Psiloritis is the highest mountain on the Greek island of Crete. According to Greek mythology, Rea gave birth to the God Zeus in a cave of this mountain, Ideon Antron, to avoid Zeus being devoured by his father Cronus. But long before ancient Greece, this mountain was already considered a sacred place. The first remains of humans inhabiting Ideon Antron cave date from the end of the Neolithic period, when the cave was used for rituals and tributes to the Gods. Psiloritis was also one of the main worship centers of the ancient Minoan civilization, in the Bronze Age. Here, the relationship between Man, his beliefs and certain parts of the Nature has remained almost intact over millions of years and several generations of deities.
In the heart of the mountain, just a few kilometers away from Ideon Antron, is the village of Anogeia. Its inhabitants live anchored in the double isolation that implies living on a high mountain inside an island: with little immigration, almost no tourism, and clinging to traditions that go back several generations. Time is stopped for a mountain wrapped in legends and the community that inhabits it.
The Minoans conceived the cave as a point of connection between this world and others: a gateway to a spiritual world that was otherwise inaccessible.
This project is conceived as a journey departing from a real scenario - the mountain and its community- to a gateway to lands inhabited by faith, myths and Cretan popular culture. And Psiloritis is significant as the chosen scenario. Because the same as Crete, isolated as an island has preserved better the essence of Ancient Greece, the essence of Crete itself is specially preserved in the isolation of its mountains, where the projection of the past continues to exert a strong influence in the society. This project is then a journey to the roots of Ancient Greece, whose legacy is key to understand, not only the current western civilization but also the origin of man and his beliefs as we know them.
