Category: Fellows news

The new choreographic work of Mariela Nestora / YELP danceco. focuses on breath as the
primary relationship of the body with the world.

Plants are -and have always been- our most important co-inhabitants on the planet. We are in a
reciprocal relationship: humans breathe in the oxygen plants exhale and plants breathe in the
carbon dioxide humans produce. How can we restore the ecological affinities that bind us in a
rapidly climate-changing world?

Dancers and musicians compose the ephemeral organism of this performance that can be
perceived as part of another larger ecosystem. The choreography explores the function of
breathing as a biological, psychological and spiritual node associating different species and
cultures. Breath of the world activates empathy and proposes the experience of a performance
as a gathering of different species.

The air we breathe is not a purely geological or mineral reality but rather the breath of other
living beings. In breath we depend on the lives of others.

Emanuele Coccia

CREDITS
Choreography: Mariela Nestora
Co-creation/ performance: Ioanna Toumpakari, Yannis Tsigris, Pagona Boulbasakou
Music / original composition: Anargyros Deniosos
Musicians: Renato Kousis, Leonidas Palamiotis
Costumes: Eleftheria Arapoglou-DIGITARIA
Dramaturgy collaboration: Mårten Spångberg, Elena Novakovits
Photos: Myrto Apostolidou
Poster design: Maria Elena Myrka
Press: Evangelia Skrobola
Production: KART productions, Mary Xanthopoulidou, Anastasia Kavallari

Produced within the framework of the programme 2023 of the institution “All of Greece
one Culture” of the Greek Ministry of Culture.
Information
Performances: 22,23 August 2023, 21:00
Venue: DION Ancient theatre
Duration: 50 minutes
Tickets: The event is offered free of charge by the Ministry of Culture, yet an entrance fee to the
archaeological site is payable wherever applicable. Pre-booking is mandatory. For more
information and pre-booking: digitalculture.gov.gr, nationalopera.gr
Reservations from 7th August: https://www.ticketservices.gr/event/oli-i-ellada-enas-politismos/
YELP danceco. /Mariela Nestora

Choreographer and researcher Mariela Nestora was born in Athens, Greece. Since 2001 she
has created more than 22 productions for the stage, site specific and public space, with the
support of the Greek Ministry of Culture, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Onassis foundation,
Kalamata International Festival etc. YELP danceco. productions have been presented in
Maribor, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Kassel, Berlin, London, Brighton, Ipswich, Bologna, Bologna,
Montpellier, Brest, Bucharest, Parnu Aarhus, Brussels, Athens, Kavala, Patras, Thessaloniki,
Volos, Hydra, Heraklion, Chania and have been selected for platforms and festivals such as ITI,
Dance Platform, Athens Biennale, Plesna Isba, Municipal Theatre of Patras, Cultural Capital of
Patras, The Place Commissions, The Video Place, Videodance festival and MIRfestival.

Nestora studied artistic research Master’s program- ArtEZ,Netherlands, Feldenkrais method-
Professional Training Greece1, Contemporary dance and choreography – London Contemporary

Dance School, Biology- B.Sc. at Queen Mary and Westfield and Molecular Genetics- M.Sc. at
St.Mary’s Medical School, Imperial College. Her artistic research is situated in Post Humanism,
exploring choreography as a gathering and developing the methodology of molecular
choreography. As an independent artist (2011-2017) she participated in collectives: Green Park,
Kolektiva Omonia, Embros Theatre, Syndesmos Chorou and also instigated the Collective
Choreography Project CCP and from stage to page a platform and publication for the Greek
contemporary dance scene. She works as a choreographer, researcher, mentor, movement
director and as a teacher/practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method.

The genealogy of the exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries stems from the artist’s childhood before moving from Serbia Montenegro (Ex-Yugoslavia) to Greece during the conflict in 1999. A major influence for his poetic narrative emerged also from the artist’s personal experience of the euphoric celebrations for the win of FR Yugoslavia in the 1998 FIBA World Championship, followed just a few months later by the onset of tragic war-related events due to the NATO bombing.

As the artist states:

“I meticulously craft sculptures and installations infused with traditional techniques, possessing the potential to produce sounds reminiscent of musical instruments. However, instead of filling the space with audible vibrations, I embrace the power of silence, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in contemplation and imagination, evoking the possibilities these silent objects hold.

Through this exhibition, my intention is to orchestrate a symphony of silence, encouraging viewers to envision the sounds these silent objects could produce if the silence were to give way. My aim is to spark contemplation and introspection, prompting each viewer to reflect on the intriguing interplay of silence and memory within the realms of their own lives.”

Antrea Tzourovits
Counting Rests
Opening: Thursday, 21 September 2023, 19:00-22:00
Duration: 21 September – 21 October 2023
Opening hours:
Monday 11:00 – 15:00 | Tuesday – Friday 11:00 – 19:00 | Saturday 11:00 – 15:00
11 Haritos Street, Athens 10675
T +30 210 7217679
[email protected]
www.kalfayangalleries.com

*Antrea Tzourovits is a Visual Art SNF ARWORKS Fellow (2022)

The Breeder is pleased to present “Seven Days in New Crete”, Aristeidis Lappas’ new solo exhibition.

Named after a seminal future-utopian speculative fiction novel by the poet and critic Robert Graves, the exhibition, like the book, explores how mythological personalities and personal mythologies intertwine in narrative forms that span the past, present and future. The exhibition has particular characteristics that are inspired by Graves’ novel and his broader writings on Greek Mythology. The ground floor presents a series of large format paintings revisiting mythological figures that have already appeared in Lappas’ work. The Minotaur in particular, looms large as a presence in this Sacred Grove where each painting is flanked with lush foliage that create triptychs which envelop and unfold around each scene. In the same way that Graves uses the novel form to explore how he can place himself as a character in an experiential version of his more critical writings, Lappas is asking what his relationship is to Greek culture, history and notions of belonging – by painting it.

ARISTEIDIS LAPPAS
SEVEN DAYS IN NEW CRETE
September 15, 2023–October 14, 2023
The Breeder, Athens

*Aristeidis Lappas is a Visual Arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020

“Pedagogies of the Common/s” consists of a group exhibition, as well as a public program that will take place during the last week of the exhibition (19-20-21 October). It brings together artworks, practices and archives as it seeks to explore the possible pedagogies of the social. Through transformative instances of togetherness, stubborn gestures of resistance, poetic and political interventions in the current destructive terrains it attempts to function as a critical public experiment. Bringing together diverse collective traces and stories this exhibition and public program (that will take place in September) seeks to sketch possibilities for monstrous political forms and new shared social habits and pedagogies otherwise, in and with the landscape.

Curated by Gigi Argyropoulou, Vassilis Noulas, Kostas Tzimoulis

Participants: Forensic Architecture, Μaria Georgoula, Jeremy Deller, Zisis Kotionis, Maria Lianou & Alexandros Christofinis, Eirini Linardaki, Jumana Manna, Christina Mitrentse, Vincent Parisot, Renee Ridgway, Evi Roumani, Andrea Sitara Gran, Eva Stefani, Yiannis Hadjiaslanis, VASKOS (Vassilis Noulas & Kostas Tzimoulis) and the Laboratory for art and social practices in the department of culture creative media and industries of the University of Thessaly ( Participants: Zoi-Danae Asterataki, Elisavet-Agapi Pantelaiou, Anna Karagianni, Efi Karagiannaki)

Public programme (19-20-21 October):
Dimitra Ioannou (experimental creative writing workshop), Eliana Otta (workshop), Laboratory for art and social practices in the department of culture creative media and industries of the University of Thessaly (open stamp workshop), Theodora Malamou (presentation), Christina Petkopoulou* (presentation), Yannis Hatziaslanis (presentation), Forensic Architecture (film screening), Jeremy Deller (film screening), Jumana Manna (film screening)

Pedagogies of the common/s
Opening: Thursday 28th September 2023
Duration of exhibition: 28 September to 21 October 2023
Thursday-Friday-Saturday 18:00 – 21:00

>> A detailed program and description of the public program will follow below EIGHT critical institute for arts and politics, (Polytechniou 8, Athens)

With support from Ministry of Culture

*Christina Petkopoulou is SNF ARTWORKS Curatorial Fellow (2019)

State of Concept presents the first solo exhibition in Greece of the Greek, Rotterdam-based artist Danae Io, entitled Landform Instrument. Τhe exhibition is the third in the Bona Fide series, dedicated to contribute to the promotion of young Greek and international artists and critics/curators, and is accompanied by a text by the writer and researcher Amelia Groom. Exhibition’s upcoming parallel public program will be announced soon.

Landform Instrument presents a series of new works that have come from the artist’s long-term engagement with “the interrelated histories and functions of bureaucracy, mythology, and nation-building”. Through video, sculpture and text, Danae Io’s practice examines organisational systems that have their roots in modernity and have been imposed widely through imperial practices, enquiring about their role in forming dominant narratives. The works in the exhibition respond to the fabrication of the Greek ideal as an anchor of European identity and its relation to the institution of modern Greece. The show brings together commissioned sculptures and two short films developed from this research. The poems featured in the short films Sprouts of a dragon’s teeth and Seven Types of Dust (both 2023) were developed in collaboration with poet and theorist Stathis Gourgouris.

Io draws on the contemporary city of Thebes and the myth of Cadmus for the works in the exhibition. Thebes, the city of Antigone and Oedipus, serves as an ‘other’ to the ideal city-state, a site where the relations between labour, land and systems of organisation are examined. As Groom notes, it functions as “a stage for a particular misunderstanding/ retelling of the myth of Cadmus, it became a site from which to explore the historical intersections of written language, state violence, and the bureaucratic processes of nationhood.” While negotiating the construction of historical narratives, Danae Io points to the possibilities of myths as performative forms of collective storytelling, through which narratives are never static and singular.

The sculptures in Landform Instrument are related to the material infrastructure of the state’s administrative organs. Stainless-steel, aluminium, paper, security watermarking ink used by the Ministry of Finance and repetitive inkless tracings are embedded in sculptural structures that attach to the main exhibition space and State of Concept’s courtyard.

All quotes are from Amelia Groom’s text ‘Landform Instrument’ (2023).

Part of the Bona Fide exhibition series

With the support of the Mondriaan Fund

More info here

*Danae Io is a Visual Arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellow (2021)

(Un)Common Proximity opens on Thursday 28 September at Galeria Belo-Galsterer in Lisbon with works by Ana Velez, Claudia Fischer, Daniela Krtsch, Gwendolyn van der Velden, Jorge Molder, Juliane Solmsdorf, Mário Macilau, Mel O’Callaghan, Pedro Quintas, Renzo Marasca, Teresa Segurado Pavão, and Wolfgang Wirth.

The exhibition opens with the performance AEQUARE by artist Pinelopi Triantafyllou in collaboration with the dancers Iro Xyda and Ieva Bražėnaitė.

AEQUARE

__(lat.) derives from aequalis, meaning action of making equal, equalizing

AEQUARE is a dance performance that explores wearable artwork through a dystopic universe, which is constantly shifting and changing. The starting point was “The Big Other”, a textile artwork created by Penelope Triantafyllou in 2019, consisting of a men’s jacket covered with hand-knitted female breasts. This work was inspired by Artemis of Ephesus.

Information:

Dates: 28 September – 19 October 2023
Opening: 28 September, 19:00
Curated by Alexia Alexandropoulou
Graphic Design: Nick Letsios

*Alexia Alexandropoulou is a curatorial SNF ARTWORKS Fellow (2022)

Arch is pleased to announce Hot Hands, a performance series conceived and choreographed by the artist Madeline Hollander.

Hot Hands is a site specific performance series and installation featuring 6 dancers and draws choreographic inspiration from various versions of the reflex-driven hand game of its title, as well as other classic kids clapping games. The collaborative piece taps into the muscle memory of the dancers’ own childhoods, and playfully explores the corporeal vocabularies around fake-outs, flinches, anticipation, concentration, keeping score, and breaking rules. The installation, composed of inverted benches and tables, mimics objects found at a playground that inform the dancer’s trajectories as they cycle through the game ad infinitum.

Performers: Angelos Antoniou, Konstantina Barkouli, Aliki Georgiou, Sofia Pouchtou, Thanos Ragousis, Eliane Roumie

Performance dates:

Friday, October 6, 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Saturday, October 7, 4:00pm – 6:00pm

Friday & Saturday, October 20-21 4:00pm – 6:00pm

*Konstantina Barkouli and Eliane Roumie are SNF ARTWORKS Dance Fellows (2022)

The exhibition, titled “Eleonas: Chthonic and Anthropocene” (translated freely from the Greek title, “Xθόνιο και ανθρωπόκαινο”), explores the dynamic interplay of material entities, chronologies, and meanings. The choice of location exemplifies these contradictions within the Athenian landscape, where the contemporary pace of our existence vigorously intersects with the deep imagination emanating from the presence of ancient relics and fragments that are still profoundly evident in the area.

ARTISTS

Dimitris Alithinos, Dimitris Ameladiotis (performance), August Veinoglou, Mpampis Venetopoulos, Dimitris Georgakopoulos, Giorgos Gyparakis, Collectif MASI (Madlen Anipsitaki & Simon Riedler), Campus Novel, Martha Dimitropoulou, Theodoris Zafeiropoulos, Giorgos Zampoulakis (performance), Vassia Zormpali (perfomance), Captain, Michael Karikis, Katerina Katsifaraki, Nikos Kessanlis, Zisis Kotionis, Mania Mpenisi, Nikos Moschos, Pandora Mouriki, Daphne Nitsou, Maria Oikonomopoulou, Maria Papadimitriou, Nikos Papadimitriou, Myrto Papadopoulou, Kostas Pappas, Eleni Panouklia, Vivi Perisinaki, Danae Stratou, Stefania Strouza, Savvas Stroumpos with Elli Ingliz (performance), Theodoros Terzopoulos (talk/performance), Tassos Triantafullou, Giorgos Tsakiris, Giorgos Tserionis, Filippos Tsitsopoulos (performance), Dimitris Tsoumplekas, Marios Fournaris, Pantelis Chandris, Vivetta Christouli, Dionisis Christofilogiannis.

Venue: Metro Eleonas

Opening: 29/9 – duration – 3/12

14:30 – 20:30

*August Veinoglou, Madlen Anipsitaki, Giannis Delagrammatikas (Campus Novel) and Stefania Strouza are Visual Arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

EMΣΤ announces a three-day festival as the exhibition Modern Love: or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies approaches its end. During an entire weekend the museum will present a rich programme of talks, panels, screenings, music and performances that look into, like the exhibition, the relationship between humans and technology, focusing especially love and close human relationships in the age of late capitalism, globalisation, digital connectivity and social media.

In a letter dated September 29, 1962, writer Nikos Kachtitsis (1926–1970) addresses his friend Epameinondas Ch. Gonatas (1924–2006), writer of O Taxidiotis [The Traveller] (1945), with dismay at the latter’s doubts about the aforementioned debut short story of his: “…I am stunned by your cruel and dismissive manner vis-à-vis this little masterpiece of yours, which made me outraged by pleasure [exo frenon apo efcharistisi] … while the entire work is based on the absence of even the slightest plausibility, at no time is the reader not assured that all of this is real.”* The exhibition and events titled outraged by pleasure start from the ambivalent co-existence of outrage and pleasure in this paradoxical utterance within the sociocultural, literary and political context of its times, and moves on to explore what the phrase may mean in the present and in the future and in relation to the fields of life and art amidst various crises and urgencies.

Outraged by pleasure tries to make sense, with and through all that participates in it, of pleasure in its shapeshifting and multiversality within current “outrageous” circumstances: complex artistic practices, fights and assertions related to gender and sexuality, activist initiatives, communal (re)formations, a tidal turn to conservative politics and the painful fail of progressive ones, a pervading feel of doom-and-gloom induced by the destruction of the natural environment, the rapid reign of immaterial communications and digital economics, the extraordinary normalization of inequalities.

Outraged by pleasure wishes to trace the possibility of another connection to joy, delight, excitement, enjoyment; to imagine into existence the possibility of reclaiming “outrageous pleasure” from the technocapitalist imaginary and its diminishing futurology, from the far right’s macho perversion of wildness, from colonialist-type censorial abuses within wokeculture claims, from all-levelling practices of commoning and institutional appropriations.

Outraged by pleasure wishes to examine the (re)connection of pleasure to post-growth practices of environmental care and social justice; to processes of descaling and mutuality; to reconsiderations of an architecture of enjoyment; to queer approaches of care, generosity, solidarity; to native traditions and anti-colonial movements (such as buen vivir, quilombismo, etc.); to humour as a transformative power of subversion (as this appears in the work of Sara Ahmed and Silvia Federici); to rewilding and the untamed “aesthetics of bewilderment” (Jack Halberstam); to the ecstatic accuracy (found in Kachititsis’s “rabid readings,” in Gonatas’s “literature of subversion,” in the hitherto unknown paintings of pioneer filmmaker Antoinetta Angelidi, in the surrealistic visionary works of Marie Wilson- Valaoritis, in the political aesthetics of Kostas Sfikas’s cinema, in the solitary experience of Thanasis Totsikas’s craftsmanship, in the collectively-developed-over-many-years activism of Teos Romvos and Chara Pelekanou for the salvation of the insular environment); to the complex sense of reciprocity described by Michael Taussig; to the ambiguity of inconvenient objects such as the jumping beans that drove a wedge between Caillois and Breton; to Michel Serres’s “marvellous trampoline”; to the detection of radical futurisms attempted by T. J. Demos; etc.

Outraged by pleasure unfolds in space as a convivial collective study, with the intense physicality, the disquieting mood and unhierachical emergence of the questions it poses: How often do insurrectionary dynamics turn into guilt, or transform into (self-)punitive didacticism, paralyzing grief, numbness, or even neoliberal self-improvement technologies and soft philosophies, in the face of the relentless politics of destruction and the cosmogony that legitimize and prolong them? How do friendship, love, solidarity, radical pedagogy, the perception of multiple shades, the “from the bottom up” demands materialize today, in the various different contemporary circumstances and possibilities of affirmation, denial, representation? How does the phrase “outraged by pleasure” translate into different linguistic environments and hence different philosophical worldviews or cognitive approaches (e.g. enjoyment, jouissance, etc.), or how could it be perceived beyond the boundaries of language? What might be the stance towards it of independent entities and initiatives of the public sphere (the “dark matter” according to Gregory Sholette)? How can we even perceive “outraged by pleasure” in the more-than-human world? Outraged by pleasure is conceived, and will attempt to unfold, as a world of many worlds, an oddkin created by all invited people and entities, with or without material characteristics. Invited artists and curators from Greece and abroad co-shape and co-animate its “outraged by pleasure” body in many different directions.

Outraged by pleasure will be held in the half-finished, under-construction “Nobel” building in Chalandri, a space that is associated with both the idiosyncratic desire of its founder George Markou (1946–2017) and, primarily, the resilient persistence of the City of Chalandri to claim its socially and culturally extrovert presence (something that was already marked by the interdisciplinary event “The Forest’s Riddle,” September 2022–January 2023). The program of events, attached hereto, will be successively updated in detail. It includes performances, tributes on queer initiatives and collectives, film screenings in special curatorial groups, performative speeches on social ecology and degrowth, musical events, etc. It will be updated during the course of the show. A detailed description of each curatorial intervention will be included in the exhibition’s leaflet.

Outraged by pleasure is curated by Nadja Argyropoulou and shared by the following artists, art entities, curators:

Antoinetta Angelidi, Patricia Apergi & Aerites Dance Company, Tosh Basco, The Callas (Lakis Ionas & Aris Ionas), Daglara, Sofia Dona, Navine G. Dossos with James Bridle, Georgia Fambris, Family Business, iLiana Fokianaki (with Danae Io, Harun Farocki, Mary Zygouri), FYTA, Ιoanna Gerakidi (with Yianna Charachlianni, Leah Clements, Anna Savvatopoulou), Pinelopi Gerasimou, Hypercomf, Dimitris Ioannou, Xenia Kalpaktsoglou with [Pegy Zali, Sofoklis Koutsourelis, Panagiotis Lianos] and Athina Koumparouli, Lito Kattou, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Blaise Kirschner, Katerina Komianou, Konstantinos Ladianos, LALA, Kostas Lambridis, Iris Lykourioti, Irini Miga, Rashaad Newsome, Nionia Films (Maria F. Dolores, Sofia Dona, Alkisti Efthymiou, Smaro Papaevangelou), Malvina Panagiotidi, Aggelos Papadimitriou, Eva Papamargariti, Agnieszka Polska, Filipa Ramos (with Rosalind Fowler, Goutam Ghosh & Jason Havneraas, Mariana Murcia, Lea Porsager, Ani Schulze), Teos Romvos & Chara Pelekanou, Kostas Sfikas, Gabriella Simossi, Panos Sklavenitis, Kostis Stafylakis & Theo Triantafyllidis, Nancy Stamatopoulou (with Nicoleta Chatzopoulou, Makis Faros, Tassos Vrettos), Eva Stefani, Valinia Svoronou, Temporary Academy of Arts, Eleni Tomadaki, Thanassis Totsikas, Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou / Bunny, VASKOS (Vassilis Noulas & Kostas Tzimoulis), Marina Velisioti, Nikos Velmos, Hypatia Vourloumis (with Jackie Abhulimen, Maria F. Dolores, Eleni Ikoniadou, Maria Sideri, Taka Taka), Iria Vrettou, Rea Walldén, Marie Wilson-Valaoritis (with Zoe Valaoritis & Katerina Valaoritis)

Curator: Nadja Argyropoulou
Curatorial Assistant: Adrianos Efthymiadis
Visual Identity and Print Material: Eva Papamargariti
Audiovisual Design and Installation: Makis Faros, Antonis Gkatzougiannis
Contributing Architect: Sofia Tektonidou
Εvents Αssistant: Stephanie Orati
Lighting Design: Nikos Vlasopoulos
Text Editing: Fotini Pipi
Transport and Installation of Artworks: Move
Art Insurance: Karavias
Underwriting Agency S.A. Production: Laika Productions, AtoZ communication & strategy P.C.C.
The works of Nikos Velmos are exhibited courtesy of The American College of Greece Art Collection, Gift of Takis Efstathiou

Organization: City of Chalandri
Sponsor: FLYA, Municipal SA for the Management of the City of Chalandri’s Real Estate
Sponsor: Karavias Underwriting Agency S.A.

Duration of Exhibition: Friday, Sept. 29 to Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023
Visiting Hours: Wednesday – Friday 18:00–21:30 Saturday & Sunday 12:30–18:00 (Closed on Saturday, Oct. 28)
Admission to the exhibition and all events is free of charge.
“Nobel” building – cultural space in the City of Chalandri Ivis 30 & Tymphristou, 152 34 Chalandri M3, Chalandri stop | OASA, line 447, Ardittou stop
The building is accessible for the disabled only on its ground floor.
Contact: [email protected]
Follow us on Instagram: @outragedbypleasure

The third presentation of the one work show series is presenting a new body of work by the artist duo Ileana Arnaoutou and Ismene King under the title All the sticks, spears and swords, blades entwined . Drawn to questions concerning the environment and femininity, the artist duo explores fragmented structures within immediate surroundings. The site specific approach evolves around the re-use of materials which already exist, the re-assemblage of fragmented shapes as well as re
– thinking the perception of our realities.

As part of the new production Arnaoutou and King collected fragments of a wind turbine which was destroyed during a storm by a strike of lightning. The broken turbine parts were found and selected at the Perme recycling site in Ritsona, Greece. Arnaoutou and King were particularly drawn to fragments that revealed both, the aerodynamic shape as well as the industrial character of the firm structures. When looking at the chosen structures, one can interpret them as a dichotomy of materiality. The material is alienated from its natural state and only through the artistic practice it is re- trans
ated into an organic form. Once firm and heavy, Arnaoutou and King bend the structures of the wind turbine just like weaving any organic fiber. This translation of visible shapes symbolizes notions of regeneration.

All the sticks, spears and swords, blades entwined
Ileana Arnaoutou & Ismene King
05–27 October 2023
Opening day: 05 October 2023, 7 pm–10 pm

https://callirrhoe.info/

*Ileana Arnaoutou and Ismene King are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

Four musicians, a video with landscapes of Tinos and Northern Norway, a party on board, and AI developers meeting in the belly of a whale. A surrealistic cruise from the Mediterranean to the northern countries, with the journey of Pytheas the Greek—the unassailable explorer of antiquity—in its very center.

Do you find it hard to float through life? Do you feel tangled in the nets of your daily routine and seek escape? Embark on one of the state-of-the-art vessels of Pytheas Travels cruise fleet and become part of the most oceanic experience of your life. A musical cruise with four musicians of the Ergon Ensemble as passengers and a video screening as a backdrop: a compilation of animation, live shootings on board and in various locations in Tinos and Northern Norway, as well as green screen footage, all inspired by the sea element. The immersive experience of “Pytheas Travels” includes furthermore many surrealistic touches that involve opulent parties, a great wildfire, as well as AI developers that meet in the belly of the whale. Shall we hop on board?

The title of the performance refers to the historical journey of Pytheas the Greek—the Columbus of antiquity—where in 325 BC sailed north from Marseilles to a place he called Ultima Thule, the mythical island, to reach the “frozen seas.” Unable to extend the exploration of the mythical lands of Northern Europe, Pytheas returned to the Mediterranean to document his legendary journey in a manuscript titled “On the Ocean” which vanished forever in the great fire of the Library of Alexandria.

“Pytheas Travels” is a staged audiovisual simulation of the experience of being on board a passenger vessel, traveling from the Mediterranean to the Northern Seas. It is a maritime story, an imaginary journey, and a critical insight into the mass tourism industry and its consequences on environmental, cultural, and societal structures.

The music score is courtesy of pioneering Norwegian composer and performer Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, for whom in 2015 the Financial Times noted that “she brings a feral disregard for conventional form, combined with an extravagant imagination, linking it all to a fascination with the human voice and its communicative possibilities. Her works are dramatic, engaging, and wildly diverse.”

13.10 —15.10.2023

Athens, Onassis Stegi

* Hypercomf (Paola Palavidi & Ioannis Kolliopoulos) are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

Symbiotics, by the miss dialectic curatorial team, was chosen through an open call process by EMΣΤ | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, for the submission of proposals for a group exhibition. A contemporary narrative on coexistence, which focuses on the process of communication through female art practices, defines the conceptual core of the project, which comprises a group exhibition, framed by a broad programme of public events. The exhibition presents works by four contemporary Greek visual artists – Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Karolina Krasouli, Christina Mitrentse, and Maria Varela – as well as by the artist group Phantom Investigations (Giannis Delagrammatikas and Ino Varvariti). Compositions by Chryssa, Bia Davou, and Nausica Pastra, from the EMΣT collection, complete the exhibition, whose starting point, in fact, according to the curatorial team, is the series of drawings Serial Structures 2 – Odyssey by Bia Davou. The Symbiotic Discourses of the public programme include workshops and educational events (by Karolina Krasouli, Christina Mitrentse, and Maria Varela), performances (by Chrysanthi Koumianaki), and a performative lecture (by Phantom Investigations).

The use of the grid as a common structural component of the works in the exhibition functions in a unifying manner, defining a literal, or even an imaginary, space within which the concepts of equilibrium, seriality, repetition, succession and – potentially – liberation and expansion into the real and the public space, are dynamically imposed. The grid, in addition, is connected to weaving – an activity that has been traditionally linked to the place and role of women. Weaving is here elevated as a fine art practice, turning the process of handicraft into a tool of empowerment of the female in contemporary art and connecting it to different versions of the visual, textual, scientific, and technological language. This medium is common in the practice of the visual artists taking part in the exhibition, heightening the symbiotic and conceptual system of their coexistence. At the same time, they share features such as the reuse of motifs and symbols (also) from their earlier works, which are inherent in and converse with their subsequent proposals.

Emphasising the process of creation through fragmentary images and codes, using a broad range of art mediums, the works presented in the Symbiotics exhibition create space and rhythm, become poetic gestures and contemplations on contemporary reality and the history of art itself, and weave their own narrative on the female in art, “in a room of one’s own” (Virginia Woolf).

At the opening of the exhibition, three performances by Chrysanthi Koumianaki are presented from 20:00 in the exhibition space as well as in other common areas of the Museum.

You can find more here.

*Klea Charitou and and Kelly Tsipni-Kolaza, co-founder of miss dialectic are SNF ARTWORKS Curatorial Fellows. Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Karolina Krasouli,  Maria Varela and Giannis Delagrammatikas member of the group Phantom Investigations are SNF ARTWORKS Visual Fellows.

For the 29th Athens International Film Festival 47 short movies directed by Greek filmmakers competed for the awards.

Check below the SNF ARTWORKS Fellows (moving image) awardees:

Golden Athena Award
LIGHT OF LIGHT by Neritan Zinxhiria (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2018)

Silver Athena Award
UNORTHODOX by Konstantinos Antonopoulos (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2019)

Best Director Award
MIDNIGHT SKIN by Manolis Mavris (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2018)

Special Mention
ANGRY FISH by Kostas Chaliasas (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2022)

More info here.

Congrats to all!

The compositions created by Ilias Sipsas and Apollon Glykas present an original concept of viewing, transforming and interpreting reality and the human condition. Their collaboration also forges a unified intervention, a multifaceted visual environment that evolves dynamically, an environment rich in content and open to multiple readings and diverse approaches. The starting point for the duo is their combination of photography and sculpture.

Simple, fortuitous, anonymous photographs with no artistic assertions or intentions, images that simply document and capture people and ordinary moments of our life and world -temporally and on paper-, such fragments of memory serve as the material and thematic axes of their work.

By enlarging, processing and dissecting these photographs, by selecting parts rather than the entirety of the images, by fragmenting and intervening on their surface, and, typically, by detaching their subject from its temporal and social context, integrating the images into wall or spatial constructions, they create a new condition defined by its coherent character. However, in their use of photographs, they maintain their individual, distinctive style, with each establishing his own sensibility, perspective and aesthetic.
Ilias Sipsas explores the analogies between photographic and physical/real space. His large-scale photographic collages conceptually communicate with his sculptural constructions, in which he resourcefully combines objets trouvés with an assortment of materials (metals, clay, plaster, stones, glass, wood, plastic). Often, his works make structural use of light and are distinguished by their materiality, elegance and brittleness, their Dadaist spirit and their subversive-surrealist mood.

Apollon Glykas’ works originate from a process of connections, as he works with various materials and techniques. His projects combine photographs (often from his personal archive) with metal elements that allude to technological culture, such as antennae, struts, parts of communication systems, bases. He uses these elements as they are, without interfering with the texture or colour of the material. Meanwhile, motion and light play a key role in his work. The indeterminate -in terms of their intended use and purpose- constructions where the photographs are embedded are constructivist in their approach. These surprising and paradoxical encounters between constructions and photographs create narratives in which time is the dominant dimension, with the notions of the past and future positioned at their core – these images-“messages” are fragments of an antediluvian life in a future world.

On 21 and 22 October, 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture presents the ten works that were created in the framework of the third iteration of the artist-in-residence programme Mystery 19 Visual Arts Initiator III – But Don’t Tell Anyone, in a live performance exhibition at the archaeological site of Ancient Eleusis.

Five emerging artists, selected after an open call to participate in the programme, and five international guest artists drew inspiration from the Eleusinian Mysteries, listened attentively to the city and its stimuli, were initiated by each other, experimented, and now present ten original works in interaction with each other, under the guidance of the globally renowned curator Joanna Warsza.

Starting from speculations about the unique pagan rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries, both the residency programme and the ensuing exhibition seek to reinterpret the current meaning of concepts such as initiation and secrecy, extending them in various social, political and poetic directions. The works open up possible readings of death and loss, while reflecting on notions pertaining to the restoration of knowledge, the connection to the planet, the need to overcome any kind of fear and harness hope for a possible afterlife.

When a secret is entrusted to someone, part of the charm is that the recipient of the secret gains the power to reveal it, if they wish, to third parties – discreetly, of course. The Eleusinian Mysteries rank among the most secret and, simultaneously, the most democratic rites performed in ancient Greece. Revealing any information about them was punishable by death. Thousands of people were initiated every year, including women, slaves and non-Greek citizens, swearing an oath of secrecy in order to partake in the mysteries of Demeter. These rites − which touched on the afterlife, the cult of agriculture and rebirth, spirituality, psychedelic and communal experience over the course of almost two millennia − remain an unsolved enigma right down until today, and are still core to the identity of the town, which has since become a major Greek industrial hub.

Contributors:
Participating artists: Vlad Brăteanu (RO) / James Bridle (UK) / Athina Koumparouli (GR) / Esmeralda Momferratou (GR) / Susan Philipsz (UK) / Angelo Plessas (GR) / Yorgos Sapountzis (GR) / Flavia Stagi (IT) / Heidi Voet (BE) / Alex Wolframm (DE)
Curator of Mystery 19 Visual Arts Initiator III – But Don’t Tell Anyone: Joanna Warsza (PO)
Concept of legacy project Mystery 19 Visual Arts Initiator: 2023 Eleusis
Production: Delta Pi

An event by 2023 Eleusis
Supported by the Goethe-Institut Athen

Information
Dates: Saturday 21 & Sunday 22 October 2023
Exhibition hours: 10.00 – 15.00
Venue: Archaeological site of Ancient Eleusis
Guided procession: Saturday & Sunday, 16.00 – 18.30
Meeting point: Entrance of the archaeological site of Ancient Eleusis
Arrival time: 15.30
Admission: 6 euros (The price is the ticket to the Archaeological Site and is issued at the entrance – The site does not have a POS machine)

To participate in the procession, pre-booking is required.
In case of attendance without pre-booking, entry will only take place upon availability due to a limited number of spectators required by the special conditions of the venue.

Athina Koumparouli is a visual arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellow (2022).

“Make everything that you need for yourself and attempt to not need what you cannot make, that is the ending view that we never arrive at.”Raymond Duncan interviewed by Orson Welles (1955)

The PLANT project evolves in 3 interrelated stages – dream, design, and celebrate – following an ongoing dialogue between what we need, what we make, and what routes and tools we activate in this process. During its first stage, from 27th to 29th October 2023, the Duncan Dance Research Centre in Athens presents: “Just For Today”, a three-day event drawing from Raymond Duncan’s legacy, routes and traces. Conceived under a situated and historical perspective, the event serves as a starting point from which to investigate the intimate threads that connect us with the physical and conceptual territories we co-inhabit. It questions notions of learning and ways of seeing, hearing and imagining in a shared manner, and explores the interdependence of our work to our daily lives and ultimately to a larger whole.

By interweaving different temporalities, the program presents practices from distinct fields (conceptual, movement, labor) and is willing to enact a framework for contemporary creation that can be textured by the particularities and imaginaries of diverse communities. “Just For Today” is an invitation to nurture a common space by visiting and translating examples of contemporary eco-communities, critical thinking and ancestral knowledge. At the same time, it offers encounters and hands-on activities that seek to widen the perspective of our actual needs and help us identify and reconsider our next steps. The event features workshops, talks, food preparation and sharing, ways of listening, screenings, walks and an exhibition focused on the figure of Raymond, with the participation of Vaskos (Vasilis Noulas and Kostas Tzimoulis), Marlen Mouliou, Anna Tzakou, Julie Loi, Iris Nikolaou, Vasiliki Tsagkari, Maro Pantazidou, Andreas Sell, Napoleon Xifaras, Samantha & Hermes Savvantoglou, rosanayaris (Rosana Sanchez & Aris Spentsas) and nyamnyam (Ariadna Rodriguez & Iñaki Alvarez).

The participation to the event is free of charge with the need for previous reservations for certain activities of the program. These reservations can be made through the email: [email protected]. When booking your activities, please let us know your name, phone number & email address, as well as which activities you’ll be attending. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the Duncan Dance Center through the same email or by phone at 0030 6945714119.

The event will include seasonal and local food for the days of the event, provided by Samantha and Hermes Savvantoglou, grown and collected with the kids at Children’s Orchard, a space for children and adults, a warm household with the door open for everyone with a beautiful garden in a small village of Northern Greece. Please let us know, upon making your reservations, if you wish to join us for breakfast and/or lunch on October 28th, and for lunch on October 29th.

Location
Duncan Dance Research Center
Chrisafis 34, Vironas 162 32, Athens, Greece
https://www.duncandancecenter.org/
https://www.facebook.com/DUNCANCENTERATHENS
https://www.instagram.com/duncan.center/

Credits
Curation: Penelope Iliaskou, Rosana Sánchez Rufete, Aris Spentsas
Administration: Anny Hadjikonstantinou
Graphic Design: Sara Jorge
Visual Documentation: Myrto Apostolidou
Communication: Mare Spanoudaki
Production Management: Maria Adela Konomi