My name is Alexandra, a name with great historical importance for Greece - because of Alexander the Great. It comes from the composition of the verb “alexo” (αλέξω) which means to repel, to protect, to repel and the noun “andras” (άνδρας), which means man. So, Alexandra (and its masculine version Alexandros) means someone who often repels vigorously the enemy as a brave warrior. I inherited this name from my grandmother according to the Greek tradition, that is, a social construction that prevails to this day and wants the children born to take the names of their grandparents, so that together with the surname they constitute a perpetuation, a prevalence of families over time.

My grandmother was a lonely figure always dressed in black that suggested mourning while she herself had no reason to mourn any of her own and so, along with its etymological interpretation, my name had always caused me an excessive amount of weight and many. responsibilities. As a result, I always tried to avoid the name Alexandra by replacing it with various diminutives. The ones that prevailed are Alex and Andy (Anti), the latter being short for the word “opposite”, in my attempt to differentiate myself from the image and interpretation that my name had been associated with.

The color black and the weight of emotion led me to perform as a primal act of redemption and identity-seeking through the mechanism of remembrance, bypassing the social and cultural processes that accompany naming. It was a way for me to escape the perceived weight associated with my name by creating a visual and material representation of my personal journey to self-discovery and independence.

The documentation of the performance has remained in time through the photographic material and the garment as material evidence, and is presented under the title “Alexandra”.