L., “Post-Human Anthropology,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, vol. (...)

38“Béchamel” adopted a multisensory approach that did not deny text. It was designed both as an artwork and as a means of communicating the early stages of my research to audiences that were not necessarily academic and with whom I “shared forms of experience and meaning”;68 with my interlocutors, mostly artists, curators, exhibition visitors; and with art critics and historians. It eventually also communicated in unexpected ways (and) with unexpected actors.

  • 69 Bishop, Artificial Hells, op. cit.; Bovin Mette, “Provocation Anthropology: Bartering Performance i (...)
  • 70 Rikou Elpida, Yalouri Eleana, “The Art of Research Practices Between Art and Anthropology,” Field, (...)

39“Béchamel” stimulated reflections (both critical thinking and mirroring) between the cities and the disciplines I was moving to and from and was inspired by them. It was thought-provoking for me and others, both at its preparation stages and during its exhibition in both cities. It sought visitor participation, not necessarily through a convivial exchange of pleasant flavours or a positive, cheerful relationality, but by remaining open to ambivalence, dissatisfaction, observations, the temporary “staining” of hands and spaces, as well as contingencies, even seeking to “provoke” reactions.69 Such interactions enriched both the production and experience of the work itself as well as the ethnography that emerged alongside and through it. “Béchamel” was not only informed by anthropology, but it also contributed to my anthropology of art, through art.70

  • 71 These media, however, convey other types of information and provide opportunities for different kin (...)

40Researching the art field with the very medium it uses opens possibilities for complementing and renewing the classical ethnographic methodologies. The (material) exchanges that took place in the context of “Béchamel” offered valuable observations and insights, and allowed meanings to emerge in a participatory way that might not have been possible through other, more traditional and logocentric research methods.71

  • 72 Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty, “Critical Intimacy: An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,” Los (...)
  • 73 Gupta Akhil, Ferguson James (eds), Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Sci (...)
  • 74 Fabian Johannes, Power and Performance: Ethnographic Explorations through Proverbial Wisdom and The (...)
  • 75 See: Clifford, Marcus (eds), Writing Culture, op. cit.; Foster Hal, “The Artist as Ethnographer,” i (...)

41The fact that art was a central field of action for me before it became a field of anthropological research perhaps allowed me a certain “critical intimacy” and “enmeshed knowledge.”72 In both “Béchamel” and my dissertation I was attentive to the ways in which my positionality and actions affected (and perhaps transformed) the relationships, feelings, and ideas I sought to observe. With “Béchamel” I experimented with the limits of participation by actively placing myself within my research “field.” The production and exhibition of “Béchamel” made it clear that it is impossible to draw a clear line between what/when is fieldwork and what/when is not.73 Anthropologists have proposed methods of ethnographic research that do not only admit or problematize their inevitable participatory intervention in the “field,” but also instrumentalize it. Ethnographers’ performative, (auto-)ethnographic engagement in the “field” as “catalysts” or “(co-)producers” of situations can disrupt hierarchical dichotomies between the observer and the observed.74 “Béchamel” did open such possibilities despite its (intended or not) limitations in participation and representation, familiar to both art and anthropology.75 Critical approaches from both disciplines were useful in planning, setting, performing, and evaluating the work.

  • 76 Andrade Xavier, “Ethnography, Pataphysics, Copying,” in Arnd Schneider (ed.), Alternative Art and A (...)
  • 77 To a certain extent, contemporary art also presents such resistances, especially in the “post-truth (...)

42“Béchamel” was originally designed as an art project rather than a research tool, and I had been invited as an artist and not as a researcher in both exhibitions. As an artist informed by anthropology, I have come across clashes between the two fields before,76 especially when it comes to deciding on a “suitable” artistic methodology. Fiction, openness of meaning, or even ambiguity are often necessary components of a work of art. However, anthropology seems to resist them, despite having acknowledged the impossibility of an “objective” truth and the inevitable subjectivity of researchers.77

  • 78 Murphy Keith M., “Art, Design, and Ethical Forms of Ethnographic Intervention,” in Gretchen Bakke, (...)

43Anthropologist Keith Murphy suggests that anthropology can be informed by art and design, practices interventionist by definition and with different ethical codes, usually more flexible than the ones of anthropology. For “Béchamel,” I took on his idea of “critical empiricism.” According to it, ethical problems that arise during research should be addressed on a case-by-case basis,78 in particular by answering each time questions such as who is intervening, for which body/institution do they work and for what purpose, what is their general ethical stance and commitment, are they exposing vulnerable subjects, etc. I was already concerned with similar questions in the context of my artistic and ethnographic research – although with “Béchamel,” their separation became impossible.

44I close this article by returning to food and the senses. Numerous ethnographic examples suggest that food is not merely about nourishment. It can be intertwined with many other things. Béchamel sauce has been used as a means of constructing ethno-patriarchal narratives and identities, and of imposing “European” ones, of perpetuating gender inequality, and silencing affinities with what was considered the “East.” “Béchamel” transforms the popular sauce – and food in general – into a means of reflecting on these very processes. The design and degustation of popular dishes considered “local” or “national” with the addition of the sauce provoked feelings and thoughts about patriarchy, nation-building, public space, and the silencing of those who do not fit into hegemonic narratives. Béchamel sauce became associated with forms of oppression, silencing, and glorification of Greek and European (crypto)colonial normative standards. As a tool of oppression, it causes “disgust,” or it “sits heavy,” and when associated with good memories, it becomes “delicious” again, but with ambivalence, thus proving taste a fluid and culturally defined category.

45“Béchamel” sought multi-sensory communication with visitors through taste and other senses. The ingestion or recollection of “traditional,” mismatched, nostalgic, or unfamiliar tastes contributed to immersive participation. This immersion provoked and intensified thoughts, feelings, associations, and connections that were not always verbal, leaving perhaps visitors with a “heavy” stomach.

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Notes

1 Installation: art genre that (often) temporarily arranges a space, physical or digital. Performance: art genre consisting of a live or recorded action.

2 A previous version of this article was developed in the context of the 2nd International Seminar for PhD candidates (26-27 February 2021) under the auspices of the Laboratory for the Study of Culture, Borders and Social Gender of the University of Macedonia (PaMak). Grigoriadou Sofia, “Besamél: Metaxí tékhnis kai anthropoloyías stin Athína kai ta Skópia” [Béchamel: Between Art and Anthropology in Athens and in Skopje], Culture-Borders-Gender/Studies, vol. 1, 2022, p. 41-56, online: https://ojs.lib.uom.gr/index.php/cbgs/article/view/9790 (accessed in September 2023).

3 Adapon Joy, Culinary Art and Anthropology, Oxford, New York, Berg, 2008.

4 Zika Fay, Aporía tékhnes kai sképsis katergázetai: philosophikés erevnes sti sínkhroni tékhni [Arts and Thoughts: Philosophical Investigations in Contemporary Art], Athens, Agra, 2018; Seremetakis Nadia, The Senses Still: Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity, New York, Routledge, 2019; Stoller Paul, Olkes Cheryl, “Bad Sauce, Good Ethnography,” Cultural Anthropology, vol. 1, no 3, 1986, p. 336-352, DOI: 10.1525/can.1986.1.3.02a00060; Sutton David E., “Food and the Senses,” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 39, no 1, 2010, p. 209-223, DOI: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.104957; Sutton David, Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory, Oxford, Berg, 2001; Sutton David, Vournelis Leonidas, “Vefa or Mamalakis: Cooking Up Nostalgia in Contemporary Greece,” South European Society and Politics, vol. 14, no 2, 2009, p. 147-166, DOI: 10.1080/13608740903037851.

5 Knight Daniel M, “Wit and Greece’s Economic Crisis: Ironic Slogans, Food, and Antiausterity Sentiments,” American Ethnologist, vol. 42, no 2, 2015, p. 230-246; Sutton, “Food and the Senses,” op. cit.; Yakoumaki Vasiliki, “Perí (dia)trophís kai ethnikís taftótitas: I diastásis mias néas ‘politismikís pikilótitas’ sti simeriní Elláda” [On Food, Nutrition and National Identity: Dimensions of a New “Cultural Diversity” in Today’s Greece], in Efthymis Papataxiarchis (ed.), Peripéties tis eterótitas: i paragoyí tis politismikís diaphorás sti simeriní Elláda [Adventures of Otherness: Τhe Production of Cultural Difference in Today’s Greece], Athens, Alexandria, 2006, p. 105-138.

6 Petridou Elia, “Tirí kai éthnos” [Cheese and Nation], in Efthymis Papataxiarchis (ed.), Peripéties tis eterótitas: i paragoyí tis politismikís diaphorás sti simeriní Elláda [Adventures of Otherness: The Production of Cultural Difference in Today’s Greece], Athens, Alexandria, 2006, p. 139-158.

7 Anthropologist Miladina Monova historically links ajvar to Yugoslavia and to mass consumption and industrial agricultural production, as opposed to the discourses describing it as a “traditional,” “homemade” recipe. Monova Miladina, “When the Household Meets the State: Ajvar Cooking and Householding in Postsocialist Macedonia,” in Stephen Gudeman, Chris Hann (eds), Oikos and Market: Explorations in Self-Sufficiency after Socialism, New York, Oxford, Berghahn, 2015, p. 77-100.

8 Ames Paul, What Feta and Reindeer Meat Have in Common, in The World, 2009, online: www.pri.org/stories/2009-11-12/what-feta-and-reindeer-meat-have-common (accessed in September 2023).

9 After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the independent state of today’s Republic of North Macedonia adopted the name “Republic of Macedonia.” The Greek state strongly opposed this development, due to the existence of a geographical department of the same name within its borders, as well as the place the name “Macedonia” holds in the official Greek cultural heritage. After years of negotiations, the two countries signed the Prespa Agreement on 17 June 2018. It required, among other things, the erga omnes use of “Republic of North Macedonia.” An advisory referendum followed for the change of the country’s name, and its participation in the EU and the NATO, but it was to a large extent boycotted. The Prespa Agreement was ratified by a parliamentary vote in both countries in the beginning of 2019.

10 “Zaev: I jas na 30-ti nema ajvar da pravam oti možeme da pravime otkako ḱe izglasame na referendumot” [Zaev: on the Thirtieth I Am not Going to Make Ajvar Because We Can Make It After Voting at the Referendum], Focus, 2018, online: https://fokus.mk/zaev-i-jas-na-30-ti-nema-ajvar-da-pravam-oti-mozheme-da-pravime-otkako-ke-izglasame-na-referendumot/ (accessed in October 2023).

11 Kolbe Kica, “Referendum ili ajvar” [Referendum or Ajvar], DW, 2018, online: www.dw.com/mk/референдум-или-ајвар/a-45704961 (accessed in October 2023).

12 In North Macedonia, the part of the geographical region of Macedonia belonging to Greece is often called “Aegean Macedonia.”

13 Low Kelvin, “Gastropolitical Encounters and the Political Life of Sensation,” The Sociological Review, vol. 69, no 1, 2020, p. 190-205, https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261209182.

14 Buden Boris, “Is There Still East After the Collapse of Post-Communism?,” YouTube, online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=D88bfYfb_68 (accessed in October 2023); Todorova Maria, “The Trap of Backwardness: Modernity, Temporality, and the Study of Eastern European Nationalism,” Slavic Review, vol. 64, no 1, 2005, p. 140-164.

15 For an account of how another popular dish in former Yugoslavian states, burek, intervenes in the relations between ethnicities living in the same cities, see Brown Keith, “Burek, Da! Sociality, Context, and Idiom in Macedonia and Beyond,” in David W. Montgomery (ed.), Everyday Life in the Balkans, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2019, p. 76-86.

16 Zika, Aporía tékhnes kai sképsis katergázetai, op. cit.

17 Some recent examples that fall within the timeframe – roughly the 2010s – and places of my research include projects such as: “Bitter Orange Sweet” (2012-2014) by Persefoni Mirtsou and Ino Varvariti, aiming at provoking dialogues on the “crisis” as they were offering spoon-sweet (a kind of dessert) made with fruit gathered from trees in public spaces in Athens and Thessaloniki; Io Chaviara’s miniature “Sofa” sculpture made of progressively rotting feta cheese (2013); Rasheed Araeen’s participatory installation “Shamiyaana: Food for Thought, Thought for Change” (2017), part of documenta 14 in Athens, where food was served not only to exhibition goers, but supposedly to anyone who came in time for a seat [for a critical anthropological approach see: Gkougkousis Grigoris, “On the Politics of Visibility, Documentation, and the Claim of Commoning the Artwork: Critical Notes on Shamiyaana-Food for Thought: Thought for Change,” in Elpida Rikou, Eleana Yalouri, Lampropoulos Apostolos (eds), Field, no 18/19, 2021]; OPA’s “Keep calm and eat chocolate” (2012), a series of luxurious-looking boxes with chocolate-like miniatures of the newly installed public sculptures of Skopje, bearing names such as “Sweet Emperor”; Nikola Uzunovski’s long term-project “Solar Kitchen”, including workshops and events of cooking and food sharing that depend on solar energy (2018-present).

18 See, for example, my audiowalk “Around the Market” (2013, in collaboration with Escoitar) developed around the central fruit, fish, and meat markets in the historic centre of Athens, seeking to sensorially engage users with its sounds and smells, while bringing forth some of the tensions experienced at the time by inhabitants, shopkeepers, and workers, or my “Exceptional Athens” (2015-2017), an artbook-tourist guide that featured, among other things, recipes inspired by crisis tourism and media representations of the economic recession, aiming at opening dialogues with passers-by about the touristification of the city centre. To better understand the dialogue between both “Exceptional Athens” and “Bitter Orange Sweet” (see previous footnote) on the one hand and, on the other, the rediscovery and reinvention of dishes considered “rural” or “traditional” in Athenian restaurants during the economic recession, see: Papacharalampous Nafsika, The Metamorphosis of Greek Cuisine: An Ethnography of Deli Foods, Restaurant Smells and Foodways of Crisis, New York, Routledge, 2024.

19 Tselementes Nikolaos, Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís. Paniyirikí ékdosis simpliroméni [Cookery and Confectionery Guide. Celebratory, Completed Edition], Athens, P. Koutsoumpos Α.Ε., 1973.

20 These tips, reproducing patriarchal notions about the role of women in marriage, belong to Carmen Sylva, the literary pseudonym of Queen of Romania, Pauline Elisabeth Ottilie Luise zu Wied (1843-1916). Sυlva Karmen, “Dekálogos pros tas kirías” [Decalogue for the Ladies], in Nikolaos Tselementes (ed.), Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís. Paniyirikí ékdosis simpliroméni [Cookery and Pastry Guide. Updated, Celebratory Edition], Athens, P. Koutsoumpos Α.Ε., 1973, p. 8.

21 The construction of “national” cuisines through cookbook pages aimed at women has been observed elsewhere, too, see: Appadurai Arjun, “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 30, no 1, 1988, p. 3-24.

22 For different versions on the establishment of béchamel in the cuisine of other neighbouring culinary traditions, and particularly for its use during the same period also in the context of breaking away from the Ottoman past and building a new “European” Turkish Republic, see Gerasimou Marianna, I othomanikí mayirikí. 99 palatianés sintayés prosarmosménes sti sínkhroni kouzína [Othoman Cooking. 99 Palace Recipes Adjusted in Contemporary Cuisine], Athens, Potamos, 2013; Epikuros, I néa ellinikí kouzína: perí tis ellinikótitas tou mousaká, tis gastronomikís mas taftótitas kai tis ananéosís tis [The New Greek Cuisine: on the Greekness of Moussaka, Our Culinary Identity and Its Renewal], Athens, Ikaros, 2012.

23 Tselementes, Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís, op. cit., p. ΧLV. On “authenticity,” “continuity,” and the invention of traditions in cooking, as well as for socio-political factors that form dishes, see Bakalaki Alexandra, “Yefstiká taxídia. Sinantísis kai diakrísis” [Taste Journeys. Meetings and Distinctions], in Ória kai perithória, entáxis kai apoklismí [Boundaries and Margins, Inclusions and Exclusions], Athens, Ethniko Kentro Koinonikon Ereunon, 2000, p. 67-85; Epikouros, I néa ellinikí kouzína, op. cit.; Karaosmanoğlu Defne, “Surviving the Global Market,” Food, Culture & Society, vol. 10, no 3, 2007, p. 425-448, DOI: 10.2752/155280107X239872; Sutton, “Food and the Senses,” op. cit.

24 Tselementes, Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís, op. cit., p. XLV. Laudatory reviews of his work, mentioned in his Cookery and Pastry Guide, such as the one on page 3 by Spyros Melas and Pavlos Paleologos, reinforce this view: “A theoretical talent sent by the Most High to discipline Greek cuisine, save the Greek stomach and, together with it, the Nation”; “A civilizer of the Greek palate, he put in order the vagaries of our cuisine. He gave charter to a cuisine that was neither properly Oriental nor European.”

25 Herzfeld Michael, Anthropology Through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 49.

26 Pastitsio is a baked dish, and its main ingredients are pasta, béchamel, and minced meat. Its name comes from Italy, and it usually signifies dishes with dough, pasta, and meat.

27 Tselementes, Odigós mayirikís kai zakharoplastikís, op. cit., p. XLV. For the impossibility of talking about a “clear” or “authentic” cuisine due to the constant changes, influences, and different trends that have prevailed over the centuries, see also Bakalaki, “Yefstiká taxídia,” op. cit.

28 Ivanoska Hristina, “Rosa Plaveva i Nakie Bajram” [Rosa Plaveva and Nakie Bajram], Forum, vol. 162, 2005, p. 95-97; Milevska Suzana, “Naming and Urgency,” e-cart, no 7, 2006, online: http://www.e-cart.ro/7/suzana/uk/g/suzana-_uk.html (accessed in September 2023).

29 This text includes little about the political and ideological environment in which Skopje 14 emerged, let alone its interplay with the country’s (and the international) economy. For more, see: Graan Andrew, “Skopje 2014 and the Politics of Nation Branding in Macedonia: Counterfeiting the Nation?,” Cultural Anthropology, vol. 28, no 1, 2013, p. 161-179, DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1360.2012.01179.x; Janev Goran, “Skopje 2014: Instrumentalizing Heritage for Unexpected Results,” Cultures of History Forum, 2015, online: https://www.cultures-of-history.uni-jena.de/debates/skopje-2014-instrumentalizing-heritage-for-unexpected-results (accessed in October 2023); Mattioli Fabio, Dark Finance: Illiquidity and Authoritarianism at the Margins of Europe, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2020; Risteski Ljupčo S., “Monuments and Urban Nationalism. The Skopje 2014 Project,” Antropologija, vol. 3, 2016, p. 49-70; Véron Ophélie, Deconstructing the Divided City: Identity, Power and Space in Skopje, Doctoral thesis, University College London, 2015.

30 Crvenkovska Risteska Ines, “It’s Time for a Baby! Motherhood and Nationalism According to Examples from the Republic of Macedonia,” EthnoAnthropoZoom, no 16, 2017, online: https://etno.pmf.ukim.mk/index.php/eaz/article/view/403 (accessed in April 2024); “Zakon za prekinuvanje na bremenosta” [Law on the Termination of Pregnancy], Služben vesnik na RM 87, 17 June 2013 ; Miškovska-Kajevska Ana, “Zakon za prekinuvanje na demokratijata vo Makedonija” [Law on the Termination of Democracy in Macedonia], Hera, 2006, online: https://hera.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Ana-M-Kajevska-Abortus-Ukinuvanje-na-demokratijata-_MK.pdf (accessed in September 2023).

31 Ibid.; Véron, Deconstructing the Divided City, op. cit.

32 Douglas Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London, New York, Routledge, 2005.

33 Gourgouris Stathis, Éthnos-óniro: diaphotismós ki thésmisi tis sínkhronis Elládas [Dream nation: Εnlightenment and the Εstablishment of Contemporary Greece], Athens, Kritiki, 2007.

34 Mattioli Fabio, “Regimes of Aesthetics: Competing Performances Surrounding the Skopje 2014 Plan,” in Tanja Petrović (ed.), Mirroring Europe: Ideas of Europe and Europeanization in Balkan Societies, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2014, p. 64-87; Rancière Jacques, Hatred of Democracy, London, Verso, 2009.

35 Interestingly enough, other Greek artists approached béchamel sauce in the same period (2017-2020). Their scope and the issues they addressed were surprisingly related to the ones I was grappling with, but the artworks were also quite different from each other. This coincidence is telling of artists’ concerns of that period, and the growing interest in food in/as art. See: Housiada Anna, A Dish and a Story, Performance, 2019-2020; Charalambidis Vassilis, Untitled, in Panos Charalambous, Voice-o-graph, Lecture Performance, 2017.

36 See also: Herzfeld, Anthropology Through the Looking-Glass, op. cit.

37 Ahmeti Safet, “Desperately Seeking Europe,” unpublished paper, 2011; Amygdalou Kalliopi, “‘Skopje 2014’ and the Return of History”, in Kalliopi Amygdalou, Christos-Georgios Kritikos, Kostas Tsiambaos (eds), The Future as Project, Athens, Hellenic Institute of Architecture, 2018, p. 151-167; Risteski, “Monuments and Urban Nationalism,” op. cit.; Skoulariki Athina, “To evropaïkó órama tou Voukephála” [Bucephalus’ European Dream], I Ephimerída ton Sintaktón [The Editors’ Newspaper], 2017, https://www.efsyn.gr/arheio/fantasma-tis-istorias/112464_eyropaiko-orama-toy-boykefala?amp (accessed in September 2023); Vangeli Anastas, “Nation-Building Ancient Macedonian Style: the Origins and the Effects of the So-Called Antiquisation in Macedonia,” Nationalities Papers, vol. 39, no 1, 2011, p. 13-32, online: www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0090599200036710/type/journal_article (accessed in October 2023).

38 Hamilakis Yannis, “Lives in Ruins: Antiquities and National Imagination in Modern Greece,” in Susan Kane (ed.), The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in a Global Context, Boston, Archaeological Institute of America, 2003, p. 51-78; Liakos Antonis, “Hellenism and the Making of Modern Greece: Time, Language, space,” in Katerina Zacharia (ed.), Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, Aldershot, Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2008, p. 201-236; Yalouri Eleana, The Acropolis: Global Fame, Local Claim, Oxford, New York, Berg, 2001.

39 In the case of the Acropolis, that which did not belong in the Classical period was “contaminating” its glamour and sanctity. A mosque, houses, and more were removed. Yalouri, The Acropolis, op. cit.

40 Dimova Rozita, Ethno-Baroque: Materiality, Aesthetics, and Conflict in Modern-Day Macedonia, New York, Berghahn Books, 2013; Dimova Rozita, “Elusive Centres of a Balkan City: Skopje Between Undesirable and Reluctant Heritage,” International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 25, no 9, 2019, p. 958-973, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2018.1482473; Graan, “Skopje 2014 and the Politics of Nation Branding,” op. cit.; Janev Goran, “Burdensome Past: Challenging the Socialist Heritage in Macedonia,” Studia ethnologica Croatica, vol. 29, 2017, p. 149-170 ; Risteski, “Monuments and Urban Nationalism,” op. cit.; Skoulariki, “To evropaïkó órama tou Voukephála,” op. cit.

41 Ingold Tim, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture, London, New York, Routledge, 2013; Marcus George, Ethnography through Thick and Thin, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1998.

42 See also: Marcus George E., “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography,” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 24, 1995, p. 95-117.

43 Except for friends’ flats, it was also presented in the context of the project “About Food,” organized by Elpida Rikou and Dimitra Kondylatou at TWIXTlab, a laboratory between and betwixt art, anthropology, and the everyday (Athens, 2017), and later in the context of the Freiraum workshop, organized by the Temporary Academy of Arts and Goethe Institute at the State of Concept gallery (Athens, 2018).

44 See, for example, Brown, “Burek, Da!,” op. cit.; Klumbytė Neringa, “The Soviet Sausage Renaissance,” American Anthropologist, vol. 112, no 1, 2010, p. 22-37; Neuberger Mary, “Consuming Lives: Inside the Balkan Kafene,” in David W. Montgomery (ed.), Everyday Life in the Balkans, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2019, p. 44-51.

45 Seremetakis, The Senses Still, op. cit.; Sutton, Remembrance of Repasts, op. cit.

46 Papanikolaou Dimitris, “Archive Trouble,” Society for Cultural Anthropology, 2011, online: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/archive-trouble (accessed in August 2023); Tsimbiridou Foteini, Manos Ioannis, Sideri Eleni et al., “Ethnographía kai pangosmiotopikés iyemoníes, politismikí kai metapikiakí kritikí: Pros mia kritikí anatheórisi ton Spoudón Periokhís,” [Ethnography and Cosmopolitan Hegemonies, Cultural and Postcolonial Criticism: Towards a Critical Revision of Area Studies], Culture-Borders-Gender/Studies, vol. 1, 2022, p. 1-10, online: https://ojs.lib.uom.gr/index.php/cbgs/article/view/9787 (accessed in August 2023).

47 Exhibition participants: Nehat Beqiri, Sofia Grigoriadou, Andrej Mitevski, Monika Moteska, OPA (Denis Saraginovski and Slobodanka Stevčeska), Antonio Pirkovski and Leni fon Geleva, Remijon Pronja, Nikola Uzunovski, Zorica Zafirovska.

48 Bishop Claire, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London, New York, Verso Books, 2012.

49 Papazymouris Dimitris, “I afthentikí sintayí tis Besamél se 10’” [The original Béchamel recipe in 10’], Caruso, 2014, online: https://caruso.gr/afthentiki-saltsa-bechamel/ (accessed in August 2023).

50 Asad Talal, “The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology,” in James Clifford, George Marcus (eds), Writing culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, a School of American Research Advanced Seminar, Berkley, University of California Press, 1986.

51 The “Lykeion ton Ellinidon” [Lyceum of Greek Women] is a non-profit association founded in 1911 with the aim of connecting “women of the letters, sciences [and] the arts.” Among its goals was the “rebirth and preservation of Greek customs and traditions.” “Katastatikón tou Likíou ton Ellinídon” [Statute of the Lyceum of Greek Women], Athens, 2 March 1911, FEK 51, p. 197-198, online: www.logotypos.gr/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/lykeio-ellinidon-litsa-1.pdf (accessed in October 2023).

52 Exhibition participants: Alexandra Anagnostopoulou, Marilena Aligizaki, Giannis Delagrammatikas, Olga Evangelidou, Sofia Grigoriadou, Iraklis Kopitas, Zoe Skepa, Electra Stampoulou, Mary Thivaiou, Ino Varvaniti.

53 The exhibition in Skopje was visited mostly by people from the field of art and culture, as well as people interested in art. In Athens, the audience was composed similarly, but there was also a large number of visitors (mostly women over 40, but also men) who were following the CMLE activities.

54 See: Farquhar Judith, Appetites: Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China, Durham, Duke University Press, 2002; Sutton, “Food and the Senses,” op. cit.

55 Leahy Helen Rees, Museum Bodies: The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing, Ashgate, Farnham, 2012.

56 The historian of culture Constance Classen points out that, in the first museums and collections in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, touch, smell, and the other senses were as much a part of the exhibition as – if not more than – sight. Touch was thought to provide a more complete sense of things, since sight, limited to the coloured surface of an object, was deceptive. Sight gradually became more important in exhibition visits, until in the nineteenth century in most cases it was forbidden for visitors to touch the exhibits. The latter passed into an idealised, sacred sphere, away from “impure” hands. Classen Constance, “Touch in the Museum,” in Constance Classen, The Book of Touch, Abington, New York, Berg, 2020 [2005]. Today, multi-sensoriality is once again “invading” the museum and exhibition practice. The exhibition of “Béchamel” in art spaces and museum premises would have been impossible if it had not been preceded by the artistic avant-gardes of the 1960s, but also by later trends, such as the Relational Aesthetics of the 1990s, which contributed to the movement of the work of art from the sacred space of artistic modernism into the realm of the everyday and from the exhibition podium back into the visitors’ hands.

57 The term “white cube” refers to an understanding of the ideal exhibition space, particularly popularized by mid-twentieth-century abstract painting exhibitions: works are displayed under special lights and in rooms painted white, usually without furniture. The white cube is a supposedly neutral, timeless, transcendent space for isolated art admiration.

58 Vilić Nebojša, “15: Odmolkuvanje” [Unsilencing], Facebook, 2019, online: www.facebook.com/notes/763450201168408/ (accessed in September 2023); Jakimovska Ilina, Bešamelot kako malter na nacijata: prikaznata za slavniot grčki gotvač Celementes [Béchamel as the Nation’s Mortar: the Story of the Famous Greek Chef Tselementes], off.net, Bookbox, 2019, online: https://off.net.mk/bookbox/beshamelot-kako-malter-na-nacijata-prikaznata-za-slavniot-grchki-gotvach-celementes (accessed in September 2023).

59 Veselinovič Jaro, “Waiting and Hoping in Post-Socialist Macedonia,” EthnoAnthropoZoom, no 21, 2021, p. 207-233, online: https://etno.pmf.ukim.mk/index.php/eaz/article/view/504 (accessed in September 2023). For relevant observations coming from neighbouring countries, see: Kofti Dimitra, “‘Sofia 2014, Feels Like 1989’: Abstention from the Protests and Declining Market Teleology in Bulgaria,” in Don Kalb, Massimiliano Mollona (eds), Worldwide Mobilizations: Class Struggles and Urban Commoning, London, New York, Berghahn, 2018, p. 73-91; Herzfeld, Anthropology Through the Looking-Glass, op. cit.

60 For the ways artists have documented such avoidance, see: Ivanoska, “Rosa Plaveva i Nakie Bajram,” op. cit.; Milevska Suzana, “The Answer is: Not Much,” in Suzana Milevska (ed.), Transfer of Responsibility – Sašo Stanojkoviḱ, Skopje, Sašo Stanojkoviḱ, 2021, p. 7-9.

61 Vangelov Atanas, “Simbolot na šampita” [The Symbol of Šampita], Okno, 2017, online: https://okno.mk/node/66924 (accessed in October 2023).

62 Tilley Christopher, Metaphor and Material Culture, Oxford/Malden, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.

63 Yalouri Eleana, Rikou Elpida, “Contemporary Art and ‘Difficult Heritage’: Three Case Studies from Athens,” in Esther Solomon (ed.), Contested Antiquity: Archaeological Heritage and Social Conflict in Modern Greece and Cyprus, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2021, p. 297-318.

64 Jakimovska, “Bešamelot kako malter na nacijata,” op. cit.; Risteski Ljupčo S., “‘Porta Makedonija’, od psevdoklasicizam do spomenik na kulturata, od politička ritualizacija do graǵanska demistifikacija” [“Arch Macedonia”, from Pseudo Classicism to Monument of Culture, from Political Ritualization to Civil Demystification], Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne, no 13, 2018, p. 279-300, online: https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/pss/article/view/11969 (accessed in October 2023).

65 Laclau Ernesto, “Introduction,” in Ernesto Laclau (ed.), The Making of Political Identities, London, New York, Verso, 1994, p. 1-8.

66 Dimova, Ethno-Baroque, op. cit.

67 Koteska Jasna, “Troubles with History: Skopje 2014,” Artmargins, 2011, online: https://artmargins.com/troubles-with-history-skopje-2014/ (accessed in October 2023).

68 Whitehead Neil L., “Post-Human Anthropology,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, vol. 16, 2009, p. 1-32 (8), DOI: 10.1080/10702890802605596.

69 Bishop, Artificial Hells, op. cit.; Bovin Mette, “Provocation Anthropology: Bartering Performance in Africa,” TDR (1988-), vol. 32, no 1, 1988, p. 21-41.

70 Rikou Elpida, Yalouri Eleana, “The Art of Research Practices Between Art and Anthropology,” Field, no 11, 2018, online: https://field-journal.com/editorial/introduction-the-art-of-research-practices-between-art-and-anthropology (accessed in October 2023); Schneider Arnd, Wright Christopher (eds), Contemporary Art and Anthropology, Oxford, Berg, 2006; Schneider Arnd, Wright Christopher (eds.), Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnographic Practice, Oxford, New York, Berg, 2010; Schneider Arnd, Wright Christopher (eds.), Anthropology and Art Practice, London, New York, Bloomsbury, 2013.

71 These media, however, convey other types of information and provide opportunities for different kinds of exchange. They, too, proved to be essential to my research and the formulation of “Béchamel” itself.

72 Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty, “Critical Intimacy: An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,” Los Angeles Review of Books, 2016, online: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/critical-intimacy-interview-gayatri-chakravorty-spivak/ (accessed in October 2023); Weiss Margot, “Intimate Encounters: Queer Entanglements in Ethnographic Fieldwork,” Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 93, no 1, 2020, p. 1355-1386 (1381), online: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/757549 (accessed in October 2023).

73 Gupta Akhil, Ferguson James (eds), Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 1997.

74 Fabian Johannes, Power and Performance: Ethnographic Explorations through Proverbial Wisdom and Theater in Shaba, Zaire, Madison, Wis., University of Wisconsin Press, 1990, p. 6-7; Spry Tami, “Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis,” Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 7, no 6, 2001, p. 706-732, DOI: 10.1177/107780040100700605; Spry Tami, “A ‘Performative-I’ Copresence: Embodying the Ethnographic Turn in Performance and the Performative Turn in Ethnography,” Text and Performance Quarterly, vol. 26, no 4, 2006, p. 339-346, DOI: 10.1080/10462930600828790; Whitehead, “Post-Human Anthropology,” op. cit.

75 See: Clifford, Marcus (eds), Writing Culture, op. cit.; Foster Hal, “The Artist as Ethnographer,” in Hal Foster (ed.), The Return of the Real, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1996, p. 302-309; Spry, “Performing Autoethnography,” op. cit.; Spry, “A ‘Performative-I’ Copresence,” op. cit.; Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989.

76 Andrade Xavier, “Ethnography, Pataphysics, Copying,” in Arnd Schneider (ed.), Alternative Art and Anthropology, London, Routledge, 2017; Foster, “The Artist as Ethnographer,” op. cit.

77 To a certain extent, contemporary art also presents such resistances, especially in the “post-truth” era and the spread of alt-right trolls, who appropriate methods of critical art, making it urgent for critical artists to redefine their methodologies and to critically reflect on how their work is different. Hessler Stefanie, Yio Poka, Stafylakis Kostis, “‘ANTI’, Introduction to the 6th Athens Biennale,” in Stefanie Hessler, Poka Yio, Kostis Stafylakis, Augustine Zenakos (eds), Anti-AB6 Athens Biennale 2018, Athènes, 2018, p. 122-131; Bempeza Sofia, “Aesthetic Practices of the New Right – Fake and Post-Truth as a Challenge for Transgressive Art and Cultural Practices,” Media Impulses, vol. 58, no 2, 2020, DOI: 10.21243/mi-02-20-14.

78 Murphy Keith M., “Art, Design, and Ethical Forms of Ethnographic Intervention,” in Gretchen Bakke, Marina Peterson (eds), Between Matter and Method, London, New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, p. 97-115 (112).

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Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1. Béchamel 1
Légende The “Béchamel” table set before the performance in Skopje.
Crédits Credit: Zorica Zafirovska
URL http://journals.openedition.org/balkanologie/docannexe/image/6469/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 521k
Titre Fig. 2. Béchamel 2
Légende Tools used for the performance in both cities.
Crédits Credit: Sofia Grigoriadou
URL http://journals.openedition.org/balkanologie/docannexe/image/6469/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 483k
Titre Fig. 3. Béchamel 3
Légende Leftovers after the performance in Athens.
Crédits Credit: Sofia Grigoriadou
URL http://journals.openedition.org/balkanologie/docannexe/image/6469/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 681k
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Sofia Grigoriadou, « “Béchamel”: The Taste of Public Memory, Forgetting and Discipline in Athens and Skopje. An Approach Between Art and Anthropology »Balkanologie [En ligne], Vol. 19 n° 2 | 2024, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2024, consulté le 20 mai 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/balkanologie/6469 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/13waq

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Sofia Grigoriadou

Panteion University, Athens
jbioskop[at]gmail.com

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