> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.catapult-platform.art/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Elena Adamou Finds Sacred Icons in the Weeds Nobody Names - URL: https://www.catapult-platform.art/elena-adamou-iconographies-montesilvano/ - Published: 2026-09-01T03:50:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-05T10:43:16.000Z - Description: Explore our archive review of Elena Adamou's Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures at primopiano, Montesilvano (2026). - Author: Catapult Submissions Team - Tags: Exhibition, Nature & Ecology, Myth & Folklore ## Magnus Tempus 360° and primopiano Presented Iconographies in Montesilvano [**primopiano**](https://primopiano.tilda.ws/?ref=catapult-platform.art) and [**Magnus Tempus 360°**](https://www.magnustempus.com/?ref=catapult-platform.art) presented [**Elena Adamou's** ](https://www.elenaadamou.com/?ref=catapult-platform.art)Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures in Montesilvano, **curated by Martina Marini Misterioso and Halime Eleni Özdemir di Larusso**, through 26 June 2026. ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Room hung with four botanical devoré velvet textiles in yellow and mauve tones.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-installation-01.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures, installation view, primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026\. Photo: Giacomo Alberico. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° **Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures** **Artist:** Elena Adamou **Exhibition:** Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures **Venue:** primopiano **City:** Montesilvano, Pescara, Italy **Dates:** 18 June 2026 – 26 June 2026 **Address:** Via Gabriele D'Annunzio 33, Montesilvano, Italy **Curator:** Martina Marini Misterioso, Halime Eleni Özdemir di Larusso **Critical Essay:** Erica Romano, "In the Cracks of Existence" **Photography:** Giacomo Alberico, Leo Margiotti **Image Courtesy:** Courtesy of the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° An iconographic herbarium of wild Mediterranean plants, elevated from background to subject. **Elena Adamou** spent 2025's ECOSCAPES residency in Nicosia tracing what grows in the cracks urbanisation forgets, then brought that research to primopiano, a house-turned-exhibition-space in Montesilvano. ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Close-up of a suspended embroidered grey velvet cushion titled Distentio Animi.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-installation-02-ofrenda.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** Ofrenda, installation view, primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026\. Photo: Giacomo Alberico. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° What she found there was not decoration but resistance, small and persistent. ## Curatorial Text by Erica Romano ### Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures Iconography (from the Greek eikón, ‘image’, and graphìa, ‘writing’) is a discipline within Art History and Archaeology that identifies the poses, gestures and clothing of the subjects depicted, along with the objects, animals and plants that characterise them. > "The object observed with intensity becomes a subject that does not need our gaze to exist, thus revealing a reality that precedes us, a Nature that knows how to see and that had already planned to remain amidst the cracks of our existence." — Erica Romano The solo exhibition Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures by the artist Elena Adamou (Nicosia, Cyprus, 1991) turns the relationship with ‘natural objects’ on its head: at the heart of a thorough process of observation and research lies an iconographic herbarium of small plants whose existence is not recognised as serving any functional purpose in relation to human presence. ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Framed close-up photograph of a purple-leafed plant against a dark background.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-work-purple-heart.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** A Wish to Resist Well - Purple Heart, 2025\. Photo: Leo Margiotti. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Framed photograph of a pigweed plant with pale seed spikes against a dark background.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-work-pigweed.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** A Wish to Resist Well - Pigweed, 2025\. Photo: Leo Margiotti. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Framed photograph of clasped hands amid scattered seeds and wild flowers.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-work-bouquet-of-weeds.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** A Wish to Resist Well — Bouquet of Weeds, 2025\. Photo: Leo Margiotti. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° Adamou’s relationship with Nature – which is reflected in the very nature of her practice – is an intimate one, rooted in the perception of time as an inner presence that sets the rhythm for the migration and wandering flow of her ideas. Consequently, in this work—which places human and natural processes on an equal footing—the artist shifts focus from the ‘what’ to the ‘who’, portraying wild and endemic Mediterranean plants, now elevated to the status of subjects, which tell stories of autonomy and independence, having grown in arid crevices and hidden corners left untouched by the layered processes of modern urbanisation. ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Golden devoré velvet textile with a burnt-out plant motif of Astragalus macrocarpus.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-work-astragalus-macrocarpus.webp) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-detail-01-astragalus-macrocarpus.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** Astragalus Macrocarpus subsp. Lefkarensis, 2026\. Photo: Giacomo Alberico. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° and primopiano. ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Terracotta devoré velvet textile with a burnt-out motif of Centaurea akamantis.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-work-centaurea-akamantis.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-detail-02-centaurea-akamantis.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** Centaurea Akamantis, 2026\. Photo: Giacomo Alberico. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° The images and various narrative approaches chosen for the exhibition present a variety of species within these two categories alone, without any intention of cataloguing them, but rather by highlighting a quality that renders them both mystical and mythological creatures, whose postures are genuine forms of creative resistance. ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Close-up of a white wildflower head among dried grasses under warm red light.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-detail-03-ofrenda.webp) Elena Adamou, Ofrenda, 2026, detail. Photo: Giacomo Alberico. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° The sacred, almost regal air that the plants take on in the skilful and refined guise that Adamou crafts for them through embroidery, photography and site-specific installations is a clear invitation to contemplation, a meditative act that brings together the observed object and the observer within a single overarching vision, thereby reversing their roles: the object observed with intensity becomes a subject that does not need our gaze to exist, thus revealing a reality that precedes us, a nature that sees and intends to dwell and remain amidst the cracks of our existence. **Erica Romano** ### Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures The title ***Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures*** has its own history and derives, in fact, from the name of the project developed during the 2025 edition of the **ECOSCAPES** residency program organized by **Magnus Tempus 360°** in Nicosia (Cyprus), of which the exhibition at the ***primopiano*** space in Montesilvano (PE) is one of the first extensions, having brought to fruition here part of the research initiated in Cyprus. ![Catapult contemporary review Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Dusty pink devoré velvet textile with a burnt-out motif of Scilla morrisii.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-work-scilla-morrisii.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** Scilla Morrisii, 2026\. Photo: Giacomo Alberico. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° ![Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Yellow devoré velvet textile with a burnt-out motif of Erysimum kykkoticum.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-work-erysimum-kykkoticum.webp) ****Elena Adamou,** Erysimum Kykkoticum, 2026\. Photo: Giacomo Alberico. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° The exhibition’s subtitle, therefore, helps us better define the sphere in which the artist operates: small acts of resistance, interstitial spaces, otherworldly creatures, beyond the human, beyond the visible. Taken together, these words reveal a particular approach to reality, suggesting a way of looking at the outer surface of things that lingers carefully, in slow, deliberate moments, in order to connect with something deeper that goes beyond appearances. --- ### **Follow and support** **p**[**rimopiano on Instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/primopiano.exspace/?ref=catapult-platform.art) [**Elena Adamou on Instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/novegradi/?ref=catapult-platform.art) ![catapult contemporary art platform review Exhibition review of Elena Adamou: Iconographies at primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026. Red-lit room with a brick planter of wildflowers beneath a glowing bulb and shuttered window.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/08/elena-adamou-iconographies-primopiano-montesilvano-2026-work-distentio-animi.webp) ****Elena Adamou**, Distentio Animi, installation view, primopiano, Montesilvano, 2026\. Photo: Giacomo Alberico. Courtesy the artist, Magnus Tempus 360° **About Catapult Contemporary - Art Platform Submission** This is a exhibition review published by Catapult — an independent editorial platform for contemporary art, based in Vienna. We publish exhibition reviews, artist features, interviews, and critical context, with a focus on emerging and mid-career practices from Europe and beyond. [catapult.art](https://www.catapult-platform.art/) Want to be featured? 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