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4 Fellows participate in the exhibition “Ammophila Vol.1 BIRTH”

The exhibition series Ammophila aspires to become a new event in the South of Greece, and prepare the ground for new networks and discussions between the local community, audiences and artists. Taking place on the picturesque island of Elafonisos, just off the coast of the Peloponnese, the first exhibition in the series signals a beginning, but also refers to the myth of a deer giving birth on the island, thus giving it its name (elafi is the Greek word for deer). Ammophila on the other hand is a kind of plant that grows in the local sand dunes, which stabilises the sand with its roots and prepares the soil for other kinds of plants to grow. The exhibition presents an impressive roster of no less than thirty one visual artists and texts by ten writers. If you happen to be in the Peloponnese, Kythera or anywhere near, this might be worth the detour.

Participating Artsits: Manolis Babousis, Dionisis Christofilogiannis, Stella N. Christou, Panagiotis Daramaras, Christina Dimakogianni, Eva Giannakopoulou, Christos Giannopoulos, Zoi Gaitanidou, Andreas Ragnar Kasapis, Panagiotis Kefalas, Stavroula Kostakou, Sofia Kouloukouri, Renata Metheniti, Persephone Nikolakopoulou, Ilias Papailiakis, Anna Papathanassiou, Evi Roumani, Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki, Kostis Stafylakis, Alexandros Tzannis, Nikolas Vamvouklis, Kostis Velonis, Poka-Yio, Xenia Vitos, [Kostis Damoulakis, Domna Degaita, Paulo Doda, Pegy Zali, Vasilis Zacharakopoulos, Panagiotis Lianos, Ilias Mokas]

Participating writers: Anna Chatzinasiou, Stephanos Giannoulis, Takis Koubis, Sofia Kouloukouri, Christina Papoulia, Kostis Stafylakis, Theophilos Tramboulis, Nicolas Vamvouklis, Maria Xypolopoulou, Kostis Zouliatis

Info
Ammophila Vol.1 Birth
Curated by Evi Roumani
22-25 August 2020

Elafonisos School
Elafonisos, Greece
Hours 19:00-21:00
Free entry, only with face mask

FELLOWS’ AWARDS AT 26th Sarajevo Film Festival

Four ARTWORKS Fellows, Georgis Grigorakis, Anastasia Kratidi, Neritan Zinxhiria and Jacqueline Lentzou winners at 26th Sarajevo International Film Festival.

Vangelis Mourikis won the Heart of Sarajevo for best actor award for his performance in “Digger”, the first feature film of Georgis Grigorakis in the Competition Programme for Feature Film. DIGGER is a contemporary Western about a native farmer who lives and works alone in a farmhouse in the heart of a mountainous forest in northern Greece. The sudden arrival of his young son, after a twenty-year estrangement, will make the two enemies under one roof and confront each other head-on, with nature as their only observer.

“In her Steps”, a short film by Anastasia Kratidi won a Special Jury mention in the Competition Programme for Short Film. The film is about Lena who, while attending a reintegration programme, she finds a job that gives her access to the rural jail for minors, where her son is serving his sentence. Born in Volos, Greece, in 1983 Kratidis lives and works in Athens. She studied in various artistic fields: ceramics, drawing, sculpture, and art history. She obtained her Master’s degree in Cinema and Audiovisual from the University of Paris VIII, with a specialization in Film Direction.

For «The Gospel According To Kimon», a film about redemption directed by Neritan Zinxhiria, producer Vasilis Chrysanthopoulos won Eave + AwardIn the Cinelink Co-Production Market Awards 2020. Vasilis Chrysanthopoulos is the co-founder and head producer of the Greek production company PLAYS2PLACE. His credits include the award-winning festival hit MISS VIOLENCE (Silver Lion for Best Director and Coppa Volpi for Best Actor in Venice IFF 2013). Vasilis is a member of EAVE, EDN and Cannes Producers Network. He is an alumnus of the training initiatives EAVE Producers, EAVE Marketing, EAVE Best, MFI Script 2 Film, and MIDPOINT TV Launch workshops and has participated in more than 30 co-production and pitching forums. He was awarded the Midpoint C21 Award during Cinelink 2017.

Jacqueline Lentzou’s first feature “Moon 66 Questions” won Cinelink Iridium Award in Cinelink Work In Progress Awards. The award consists of in-kind post-production services worth 20,000 €. Multi-awarded writer and film director Jacqueline Lentzou was born in Athens, in 1989. Her work revolves around unconventional family constructs, coming-of-age, intimacy, and the dream. Her cinematic language involves finding poetry in seemingly mundane premises. She is a London Film School graduate (Distinction, 2013), a Sarajevo (2014), and Berlinale (2015) Talents alumna. Her semi-feature’s “Fox” has won over 20 awards worldwide, including Best Short from PanHellenic Critics’ Association, Best European Short at Film Du Femme Creteil, and the upmost prestigious Award in the Memory of Ingmar Bergman. Her latest short, “Hector Malot: The Last Day of the Year” (2018), premiered in Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique and won the prestigious Leica Cine Discovery Award.

Sarajevo Film Festival: 14-21 August

ISLAND HOPPING II – I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

Our Fellows Paky Vlassopoulou and Virginia Mastrogiannaki take part in Island Hopping II along with Dora Economou.

There are ways to tell a story. Start from the beginning, middle or end. Narrate events in chronological order, offering them their literal time, or blend them, evaluate and order them according to their importance for the outcome and mood of the story. You can designate characters, decide on one or multiple narrators, choose to tell the story in 1st or 3rd person, and insert dialogues and anecdotes.

Island Hopping departed from Nisyros in 2019 having as a final destination the island of Kastelorizo, the actual final destination of the boat line, with 5 passengers; the five artists and the island of Nisyros as a main character. Along the way, 2 more passengers joined the group, the two cars carrying the artwork created on the island to the next stops, in a sense, bearing gifts from one place to the next. In the course of the story, the two cars took on the role of the narrator. Photos of the two cars in landmarks on the various stops provide evidence of the action before and after the camera click.

In 2020, Island Hopping II, will start its voyage from the port of Piraeus, the actual departure point of the boat line to Nisyros. Spatially, the action in this second part of the story is placed before the action in the first part. Conceptually, this time the participants will recreate scenes of the experience that have brought each one of them to Nisyros. It can be compared to a prequel of a story, where the second part of the story precedes chronologically the first.

The journey will begin with a video presentation of the Island Hopping 2019 artworks on the boat to Nisyros. This will be the first sequence of this new narrative, having as a reference point the first scene of the film “I know what you did last summer”. The new pieces will be installed in various places around the island from the 3rd to the 30th of August.

The project Island Hopping II is taking place with the support of NEON.

Eva Papamargariti @ Screens Series Online by the New Museum

The work Factitious Imprints (2016) by Eva Papamargariti (Fellow 2019) is selected from the New Museum to be screened online at the Screen Series program!

In 2016, the New Museum inaugurated a platform for the presentation of new video works by emerging contemporary artists titled Screens Series. Encompassing a combination of screenings in the New Museum theater and on monitors in the Lower Level walls, the series has presented artists working with a range of media—from 16mm film to computer-generated imagery (CGI). While the Museum remains closed due to heightened concerns around the spread of COVID-19, we will feature selected videos by Screen Series artists on a weekly basis, bringing art to the public at home.

Factitious Imprints (2016) features images of landscapes ranging from imagined settings that have been constructed with digital tools to real places that have been transformed through landfills and other human attempts to combine the artificial and the synthetic with the natural. Conflating processes of digital and organic transformation, Papamargariti looks at how surfaces can obscure these processes and questions how nature’s imprint will exist or endure in the future. What will a fossil from our time look like, for example? Incorporating perspectives and camera imagery taken from navigation tools such as drones, Google Maps, and handheld recording devices, Factitious Imprints courses through a distorted landscape of overlapping surfaces—from the artist’s own skin to food containers to simulations of plants and oceans—that shifts and changes form as we move through it.

https://vimeo.com/440333226

They Are Already Here, You Are Next

Pavlos Tsakonas (Fellow 2018) participates in the group show ‘They Are Already Here, You Are Next’ at Allouche Benias Gallery along with Filippos Kavakas, George Tourlas, and Giorgos Tserionis.

These four artists have been working through a challenging period of self-isolation. Having witnessed social and political changes that result in violently expressed emotions of anxiety, fear and anger, they chose to put on display ironical renditions of everyday situations. Through a broad spectrum of media such as acrylics, color pencils and spray paint, the artists manage to create colorful diversions. Pastel colors, sharp lines, sculptures and pop culture references create a surreal and even comical atmosphere.

Allouche Benias Gallery, 1, Kanari str., Kolonaki, Athens | Duration: July 23 – August 1, 2020

MURALS CREATED BY 3 FELLOWS AT THE VILLAGE OF VAMVAKOU

Three young visual artists, all of them Fellows of the 1st SNF Artist Fellowship Program, spent some days (July 13-19) at the village of Vamvakou, within the Artist Residence Program organized by Vamvakou Revival. Iasonas Megoulas (aka Cacao Rocks), Alexandros Simopoulos and Pavlos Tsakonas, studied the history of the village and created three murals, potentially landmarks, opening a discussion on the use of the public space and its relationship to nature and art.

The Artist Residency Program was organised by Vamvakou Revival within the initiative of the Revival of the village thanks to the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

CURATORIAL ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

Joining forces, our curatorial fellows Eva Vaslamatzi, Danai Giannoglou, Christina Petkopoulou, Mare Spanoudaki and Maya Tounda, organized a roundtable discussion to present their individual practices via Zoom. The presentations were followed by Q&A leading to a fruitful discussion about what it means to be working as a young curator in Greece.

TERAS TERRA – Petros Moris & Lito Kattou

Petros Moris (Fellows 2018) and Lito Kattou on a a two-person exhibition at Galeria Duarte Sequeira in Portugal.

Formed by theories of non-anthropocentric points of view, Lito Kattou develops a new series of aluminum hybrid figures, a combination of bodily, mechanical and ethereal appearances, that question the idea of how contemporaneity thinks about bodies and its relationship with the natural environment. The works engage with the sculptural potentiality of flatness, processes of embodiment and the transfigurations of material properties within the margins of time and space. Imagery on their aluminum surface hints to their inner world, origins and characteristics. These entities extend through the space, accompanied by various elements frozen in time via thermochemical elaborations that represent a physical reminder of nature, or what used to be.

Petros Moris presents a series of geological landscapes that explore the stratifications of the material, the technological and cultural environments, along the fateful interrelations between natural and social phenomena. Stimulated by symmetrical structures, abstract compositions that resemble faces or masks weave together the social construct of time with geological materiality and digital fabrication. Working with marble sourced from quarries in Aliveri, Ritsona, Tinos and Volos, the artist utilizes archaic techniques and contemporary technologies to develop wall-based inlay works that employ the painterly aspects of marble in order to assemble word-based palindromes and anagrams. Embedded into geological matter, these language-constructs reconfigure and fracture perceptions of meaning, materiality and time.

Lito Kattou and Petros Moris create works in dialogue that explore the entangled and transformative relationships between geological matter, language, bodies and subjectivity. Configured through both the embracing and the distancing from anthropocentric perspectives, the exhibition narrates a nonlinear account of juxtapositions and assemblages of cultural and material time.

Duration: 11.07 – 12.09.2020
Galeria Duarte Sequeira: Rua de Galeria, 129, Portugal

PRIVATE SCREENING – TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN & THE PROPELLER GROUP

State of Concept presents the works of artist, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, in a series of screenings as part of the chapter State Affairs. “State Affairs” is dedicated to artists that work mainly with video, and presents artistic practices that focus on thematics that are being narrated gradually through several artworks and a longer timespan and are distinguished for their interest in shedding light in historical conditions and how they affect contemporaneity. The program aims to address directly current affairs, predicaments, problematics, and cul-de-sacs of contemporary living, by summoning the past.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s work explores the power of storytelling through sculpture and video. His projects involve months of research-based work, and often include the involvement of communities and groups of citizens, focusing on the History we inherit, and on memory. Nguyen draws on and works with dominant – and often colonial – histories, but also surrealist narratives that he turns into image-sequences. Facts and fiction intertwine poetic narratives that permeate time and place. He is a member of “The Propeller Group”, one of Vietnam’s oldest and most important art groups.

His latest work, “The Boat People” (2020, duration 19 ‘), which is currently being screened at MOMA in New York, is set in an unspecified post-apocalyptic future at the precarious edge of humanity’s possible extinction. The film follows a band of children led by a strong-willed and resourceful little girl. They travel the seas and collect the stories of a world they never knew through objects that survived over time. The film “The Island” (2017, duration 42 ‘), is shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, an island off the coast of Malaysia that became the largest and longest-operating refugee camp after the Vietnam War. The artist and his family were some of the 250,000 people who inhabited the tiny island between 1978 and 1991; it was once one of the most densely populated places in the world until the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shuttered the camp in 1991. The third film is a collective production of the Propeller Group entitles The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music (2014,duration24’) a film merges documentary footage of actual funeral processions with stunning re-enactments discussing funeral traditions in Southern Vietnam.

RESULTS ANNOUNCEMENT- 3^rd SNF ARTIST FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

CURATOR’S TALK: CHARIS KANELLOPOULOU

On Friday July 3rd, we held our last curator’s talk for the 2nd SNF Artist Fellowship Program with Charis Kanellopoulou, art historian, curator, writer and member of our selection committee. Charis presented several of her curatorial projects addressing core elements of her practice while referring to her interest and experience on archives, private collections, institutions, commissions for the public space and the close collaboration with artists.

FELLOWS’ PRESENTATIONS – JUNE

June was full of inspiring discussions and creative ideas thanks to our amazing fellows and their Zoom presentations. Visual artists Fellows Valinia Svoronou, Eva Papamargariti, Evi Kalogeropoulou, Maria Varela, Maria Nikiforaki, Christina Dimakopoulou, Theodora Kanelli, Apollon Glykas, Eleni Xynogala and dance Fellows Martha Pasakopoulou and Dimitris Mytlinaios presented their practice, received feedback from their peers and discussed openly their concerns.

ARTIST’S TALK: MICHELE RIZZO

On Monday we had the pleasure to meet via Ζoom movement artist Michele Rizzo. Michele gave an insightful talk about his projects and personal reflections around the poetics of transformation, the art of private transcendence, the shift between spaces and its relation to spectatorship, individual versus communal experience. He shared with us insights on the creation of the works ‘HIGHER’ (2014), ‘Spacewalk’ (2017) and ‘Deposition (2020).

ARTIST’S TALK: GEORGI SAGRI

Georgia Sagri discussed with ARTWORKS Fellows her work ‘IASI’ at TAVROS space.

Georgia talked about her ongoing research practice ‘IASI’, which started almost ten years ago in the form of self-training , now taking on a new form of one-on-one sessions with participants that have responded to an open call. These sessions are based on physical techniques that use breath as an active agent, movement and voice training.

The sessions, two or three times a week over a period of two months, are private. They take place on a specially designed soft stage, an art object but also a welcoming place, a shell of sorts. This “stage of recovery” is based on Georgia Sagri’s premise that, “we all live our lives on stage, endlessly performing. The “stage of recovery” is a place where the participants can, for a while, be freed from the necessity of performing to others and for themselves. It gives them the time to be safe and free from an audience.” Whatever shifts, releases or movements occur in these private interchanges remains undisclosed. Unrepresented; still, they are.

This new chapter of her research will develop in overlapping phases in three art institutions and three cities – Mimosa House (London), TAVROS (Athens), De Appel (Amsterdam) and at her studio ‘Υλη[matter]HYLE – knowledge accrued from one location will be carried to the next, enriching the process. Sagri’s presence in these concurrent spaces will mirror the constant disembodiment in the multiplicity of images (our split screen personalities) with which we diffuse and ‘read’ ourselves. Georgia Sagri, adept at loops, here includes this circularity as part of the very form of her research. Instead of performing in large concentric circles, connectivity in all three locations will be personal.

Georgia Sagri has exhibited internationally in various solo and group exhibitions: Portikus, Frankfurt/ Main, Germany (2018); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2017, 2018); Cycladic Museum, Athens Greece (2017); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2016); Sculpture Center, New York, USA (2016); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2016, 2015); Forde, Geneva, Switzerland (2015); Kunsthalle Basel Switzerland (2014); MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2013); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2013); Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (2011); MoMA, New York, USA (2011); Macedonian Museum, Thessaloniki, Greece (2011); The Dakis Joannou Collection, DESTE Foundation, Athens, Greece (2006). Sagri has also participated in documenta 14 (2017), Manifesta 11 (2016), Istanbul; Biennial (2015), Lyon Biennial (2013), Whitney Biennial (2012), Thessaloniki Biennial (2011), and Athens Biennial (2007). In 2014 Sagri initiated Ύλη[matter]HYLE (hyle.gr) a semipublic/semiprivate space in the center of Athens, Greece. Her first monograph catalogue was published by Sternberg Press, following her solo exhibitions Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri at Kunstverein Braunschweig, and Georgia Sagri and I at Portikus. In the summer of 2019 she was offered the Tenure Position in the School of Fine Arts in Athens in order to organise and run the first Performance Art studio.

APOLLON GLYKAS PARTICIPATES IN THE EXHIBITION ‘OVERMORROW’

Our Fellows Apollon Glykas takes part in the exhibition ‘Overmorrow’ at the Ekfrasi-yianna grammatopoulou gallery along with the artists: Annita Argyiliopoulou, Michalis Arfaras, Kornilios Grammenos, Marion Igglesi, Antigoni Kavvatha, Juliano Kagli, Panagioti Baxevani, Niko Papadimitriou, Ilia Sipsa, Aggelo Skourti, Kosta Tsoli, Panteli Chandri.

Opening : Thursday June 25, 12.00 – 21.00
Until July 24

Ekfrasi-yianna grammatopoulou gallery: Valaoritou 9a, Athens, 10671

Alexander Payne in conversation with Daphne Matziaraki

Honored to have with us via Zoom Alexander Payne, American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Alexander talked to our Moving image Fellows about the emotional resonance in films, the notion of “harmolipi” — when drama and comedy co-exist– and gave useful tips about set and production design, screenwriting and casting actors. The discussion was moderated by Daphne Matziaraki – director, writer and producer. Thank you both for such an inspiring and intimate talk!

Artist’s Talk: Katie Duck

What do we mean by “live”? What is our relationship to the public? What is experimental and what is interdisciplinary? What do we mean by political?

Important questions raised by Katie Duck , dancer, choreographer and director, during her Zoom talk for our Fellows on Friday June 19. Katie’s talk about the consequences on the professional life of performing artists, during and after the lockdown, was moderated by Maria Mavridou, greek contemporary dancer based in Amsterdam. Many things to think about. Thank you all for the stimulating discussion :)

Useful Links:

2004 with Alex Waterman (Bach cello)

2015 CAGE (edit of different versions)

2016 with Mary Oliver (improvisation viola)

2018 Abandon Human

2019 Improvisation summer course / Freakatoni Witchy Weekends

(teaching) Documentary Brazil 2020

Motorway 65 by Evi Kalogiropoulou goes to Cannes Film Festival

‘Motorway 65’, a short film by Evi Kalogiropoulou (Fellow 2019) is officially selected in competition of Cannes Film Festival. Winners will be announced in the fall of 2020. ‘Motorway 65’ was selected among 3.810 movies from 137 countries.The movie is founded by Eleusis 2021 – European Capital of Culture and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

The movie describes the relationship between two siblings living in the industrial zone of Elefsina, an area near Athens. The neighborhood, where the characters live, is connected by a bridge, named motorway 6, to an adjacent area, which has much more diverse demographics than the first. The two areas, called ‘Ano small Moscow’ and ‘Kato small Moscow’ coexist in tension because of a conflict rooted on the cultural differences between the two communities: on one side, immigrants from Ponto, and on the other, immigrants from varying backgrounds, such as Albanians, Africans, Pakistanis. The hostility brought by cultural differences is also present within the strong sports culture of the area, further sparking the mutual antagonism. This geographical and social division perplexes and gets reflected in the relationship between the two siblings. The sister, Sima, is much more open-minded than her brother and prefers to hang with people from the opposite side of the bridge; including her best friend Ksenia.

Perfumed Envelopes Travel: Avalon of the Heart

The artists Amalia Vekri and Valinia Svoronou (Fellow 2019) create an imaginary environment at P.E.T. Projects, using the Avalon of the Heart as a metaphor for an activated space.

Avalon of the Heart is a book by British occultist and ceremonial magician Dione Fortune. The book refers to Glastonbury as a mythical place of transcendental experiences and spiritual encounters. Discovering where the heart resides, the writer develops a love affair with the landscape and its emotional counterparts.

The viewer travels through narratives of female identifying characters elevating themselves into super heroes through the use of potions, and ritual; while listening to old love songs, they groom as preparation to unveil a mysterious encounter. As a place inhabited by the heart, that is only revealed to its lovers / mystics, the Avalon is not a literal spatial manifestation but rather the nucleus of an ethereal atmosphere; an enchanting experience similar in nature to the ephemeral essence of an extraordinary perfume. The set up of the works alludes to bodily female desires and anxieties, simultaneously longing for spiritual transcendence. Through the interplay of their works, the artists aim to invoke and reconfigure the legendary environment of the Avalon of the Heart, oscillating between references to new age, popular culture, storytelling and the overpowering construct of romanticism in a contemporary technological landscape.

Vekri and Svoronou’s installation comprising of paintings, sculptures, digital prints, sound and light, invites the audience to confront their internal dialogue, where one meets the heart and by extension the internalised lover.

Once the Avalon is activated, your other half is just around the corner.

During the exhibition, a series of participatory performances will take place resembling a blind date, utilizing the installation itself as a working set. These performances will be formed by invited small groups.

P.E.T. TREAT

The 3rd commission on the facade of P.E.T. is presented entitled P.E.T. Treat with a work by Amalia Vekri and Valinia Svoronou. The project serves as an invitation, found meditation, and daily positive affirmation for passers-by on Kerkyras street. Perfumes travel across time and space re-affirming events and evoking memories, sending a message. This message can be a trigger for a long lost encounter or for a new one to begin.

Opening 23rd of June 16:30 – 22:00 (covid 19 measures apply)*
24th of June – 12 October 2020: by appointment only

* Taking into consideration all the safety health measures,
– the number of visitors will be controlled in the entrance
– a 2mt distance is mandatory
– wearing a mask is highly recommended.

ANDY XHUMA AT THE DANCE PROJECT ‘WHAT IF IT WAS YOU?’

On the occasion of World Refugee Day, Flux Laboratory Athens presents the dance project ‘WHAT IF IT WAS YOU?” on Saturday June 20, 2020.

Performed by artists Joanna Toumbakari and Andi Xhuma (Fellow 2019), and choreographed by Markella Manoliadi, the piece has been inspired by Imany’s song “Take Care”, aiming at conveying through dance a call for unity and encouragement among people.

The project has taken the form of a video dance directed by Andi Xhuma and will be openly disseminated through international social platforms and channels on Saturday, June 20. On the same day, the dancers will perform live with the participation of the audience in various, symbolically significant places in the center of Athens as well as Flux Laboratory Athens.

Video directed by: Andi Xhuma
Choreography: Markella Manoliadi
Dancers: Joanna Toumbakari & Andi Xhuma
Music: ‘Take Care’ by Imany. From the Album ‘The shape of the broken heart’ (2011), Time Records
Production & Artistic Direction: Cynthia Odier, founder and artistic director of Fluxum Foundation and Flux Laboratory

Camera operator: Klaus Shehaj
Camera assistant: Fotini Xhuma

Please note: In compliance with the safety guidelines pertinent to social-distancing in the pandemic, our audience is kindly asked to follow the performances, wearing a mask or scarf. During the performance at Flux Laboratory Athens, the participants are encouraged to stand around the perimeter of the building, enjoying the piece through its open doors.