ARTWORKS, supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), in the context of its collaboration with MEDITERRANEA 19 Young Artists Biennale School of Waters will be organising a series of events in Athens under the title Liquid Junctions. The Liquid Junctions events are part of the Biennale parallel program, which will be held in various cultural institutions across the Mediterranean with a view to activating discussions around the themes of the Biennale and disseminating the exhibition’s programme .
On Friday, June 4, at 7 p.m. local time, ARTWORKS will hold a public event at the SNFCC Dome in order to support and showcase the work of all SNF ARTWORKS Fellows selected to participate in the Biennale (Ionian Bisai, Eva Papamargariti, Valinia Svoronou and Chara Stergiou). Liquid Junctions will include a DJ lecture by Hara Stergiou; a performative reading by Quinn Latimer and presentations of the works of Eva Papamargaritis, Valinia Svoronou and the artistic duo Latent Community (Ionian Bisai and Sotiris Tsiganos).
Between May 15 and October 31, 2021, MEDITERRANEA 19 School of Waters will be presenting the work of 70 artists from 21 Mediterranean countries for the first time in San Marino. The MEDITERRANEA 19 School of Waters envisions the Biennale as a collective tool for deconstructing stereotypes stemming from the Eurocentric interpretation of the Mediterranean basin, focusing particularly on the material and symbolic nature of water from a geopolitical as well as an ecological perspective. It is an invitation to discover anew the fluidity that has turned the Mediterranean basin into a versatile habitat in which various life forms and knowledge-production processes have coexisted for centuries.
The participating artists place the focus on ecofeminism and examine the major ethical and economic roots of environmental issues. Inspired by mythology, science fiction, contemporary history and examining the matter through the prism of complex marine ecosystems, they challenge human superiority and navigate the notions of feeling and thinking in more-than-human worlds.
Eva Papamargariti uses time-based media, printed material and sculptural installations to explore the relationship between digital space and material reality. Papamargariti focuses on the dialectics of fluidity, motion, as well as the relationship between bodies and the traces they leave behind as they float, sink, disperse, get cast in and out of water.
The work of the artistic duo Latent Community (Jonian Bisai and Sotiris Tsiganos) combines fieldwork and moving image to tackle contemporary judicial, social and ecological issues. The duo aims to create conceptual and emotional experiences through which a more equal and sustainable future may be imagined. Their research focuses on the critical reading of non-canonical stories and examines the ways in which these become embedded in new contexts.
Chara Stergiou’s interdisciplinary practice develops at the junction between epistemological research and artistic practice. Stergiou’s DJ Lectures are hybrid narrative techniques for disseminating stories, geographies, and identities based on non-locality and can be seen as sonic, almost radiophonic, events to be transmitted through the lens of a deviated ethnomusicology.
Valinia Svoronou’s practice includes text, moving image, augmented reality applications, publications, prints and sculpture. Using references from science fiction and mythology, she navigates alternative ways of remembering or narrating stories from a non-dominant perspective.
As part of Liquid Junctions, guest poet and critic Quinn Latimer will hold a performative reading based on her work The Samos Lecture (Like a Woman: Essays, Readings, Poems). Combining live performance and the written word, Latimer’s work examines issues of genealogy and influence, the poverty and privilege of place, as well as feminist economies of writing, reading, and art-making. She will also present her film How to Move Like the Ocean (Liquefaction, Lubrication & Expansion in Twelve Easy Steps), created in collaboration with Temitope Ajose-Cutting in 2020. In this work, the two artists ask a series of questions, for example: in times of isolation, what do we lack? How do we learn? What is a body, and what is a body of water?
The Mediterranean Biennale 19 School of Waters, organised by BJCEM – Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée and the Republic of San Marino will present from 15 May to 31 October 2021 the works of over 70 artists from 21 different countries, hosted for the first time by the Republic of San Marino.
Senior Curators: Alessandro Castiglioni, Simone Frangi
Curatorial Team: Denise Araouzou, Giulia Colletti, Panos Giannikopoulos, Giulia Gregnanin, Theodoulos Polyviou, Angeliki Tzortzakaki and Nicolas Vamvouklis.
The Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs General Secretariat for Vocational Education, Training, Lifelong Learning and Youth in Greece as well as the Municipality of Thessaloniki, Directorate of Culture are founding members of BJCEM and support the participation of Greek artists and curators in the Biennale Mediterranea 19.
Liquid Junctions: MEDITERRANEA 19 Young Artists Biennale – School of Waters x ARTWORKS | SNFCC
Free entry by online pre-registration.
Pre-sale points:
- online through the Ticket Services website here
- by telephone: 210 7234567 (Ticket Services)
Schedule:
19.00 – Introduction and welcome by the co-organisers ARTWORKS & MED19
19.15 – Screenings and short introductions by the artists
Valinia Svoronou, Endymion (greek)
Eva Papamargariti, As they were drifting away, their bodies turned into waves, 2021 (english)
Latent Community NEROMANNA (greek, english subtitles)
Latent Community Ocean is future (work in progress)
Quinn Latimer, How to move like the Ocean (english)
20.15 – Quinn Latimer reading performance of The Samos Lecture (english)
20.45 –Chara Stergiou – dj Lecture Listening to an Elusive Geography greek)