Exhibition
The Emerging Greek Artist in Berlin
Unholy Paths: Memories of Labor and Migration

Tracing the hidden journeys, untold stories, and the lives that shaped history in silence.

Curation: Angela Konti, journalist – producer

Exhibition Opening: Thursday, March 26th, 18:00

Opening Hours:
Thu. 26/3, 18:00-21:00
Fri. 27/3, 16:00-21:00
Sat. 28/3, 16:00-21:00

This exhibition is an act of honor and remembrance, rooted in personal and family histories. As the grandchild of Greek and Italian workers who migrated north to labor in factories and mines, Saki Koulos reflects on the lives of those who sought a better future for their families. These stories expand into collective histories that often remain hidden between the lines of dominant narratives.

Through a body of mixed-media works, this project seeks to return these stories to the center of attention, by acknowledging the dignity, sacrifices, and historical significance of these workers.

In several works, the artist employs traditional and historically resonant materials such as egg tempera, wax, and techniques associated with early iconography and pre-modern art. These choices are not nostalgic, but deliberate: by using mediums historically reserved for religious icons, funerary portraits, and sacred imagery, Koulos places these workers within a visual tradition of reverence and permanence.

At its core, the exhibition explores intergenerational memory — the ways histories, experiences, and emotions are passed across generations. It questions who is considered worthy of preservation in cultural memory and proposes alternative ways to honor and share complex histories often unknown to the wider public.

Saki Koulos

Saki Koulos (b. 1992) is a Belgian artist of Greek-Italian origin who lives and works in Berlin. He holds a Master of Visual Arts from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where he studied painting. His work explores lived experience, sexuality, history, and questions of representation, drawing inspiration from intergenerational memory and everyday life. In addition to painting, he works with poetry, drawing, collage, photography, sculpture, and tattooing, allowing ideas to move fluidly between different media. Koulos begins his practice by playfully manipulating and reassembling images and fragments—from magazines, the internet, archives, or his own visual or audio documentation of family life and daily moments. These materials evolve through repetition and experimentation into finished artworks, which together create narratives while inviting viewers to imagine new stories, meanings, and perspectives. He approaches his work as a visual and poetic response; by dismantling familiar elements and placing them in new contexts, Koulos opens up fresh ways of seeing, feeling, and understanding the world around him.