ΑΤΗΙΝΑ KOYMPAROULI IN CONVERSATION WITH DAPHNE DRAGONA

On Wednesday, February 25, Athina Koumparouli will present her project Deep Sea, Deep Time, currently on view at the Kochi Biennale in Kerala, India. Moderated by curator Daphne Dragona, the conversation will trace the project from its initial questions and field research through the development process, material choices, and final installation, highlighting archaeological methodology as a tool for artistic research in site-specific works, with particular emphasis on materiality as a carrier of narrative.

The project draws parallels between Muziris—an ancient trading port—and the submarine cable systems running beneath Kochi’s shores today, which carry digital data along former colonial routes. Inspired by the recent retirement of one of the largest submarine internet cables landing in Kochi, Koumparouli approaches its submerged remains as material traces of our digital present—fragments that may one day guide future researchers back to histories of exploitation, extraction, colonial infrastructures, and environmental impact.

Athina Koumparouli

Athina Koumparouli is a visual artist and art conservator, with an MA in Post-Industrial Design and Artistic Practices. Her work has been exhibited in Greece and internationally, including the Kochi Biennale (2025), Eleusis – European Capital of Culture (2023), Paxos Biennale (2024), and Dutch Design Week (2019). In 2025, she presented a solo exhibition at a.antonopoulou gallery in Athens. She has participated in art residencies in the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Greece. In 2022, she was an Artworks Fellow at SNFCC, and her projects have received international support through the ARTWORKS Grant (2025) and the Goethe-Institut Culture Moves Europe Grant (2023). Between 2022 and 2023, in collaboration with the University of Ferrara, she developed an artistic research project at an active archaeological excavation on the Appian Way in Rome. Her multidisciplinary practice explores archaeological methodology as an artistic tool to explore different perceptions of the environment and aspects of the ecological crisis through present or speculative scenarios.

Daphne Dragona is an independent curator, theorist and writer based in Berlin and Athens. In her current work, she addresses the challenges of degrowth for art and culture, and studies the ambiguous role of technology in times of climate crisis. Among her curated -or co-curated- exhibitions and projects are: esc return ↩ : Scripts for Degrowth, Buen Vivir and living otherwise (panke.gallery, Berlin, 2024), Motores del Clima, Weaving Worlds (Deree ACG, Athens 2022), Weather Engines (Onassis Stegi & National Observatory of Athens, 2022), Trials and Errors (Romantso, Athens, 2021), Stefania Strouza: 212 Medea (AnnexM/ Megaron, Athens, 2021), Reprogramming Earth (NeMe, Limassol, 2020), Kyriaki Goni, Counting Craters on the Moon (Aksioma, 2019), Tomorrows, Fictions spéculatives pour l’avenir méditerranéen (Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, 2019), “…” an archeology of silence in the digital age (Aksioma, Ljubljana, 2017), Tomorrows, Urban fictions for possible futures (Diplareios, Athens, 2017), Capture All (transmediale, Berlin, 2015), New Babylon Revisited (Goethe Institut Athen, 2014), Afresh, a new generation of Greek artists (ΕΜSΤ, 2013), Data Bodies – Networked Portraits (Fundacion Telefonica & Alta Tecnologia Andina, Lima, 2011), Mapping the Commons Athens (EMST, 2010), Homo Ludens Ludens (Laboral, Gijon, 2008). Talks of hers have been hosted at ViZ (Athens), Mapping Festival (Geneva), MoMA (New York), Hek (Basel), Arts in Society (London), Leuphana University (Lueneburg) and Goethe University (Frankfurt). Articles of hers have been published in various books, journals, magazines, and exhibition catalogs by the likes of Diaphana Press, Springer, Sternberg Press, Intellect, and Leonardo Electronic Almanac. With Jussi Parikka she co-edited the publication Words of Weather (Onassis Foundation, 2022). Dragona is teaching Theory of Curatorial Practices, Exhibition Design and History of Digital Art at the Department of Audiovisual Arts of the Ionian University. She has been affiliated to Onassis Stegi as curatorial advisor, and has served as a jury member for the Akademie Schloss Solitude fellowships (Stuttgart), for the ARTWORKS, Fellowship for Greek Young Artists and Curators of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Athens) and for numerous festivals and conferences. She worked as a curator for transmediale festival (Berlin) from 2015 until 2019, and for EMAF- European Media Art Festival (Onsabrück) from 2021 until 2023. In the past, from 2001 until 2007, she worked as general coordinator of medi@terra, festival for art and new technologies, organised by Fournos (Athens). She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Communication & Media Studies of the University of Athens, an MA in Museum Studies from UCL, and a BA in Archaeology and History of Art from the University of Athens. https://daphnedragona.net