The "Makers of Tlon" is a series of 7 images created specially for the group exhibition titled "A Vindication of Tlon" based on the short story "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges, 1947. This show is the core exhibit of Photosynkirya 2001, the leading photography event in Greece, this year curated by John Stathatos, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, February - March 2001.

The "Makers of Tlon" is a pantheon of monsters and villains. Physical and metaphysical portraits where the skin of the characters is transparent, unable to conceal their true contents. The series presents seven modular archetypes of evil, applicable to any stage or state of our history. That is why the revelation to me was not the quality of Borges's fiction writing, but his ability to describe these profiles through the utopian universe they have created. A universe that functions as a warning for things to come, like they did before, and successions of events that initially look disconnected, random and enigmatic but eventually turn into meticulously orchestrated realities of nightmare like dimensions. These realities, even though shocking and disturbing, when standing directly across from us remain invisible. Unless we view them from a different angle. Unless we look behind the mirror.

Viktor Koen,
October 2000