Elian Somers - Ecumenopolis

Elian Somers, Ecumenopolis

For this film, Elian Somers delved into a specific aspect of the Cold War: the efforts on both sides, East and West, to extend their spheres of influence by means of art and culture. As a counterpart to Socialist Realism, the US advanced modernist art as a vehicle for spreading Western values. This Cultural Cold War also took place on the front of architecture and urban development. ?

Against this geopolitical background, Somers zooms in on Greek architect-planner Constantinos Doxiadis and his role as a cultural agent of change. In the 1950s and 60s, Doxiadis developed many key projects across the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and was responsible for the modernist master plans of Riyadh, Baghdad and the brand new capital Islamabad. Parallel to these influential commissions, he worked on his own mission: a visionary urbanist theory which he named ekistics, the science of human settlements. Its ultimate aim was a blueprint for a future city that would encompass the entire world: Ecumenopolis.???

In Somers’ film a voice-over tells us about Doxiadis’ mission and his interdisciplinary network of inspirational fellows, which he gathered annually on a boat in the Aegean Sea to contribute to his mission. Her camera hovers around the island Delos and the ancient city where Doxiadis would take them. In order to envision the urban future, they were to travel back in time. As the story unfolds, Somers interweaves two rather different perspectives on Doxiadis and his ‘Delians’, drawing both on official archives celebrating his architecture as a practice beyond politics, and on alternative sources that trace a more complex context.?

Part of the exhibition?The Streets Are our Brushes, the Squares our Palettes (Ine Lamers & Elian Somers),?on show until October 15 at?Pennings Foundation.