Archive of Desire is a multidisciplinary production combining live music, poetry, and visual art, created for the 160th anniversary of the birth of Greek poet C. P. Cavafy. The performance is set to the images of a constellation of abstract works by Broad collection artist, Julie Mehretu.
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An exaltation of desire, Robin Coste Lewis, Julie Mehretu, Vijay Iyer, and Jeffrey Zeigler meditate collaboratively on the sensuality of Cavafy, diaspora, and the liminal spaces present everywhere in his work. The evening draws inspiration from Cavafy’s archive, processing the sonic, visual, and cultural tones found in his poetry through recitation, live music, electronics, and new visual work.
Returning to National Sawdust, Archive of Desire is produced by VisionIntoArt and commissioned by the Onassis Foundation as part of “Archive of Desire”, a festival inspired by the poet C. P. Cavafy, and premiered at National Sawdust in New York City on May 3 and 4, 2023. Archive of Desire made its international premiere at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy on March 21, 2024, as part of Julie Mehretu’s exhibition, Ensemble, presented by the Pinault Collection, with support from Marian Goodman Gallery and the Onassis Foundation, and was presented and live recorded at The Broad, on October 26, 2024, sponsored by The Robert Gore-Rifkind Foundation, Catharine and Jeffrey Soros, and mediaThe Foundation.
A Book and General Admission Ticket Bundle is available for $94.21 (including fees) and includes entry to ARCHIVE OF DESIRE: Reimagining Cavafy's Sensual World, 1 copy of Archive of Desire: A Poem in Four Parts for C. P. Cavafy by Robin Coste Lewis, and a pre-order of the digital album Archive of Desire (out October 16th) per bundle ticket.
There is a general admission ticket available for $43.19 (including fees) for those who would like to only attend the performance.
// This is a seated performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.
/// This performance is made possible thanks to support from Elizabeth Madigan Jost and The Onassis Foundation.
General Admission Ticket + Book: $94.21 (all fees included):
General Admission: $43.19 (all fees included)
ABOUT THE BOOK
Archive of Desire: A Poem in Four Parts for C. P. Cavafy
Published By Knopf Doubleday.
The National Book Award, PEN/Voelker, and NAACP Image Award winner returns with another inventive and boundary-breaking book: a sensual journey ignited in the archives of iconic queer Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy
In her first book, Robin Coste Lewis's poems exploded the imagery of the Black female figure from antiquity through the present day; her second was an expansive hybrid photographic-poetic study of human migration and the human family; now she delivers a slim “performance in four parts,” which originated as an actual sound performance with the composer Vijay Iyer, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and visual artist Julie Mehretu. With Lewis as the speaking voice, the quartet reflected on desire, diaspora, and the liminal spaces where art asserts itself, ignited by their encounters with Cavafy's archive in the heart of Athens. Robin weaves in and out of Cavafy's rooms, notebooks, and the suppressed erotic need underpinning his work, conversing directly with him: “often you/ reminded us/ the only true // barbarians/ are the ones raging in silence / inside // of our own / minds.” But she brings equal parts of herself to this study of artistry and sensuality, as in the short, tender section entitled “Cavafy in Compton: Self-Portrait at 16.”
As in all Robin's works, she reaches across centuries here to express what is timeless and not bound by our current moment or our single selves: the discipline and glory of art, the give and take of love, the kiss that lives in the moment, the unfolding journey of being human whose contours only become clear with the passage of time, the igniting of memory, and the words we find to describe the journey.
ABOUT VISIONINTOART
VisionIntoArt (VIA) is an interdisciplinary arts production company, led by composer Paola Prestini, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and creative producer Ras Dia. VIA creates, produces and curates visionary art and music projects which expand the frontiers of culture - pioneering creative practices guided by the belief that equity is a central driver of artistic innovation. Through this work, VIA strives to empower and uplift artists in building new modes of expression, grounded in their unique experiences and identities, all while expanding the ways in which audiences and local communities can engage with the creative process and artistic works.
Major works include: Primero Sueño, a processional opera commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Live Arts (MetLiveArts) and VIA, co-composed by Paola Prestini and jazz icon Magos Herrera, and directed by Louisa Proske, and made for The Met Cloisters (January 2025) which will make its Mexican premiere and subsequent tour in December 2025. The world premiere of Sensorium Ex - an ambitious new opera by librettist Brenda Shaughnessy and composer Paola Prestini, co-directed by Jerron Herman and Jay Scheib, and music directed by Elizabeth Askren - synthesizes artificial intelligence, disability, and the arts in a groundbreaking and innovative artistic work. The project is focused on devising community-centered practices for artists with disabilities and presented at Common Senses Festival in Omaha, NE (May 2025), and was most recently developed as part of UnMute ArtsAbility Festival in Cape Town (Africa's premier disability-led inclusive arts festival), as well as in collaboration with The Shed, Performance Space NY, and with The REACH and Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. We Were Fridays is a project exploring relationships between diaspora, music and memory, in development with the Penn Center and National Sawdust with music by Tamar-kali, Etienne Charles, Hannah Ishizaki, Jeffrey Zeigler, and choreography by Reggie 'Regg Roc' Gray. And, a forthcoming opera project commissioned by Spoleto Festival USA with music by Paola Prestini, libretto by Robin Coste Lewis, and executive produced by Ava DuVernay.
VIA projects are made possible with generous support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mellon, Ford, Doris Duke, Achelis & Bodman, and Alphadyne Foundations.
ABOUT THE ONASSIS FOUNDATION
The mission of the Onassis Foundation, founded by Aristotle Onassis in 1975, will always be human-centric: to shape and shake society through new ideas, bold discussions, and unexpected connections in arts, healthcare, and education. By building the Onassis National Transplant Center, following the Onassis Cardiac Center in Athens, it creates the conditions to provide health to all, offering the Greek society a hospital for the transplant of solid organs. In education, it has awarded more than 7,500 scholarships to young people worldwide since the late 1970s. Onassis USA, based in New York, includes Onassis ONX (ONassis eXtended realities), an international Onassis Culture platform dedicated to new media art and digital culture. Through Onassis AiR, a program supporting artistic research and practice, the Onassis Foundation fosters a space where the artists themselves set the conditions for their work, supporting its broader ecosystem and global artistic partnerships. Onassis Culture has Onassis Stegi in Athens as its hub, a center of contemporary culture that, through a series of initiatives and works, promotes dialogue about democracy, social and environmental justice, racial and gender equality, and LGBTQIA+ rights. Onassis Stegi's web radio, STEGI.RADIO, highlights new music and ideas, fostering critical thought and connecting audiences across borders. Onassis YouTube Channel features a dynamic range of new productions, digital concerts, documentaries, and discussions, bringing our common digital future into focus. onassis.org.
ABOUT THE CAVAFY ARCHIVE
C. P. Cavafy collected and archived his work on a systematic basis, hence creating a unique literary and personal archive. Starting with the acquisition of the Cavafy archive, its digitization, and opening it to the public and researchers, the Onassis Foundation, in collaboration with the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, undertook the restoration of the Cavafy House in Alexandria in early 2022, aiming to turn it into a hub for visitors from all over the world. In May 2024, the Cavafy House reopened its doors to the public. The apartment where C. P. Cavafy lived most of his life and created so many of the works that made him a universal poet has been restored and reconfigured in order to highlight the image of the residence as it was in the years the poet lived, to illuminate his relationship with the city of Alexandria and the impact of his work to this day, but also to transport us back in time. In this way, the Onassis Foundation has created a triad dedicated to the great poet. This includes two physical points of contact with him and his work: the Cavafy Archive in Plaka and the Cavafy House in Alexandria, on Rue Lepsius. The third meeting point is interactive and involves the fully digitized Cavafy archive.
"Individual sonic universes that matched Cavafy's sense of solitude." —The New York Times