METAMORPHOSIS AS A TOY // 2025

// When the Toy Plays Back: A Quiet Riot of Selves

/ installation / portraits / videos / relics /

“Metamorphosis as a Toy” is an exhibition of portraits, videos, costumes and stage relics created by Euripides Laskaridis and his collaborators over the last decade—some presented for the first time in Greece.

This body of work unfolds in dialogue with the Permanent Exhibition on the History of Children’s Toys and Books in Myrina, Lemnos—a lifelong vision of archaeologist and author Christos Boulotis, who donated his personal toys and books collection to the museum.

Discreet interventions within the museum’s permanent display and a separate experiential installation in an adjacent building reveal a playful, physical and deeply creative process of transformation: the invention of identities, forms and gestures through minimal means—often no more than a wig or a fake nose.

At the heart of the exhibition lies the SELF-PORTRAITS Series [2014–2021], where Euripides explores the expressive potential of the face and the body without digital tools or technical effects. Through candid play and subtle costume work, a multitude of personas emerge—quirky yet familiarly magnetic.

In a nearby building—transformed by the artist into a small, self-contained universe—the journey deepens. Visitors are first met with ARTIST PORTRAIT [2015], a poignant and sharp-edged video work reflecting on identity and creation in the shadow of the Greek crisis, originally commissioned by the European Dancehouse Network & Duncan Dance Research Centre. 

From there, a quiet threshold leads into a second space: intimate, semi-theatrical, quietly charged. Here, unseen archival footage from the embryonic stages of RELIC (then titled VENUS) projected on the wall—raw, tender, full of edge. Nearby, a twin of the now-famous costume stands unworn: a body without a history, a doll never played. Scenic fragments—half-forgotten textures of a decade-long journey—hover like echoes. Together, they sketch the portrait of a figure trapped in an eternal cycle of becoming, un-becoming, and beautifully unresolved transformation.

// where & when

GREECE // LEMNOS // Kournos Music Festival 2025 – Permanent Exhibition on the History of Children’s toys and books // 3-20 August 2025

// project info

METAMORPHOSIS AS A TOY // 2025
// installation / portraits / videos / relics 

conceived and created by // Euripides Laskaridis
exhibition curator // Stamatis Schizakis
creative production collaborator // Thomas Sfounis
visual communication //  Michalis Paraskakis

// costume figure/ exhibit [2025]
costume/ exhibit sewing & construction // Melina Terzaki
costume/ exhibit creative partner // Christos Delidimos
Euripides’ head-cast // Nektarios Dionysatos
creative collaborator // Timothy Laskaratos
lighting installation support // George Ierapetritis

// self-portraits [2014 – 2021]
collaborating photographers // Ioanna Plessa [2014] & Elina Giounanli [2021]
creative production assistants // Melina Terzaki [2014] & Dimos Klimenof [2021]

// artist portrait - video [2015]
conceived, created and performed by // Euripides Laskaridis
creative collaborator //  Ioanna Plessa
commissioned by // European Dancehouse Network & Duncan Dance Research Centre
produced by //  the OSMOSIS performing arts company

// venus - development phase video [2014]
rehearsal directorial consultant // Tatiana Bre
costume design // Angelos Mentis
rehearsal dramaturgy consultant // Alexandros Mistriotis
edited by // Euripides Laskaridis

commissioned by // Kournos Music Festival 2025 [GR]
produced by // the OSMOSIS performing arts company [GR]

special thanks to // Dimitris Papaioannou, Vicky Marangopoulou, Penelope Iliaskou, Giorgos Poulios, Kyriacos Karseras, Simos Patieridis, Rena Laskaridou, Vicky Strataki, Konstantinos Chaldaios, Giorgos Hanos, Yannis Savouidakis, Nitsa Dora, Constantinos Doras, Eliza Alexandropoulou, Thanasis Kalkanis, Friends of the Toys and Books Museum, National Museum of Contemporary Art (EΜΣΤ)

// see also