she had become a machine brings together three artists who observe, process, transform, and channel energy in its manifold forms. Using Margaret Raspé’s (1933-2023) practice as a kernel, especially her works related to her summers on the island of Karpathos, the exhibition explores energy as it manifests through fleeting images and invisible currents: like Raspé, Danae Io and Vibeke Mascini create machines and allow their own and other bodies to become machines themselves. Raspé’s time in Karpathos and the force its rough landscape exerted on her work precipitate novel engagements with the elemental. The noun “device” and the verb “devise” differ by a single letter. Yet, etymologically, they originate in a common root. Margaret Raspé, Danae Io, and Vibeke Mascini stand somewhere in the middle, drawing on both: they devise devices.
she had become a machine is an exhibition and a negotiation into the archive of ISET (Contemporary Greek Art Institute).
she had become a machine
Artists: Margaret Raspé, Danae Io, and Vibeke Mascini
Curated by Danai Giannoglou & Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou
Opening: May 26, 19:00
Duration: May 26 – July 17, 2026
Contemporary Greek Art Institute (ISET), Valaoritou 9A, Athens
Margaret Raspé, Brennpunkte - Lichterscheinungen, 1984, photo performance, 9 framed photographs by Florentine Raspé and Vincent Trasov, 56 x 97.5 cm. Courtesy the estate of Margaret Raspé and Galerie Molitor, Berlin
Margaret Raspé, Rückprojektion / Rear Projection, 1983, film performance, wooden frame, nettle cloth, projector, Super 8 film, 20 min., separate four channel sound, Quergalerie Berlin. Photos: Ivanna Micheletti, Vincent Trasov. Courtesy the estate of Margaret Raspé and Galerie Molitor, Berlin
Margaret Raspé, sketch for Rear Projection, 1983, rollerball pen on paper, 29,7 × 21 cm, detail view. Courtesy the estate of Margaret Raspé and Galerie Molitor, Berlin
Photograph by Danae Io, 2026
Vibeke Mascini, Jolt, electric power strip, copper wire, resin, hawkmoth, international night lights mimicking butterflies, 2026, photography of 'MOThS' by Documentation Station
Vibeke Mascini, Jolt, electric power strip, copper wire, resin, hawkmoth, international night lights mimicking butterflies, 2026, photography of 'MOThS' by Documentation Station
Danai Giannoglou is a curator, writer and editor currently living and working independently between Athens and Amsterdam. She is the co-founder and curator of Enterprise Projects, a project space in Athens that has been functioning independently and periodically since September 2015, and the editor of Enterprise Projects Journal, a publishing initiative by Enterprise Projects in the form of a bilingual online publication of newly commissioned theoretical and research essays. She has held curatorial positions at de Appel, Amsterdam and served as the exhibitions archive coordinator at Deste Foundation, Athens. She is currently a contributor to the Metropolis M magazine. Danai participated in the de Appel Curatorial Programme 2019/20, Amsterdam and previously studied Theory and History of Art at the Athens School of Fine Arts, as well as Cultural Management and Curating at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris. She is a recipient of the Onassis AiR Emergency Fellowship 19/20, the Onassis AiR Tailor-Made Fellowship 2022, the 2nd SNF Artist Fellowship Program (Curating), as well as the inaugural ArcAthens NOLA/NYCBX Research Fellowship in 2023. Her curatorial practice focuses on languages and landscapes using visual art and poetry as vehicles for their exploration. At the same time she researches the history, legacy and stakes of independent art spaces and practices.
Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou is an art historian and curator, currently a research fellow (VENI) and lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her interdisciplinary scholarship, at the intersection of art and science history and the environmental humanities, centers on nuclear aesthetics and engages material histories of art and the environment, toxicity, antinuclear activism and feminist discourses. She obtained her PhD from the École des hautes en sciences sociales, Paris (2021), supported by an Onassis foundation scholarship, entitled Dwelling, Extracting, Burying: Nuclear Imaginaries in Contemporary Art (1970-2020). In 2022–23 she was a research fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg, RWTH Aachen University. She is the scientific advisor of Atomic Age. Artists Grappling with History (Musée d’art Moderne, Paris, 2024–25); CCCB Barcelona, 2026), and in 2024 she curated the group exhibition …that creeps from the earth (2024) at Tavros, Athens. Currently she is co-editing the volume Toxic Materialities: Exposure and Pollution in Art Making Across Histories and Geographies (Brill, forthcoming). Her research and curatorial work has been supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Goulandris Foundation, the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD), the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.