How can spatial anxiety, which manifests as feelings of uncertainty and fear when navigating environments, have a negative impact on art appreciation, especially in installation art, where feelings of uncertainty and discomfort often arise when visitors interact with spaces that include challenging and unpredictable materials? The installation art, titled “Reflections on the Mirror,” served as a case study for analyzing participants’ spatial anxiety in conjunction with art appreciation. In this context, we examined participants’ sensory and spatial perception, aiming to explore how these elements influenced their emotional responses related to spatial perception, thus contributing to the manifestation of spatial anxiety and its relationship to art appreciation. Reflecting the interconnectedness of sensory experiences, where external interactions can enhance internal awareness and vice versa, we applied a dual analysis framework: (a) Body-related Perceptual Modalities, which include processes related to internal bodily sensations and awareness, and (b) Environment-related Perceptual Modalities, which concern the perception of external environmental stimuli. Participants expressed a wide range of emotions, with notable references to the categories “Enjoyment and Appreciation” (40.45%) and “Fear and Anxiety” (37.08%), highlighting the contradictory nature of their experiences. Therefore, our findings show that while spatial anxiety was largely elicited, leading to transient feelings of uncertainty and discomfort in visitors, it did not diminish their enjoyment and art appreciation. This suggests that the emotional complexity elicited by such immersive experiences can coexist with positive feelings of enjoyment and appreciation.
Justine – Antigone in Five Acts
I: The Beginning of Voice
I am Justine. I am Antigone.
In my name dwell both silence and cry.
The virtue that persists.
The fire that does not retreat.
I am not here to choose between patience and rebellion —
I am here to remind you they belong to the same heart.
[…]
II: The Body and the Act
I am Justine. I am Antigone.
I am the body that refused to obey
and the spirit that did not hesitate to sacrifice.
I will not give you the right to define what purity means.
Nor what love means.
I will define my own words.
And if I must, I will write them in blood.
[…]
III: The Conflict
I am Justine. I am Antigone.
I speak, and they want me voiceless.
I love, and they want me pure.
I refuse, and they call me dangerous.
I am a woman, and that alone is a crime.
Justine knew:
Virtue without desire is dead.
Antigone knew:
Law without love is violence.
[…]
IV: Freedom and Loneliness
I am Justine. I am Antigone.
Freedom did not come as a caress.
It came like a knife that severed ties.
I was left alone.
But I was never more real.
[…]
V: For the Ones Who Are Coming
I am Justine. I am Antigone.
For the daughter growing up with "musts" on her tongue.
For the woman learning to stay silent.
[…]
“I am here. And I do not bend.”
Marianne Strapatsakis (b. Athens, 1947) received her first degree from the Athens College of Technology in Interior Architecture. She continued her studies in Paris, with a five-year grand from the Academy of Athens, where she graduated with degrees from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (diploma in painting and a certificate in sketch). She also received a certificate in History of Art from the Ecole du Louvre and a diploma in Plastic Arts from the University of Sorbonne, Paris I. Since 1980, she has been a pioneer in video art in Greece, with emphasis on video installations in which she incorporates painting, sculpture and video. From 2004 she was inspirer, founding member, professor and president of the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University, Greece. In 2005, she was appointed as visiting professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts. She continues her work by focusing on the possibilities of coexistence of moving images, sound and digital art, on the dialogue between contemporary digital art and civilisations of the past and on the presentation of large size digital works in public spaces (projections mapping). She has presented 44 solo shows in Greece, France, England, Germany, Italy, Chile, Turkey, and has participated in 77 group exhibitions in Greece, France, England, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, China among of which is the exhibition The Tides of the Century at the Ocean Flower Island Museum in China, with Greece as an honoured country 2021. Works of her are located in Greece: at the Ministry of Culture, at the National Art Gallery, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, at the Museum of Modern Art of Elizas and Vasilis Goulandris, at the Municipal Gallery of Rhodes, at the Center of Modern Art of Rethymno, at the Municipality of Rhodes, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, at the Macedonian Museum of Modern Art, at the Museum of Byzantium Culture of Thessaloniki, at the Viannou Art Gallery in Crete, at the Syros Art Gallery, at the Municipal Art Gallery of Chania, at the collection of Harry Antoniou, at the collection of Perikli Sahini, at the collection K.Fix in Austria, at the collection of T. Karavia in New York and at others collections in Greece, France, Germany, Switzerland, Egypt and the United States. She lives and works in Greece.
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