Dimitris Karagiannakis

“Nothing is connected to everything, everything is connected to something"; An endless web of collective thinking

My worldview is shaped by my experience of queerness that rejects mainstream heteronormativity. As LGBTQ+ people, we are automatically placed in a category. This category precipitates the formation of familial bonds beyond genetics. It is this understanding and accepting of ‘Otherness’ that culminates in rich collective political action, which stands in stark contrast to the politics of patriarchal exclusion.

Donna Haraway’s concept of ‘Tentacular Thinking’, the transcending of binary modes of thought through diverse networks, was the framework through which I examine the Greek myth of Arachne, the first spider. Once a great weaver, Arachne was punished by Athena for speaking against the gods, especially Zeus who abused his power to rape mortal women, representing a system of oppression within a masculinist society that is familiar to us to this day. I am reimagining Arachne as an early feminist who knows her role in society and her power in her craft, amalgamating the physicality of her metamorphosis with the subversive image of the queer body as a starting point for my designs. Here, the queer body becomes a subversive political entity that fluctuates between person and animal, reality and fiction, mortal and divine, mainstream and underground. 

The inspiration came early in the year during the Mirror Mirror project, while shooting a short film at a dinner party, documenting the complex and personal understanding of the words “community” and “queerness” amongst my friends. Throughout the year, I continued documenting my experiences, the dinners, the parties, the people. And the work really became about that.

Therefore, it has been extremely important to me from the beginning to include these individuals in the project, listen to them, center the work on them. My casting is composed of people from my community; Queer women, close friends who love and support each other. They all represent a different, but equally unique, part of a constellation of people that have shown me the beauty of accepting your true self and fighting for what you believe in.

For me, they are the daughters of Arachne.