The road is now in the southwest of Athens, one of the most problematic areas of the city from every point of view, among them poverty, lack of basic infrastructures such as drainage and good roads, and heavy pollution. But in some parts there are clear traces of the ancient way still visible.

Looking at one of the many street signs for the Iera Odos, is enough to raise the question, why 'iera' (sacred) ?

When I began to be interested in this site I decided to start looking for anything that concerned the road - books, articles, newspapers - whatever I could find that gave information about the old path - but also about the road as it is today. Lots of things are happening there now, and if you ask anyone in Athens what they think of Eleusina they will react negatively, since heavy industrialization and the refineries have done so much damage and polluted the area.

I visited Eleusina for the first time while doing my research.
I was immensely surprised to see how beautiful the site was.
Massive stone walls from Roman times, columns, fragments, the large marble staircase that led to the main (huge) building, the Telestirion, a lovely small museum and, most of all, the breathtaking view towards the bay of Salamina and all the mountains that surround Athens.

ii
Then I decided that I wanted to walk this road.

I chose to do this walk on the date and time which, according to my calculations, corresponded with the original ones. The physical experience was very important to me. I wanted to recreate for myself the closest conditions that I could to those of the original travellers.

September is still a hot month in Greece so that travelling on foot in the middle of the day, having the strong sun above you, together with the light and the colours of the earth, gives you certain sensory information,

I was alone. I cannot even imagine what would it be to walk with 30,000 people - these were the numbers known, at least during the Persian wars.
iii.
On 19 September 1994, a very hot day, I started my walk just after lunch, at 1 o'clock, at the beginning of the modern road, which is at the cross with Pereus St. in the centre of Athens, near to the ancient cemetery of Keramikos.
Wearing shorts, my sports shoes, a little white hat and taking a small camera and a bottle of water, I passed modern shops, showrooms, industries, a botanical garden and a psychiatric hospital. This psychiatric hospital, at Iera Odos 343, is the oldest in Athens and very well known for its famous in the arts inhabitants: writers, poets, painters, sculptures were hospitalized, some even died there and their tombs are still inside the high stone walls that surround the neoclassical buildings.
The psychiatric hospital: another kind of departure from this world.

About 3 pm I arrived in Dafni where the famous Byzantine church stands - which I discovered took its name from the temple of Daphnian Apollo, who’s sacred plant is the laurel (daphne).

Then I arrived at the site of the temple of Aphrodite, of which Pausanias says that it was a 'note-worthy wall of unwrought stones.' Now a large motor-way expands onto the plain (in old times known as the Rarian plain) passing what is now 'Koumoundourou lake.'

Pausanias refers to this Lake as 'Rhetoi', the sacred lake, in which only the priests were allowed to fish, and which was the boundary between the land of the Eleusinians and the other Athenians. At that time, there was a bridge over the water, so narrow that no vehicles could take part in the procession.

It was now 5.30 and I had walked 14 kilometres. Then the most difficult part of my walk began, alongside the heavy traffic on the busy motorway. Around me were refineries, cement and steel factories, shipyards and other industries. The air thick with smoke and pollution, with the sun still strong in my face, I struggled to cover the distance by the side of the highway.

Finally, just outside Eleusina after 19.km, at about 7.30, I arrived at the ancient bridge of the Eleusinian Cephisus, erected in the second century AD for the Roman emperor Adrianus. He wanted to be initiated into the Great Mysteries, but could not cross the river, which at that time was flooded. So he ordered a very big, arched, stone bridge ( 30 metres long and 5.30 metres wide) to be built. It is still there. Unfortunately the motorway now passes just above it so it is only barely visible.

By 8 o'clock the sun had gone down and a glorious full moon was rising and welcoming me to Eleusis. When I arrived I went straight to the hotel 'Melissa' on Persephone St. where I settled for the night. I was very tired but thrilled by the experience. My feet were hurting and I had sweated a lot, but I had discovered something new for myself. The walk made me feel a physical contact between what had been in ancient times two cities. Through walking, the body records internally and traces the actual distance.

iv.
The next day I visited the Archaeological site.
Morning 10.30 am. I am sitting at the Telestirion, watching.
Telestirion-( telos- goal- telete ).
I see a man walking very cautiously, slowly, across the floor of the huge place. His every movement was so careful that I thought that he was blind.
It took him a very long time to cover the long distance between the two sides of the floor. When he finally arrived at the other side, he joined his friends, and he became another tourist, not blind at all. He became 'blind', I think, to give himself another kind of experience, because this space was the place were the secret rites,the 'epopteia' took place..

What happened during the 'epopteia' initiation was kept secret and up until now, nothing has come forward to reveal this secret. All that we know comes from sources that refer to the facts before and after the actual event. Two words are important: ARRHETON: the ineffable, and APORREHTON: subject to the law of silence.

The initiates were men, women and slaves. The only conditions were that they should speak the Greek language and that they had shed no blood, that is commited no crime

I discovered during my research that the Great Mysteries were actually the second part of the rites. The first part took place in the middle of Athens by what were then the banks of the famous river Ilissos, in which Plato and other philosophers used to teach. They are known as the Lesser Mysteries and took place in the month of Anthestirion (which I think is March at the spring equinox.) In the classical period the cult was regarded as the Mysteries of Persephone-Kore and Demeter - Mother. At that time there was a sanctuary of Artemis of the fields. ( Agrotera Artemis ). In the modern city now we have a street in the same area, which has the name 'Agra '

The river Ilissos is almost completely covered by roads and buildings. But a very small part of it remains, under a bridge, and it is still very beautiful to visit.

The goddess Demeter instituted the Lesser Mysteries in honor of Heracles, so that she might purify him of the guilt he had incurred in the slaughter of the Centaurs and so that he could be initiated at the Great Mysteries. The Lesser Mysteries were considered to be more 'physical' and the Great Mysteries more 'spiritual. People could not go to Eleusis without having first purified themselves at the banks of Ilissos during the Lesser Mysteries.
v
I returned to Athens by bus.
During the walk I took about a hundred photographs of road-signs bearing the name 'Iera Odos', and other sites both ancient and modern. As I walked, the layers of the history of the road were there, in front of my eyes and, literally, under my feet. These photographs later on, became the basis for my installation.
When I came to make the installation my idea was to lead the audience to follow the road and create an environment that would help to do so. I made the room in which the photographs were shown an almost completely dark space. The only light came from the two monitors which showed the bus-ride to and from Eleusis. The photographs were small and placed next to one another in a row around the room, with small arrows underneath showing the direction, the number of kilometres and the time at certain points.
The spectators had to use the light of a torch which they collected outside the room, entering through a black curtain and finding the way by torch-light
slowly, looking at a few photographs at a time. In this way they followed the road, focusing on the photographs in a way that engaged them physically.

Perhaps I should add that in ancient times travellers arrived late at night
holding torches to light their way.