During her 2013 residency in Atina, Stella Whalley was invited to respond to the historic old town through active engagement with the local community. This immersive experience led to the creation of several works, including a museum-style cabinet titled Excavation 3013 Atina, created in collaboration with James Bell.
Together, Whalley and Bell imagined themselves as future archaeologists, a thousand years from now, uncovering fragments of life from the early 21st century. The cabinet presents a carefully curated—but cheekily honest—selection of objects excavated from three significant sites in Atina: a disused police station, San Marco Cemetery, and Santo Stefano Park. Rather than a perfectly polished or romanticised archive, the work embraces the quirks and realities of everyday life, inviting viewers to engage with the imperfect, messy traces we leave behind.
The assemblage combines man-made artefacts with elements of the local flora and fauna, reflecting the intertwined human and natural histories of Atina in 2013. Through this piece, Whalley and Bell invite viewers to explore the layers of time, memory, and daily reality—blurring the lines between preservation, decay, storytelling, and playful irreverence.