Exhibition wall text for A Bread in the Wall – CENTRALE for contemporary art, Brussels
 © Ph : Philippe De Gobert

For her exhibition A Bread in the Wall, Belgian-Greek artist Sofhie Mavroudis explores the transmission of language. Taking as her starting point her incomplete knowledge of her father's native language, Mavroudis erases the words she does not understand from La grande Chimère, a novel by Michalis Karagatsis, a classic and essential author of Greek literature.

The erased words are stamped onto bricks of bread, which form the foundations of an imaginary building, either under construction or in ruins. The work evokes, on the one hand, the importance of bread in Greek culture and, on the other, the essential role of learning a language in gaining access to one's family heritage.

The traditional craft of breadmaking, once passed down from woman to woman, also provided a way for women to share their stories and create social bonds. Memories of this lost practice celebrate the home as a place of transmission.