THE IMAGINARY EXPEDITIONS

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Study 02

XP2 / ARKHE

Arkhe: Greek for arche, which primary means "beginning", "origin" or "source of action" and later "first principle" or "element".  In the philosophical language of the archaic period (8th to 6th century BC), arche designates the source, origin or root of things that exist. In ancient Greek philosophy, Aristotle foregrounded the meaning of arche as the element or principle of a thing, which although indemonstrable and intangible in itself, provides the conditions of the possibility of that thing.

XP3 / ARKHE > refers to what Thales of Miletus (7th to 6th century BC) claimed to be the first principle of all things, the substance that contains in it motion, change and indefinitiveness: water and, by extension, seas and oceans. Sources of terror and fascination, the seas and oceans were considered a terra incognita for a long time and have always been at the heart of human imagination and desires for discovery. They are still considered as a significant source of knowledge and also, in some civilizations, as the medium of passage between the human and the divine. This study is a subjective experience of arche, inspired by mythological visions, marine paintings and explorers' circumnavigations of seas and oceans.