Fellow Field: Εικαστικές Τέχνες

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

The streets (and walls) of Athens have been covered — truly covered — in graffiti for as long as I can remember. As a child visiting from the United States, I didn’t know what to make of these indecipherable tags and scribbles. More broadly, I remember how my feelings about Athens itself were consistently ambivalent. Sometimes I reveled in the city’s chaos; other times I was certain that it was the ugliest place I had ever seen. But as I grew older, and started to travel more widely, Athens’ particularities steadily became more striking to me. Not only did I begin to feel a deep admiration for its flagrant disregard of my opinion, but more specifically, I came to realize how the city’s graffiti contained multitudes. Visiting year after year, a neighborhood walk became many things: a political education (ΕΞΩ ΤΟ ΝΑΤΟ! — NATO, Get Out!); an invaluable source for vocabulary (perhaps best not rewritten here); and finally, a reminder of how a city that always felt both old and new, crumbling yet unchanging, could be the site of ongoing struggle and reinvention. Today, I see these tags and murals as inextricable components of the city’s fabric, as much as the venerated antiquities or devilish topography.

For the multi-disciplinary artist Alexandros Simopoulos, graffiti has also been a near-constant presence in his experience of living and making work in Athens. As early as high school, graffiti served as a creative outlet for Alexandros, establishing an underlying layer that he would later return to and cover over, again and again, in different ways. He continued to produce work while a student in university — where he focused on humanitarian law and international relations, both of which would also express themselves in his artistic work — but still, he could not get graffiti out of his mind. After university, he was once more drawn to the art form, producing graffiti-inspired t-shirts, skateboards, and prints. His timing was propitious: street art was having what Alexandros calls, “its second renaissance in Athens” amidst the growing financial crisis. He quickly realized that his adolescent hobby could become so much more.

Alexandros explains, “The story of graffiti and street art is complex and contradictory. Even the very terms of ‘graffiti’ and ‘street art’ have highly contested histories, which continue to generate intense debate inside and outside the community. In Athens, though, this story had a local twist during the height of the financial crisis. At the time, there were endless reports from major international media outlets about street art in the Greek capital [for example: How Angry Street Art is Making Athens Hip]. The angle was that there must be some key relationship between the country’s economic situation and the city’s street art. The easy narrative: graffiti as resistance, with its images providing an accessible aestheticization of the country’s problems, such as urban poverty, alongside a manifestation of its ‘brave spirit.’ But very few of these articles undertook any in-depth research; rather, I think graffiti provided a free and edgy illustration for their pieces. The crisis put Greece in the spotlight and street art became a handy example.” He then reveals, with a knowing smile, “I am pretty sure that some artists made political work on certain streets because they knew it would be spotted by journalists and later published in, for example, The International New York Times. Easy narratives can be manipulated by both sides…”

Yet as the old adage goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity. As Alexandros explains, “Over the past decade, street art has also created tourism for Athens. Many people travel here to paint — or, at least, they used to — we call them ‘graffiti tourists’. In Greece, it’s easy to work outside, especially since making graffiti is not heavily criminalized and the weather is good. The popularity of street art has certainly contributed to the touristification of the Athenian center, for better and for worse. For my generation, it has certainly been for worse: the recent inundation of visitors, and Airbnbs, has outpriced us all when it comes to housing.” He then reflects, “But what’s important to remember is that there was plenty of street art and political graffiti in Athens before the crisis. Additionally, street art has been used for gentrification for quite some time, all over the world, Berlin being a celebrated example (though we see it in London, New York, Barcelona and other places as well). Artists move where there is space and where it is cheap. All of these phenomena are not confined to a few trendy neighborhoods in post-2010 Athens.”

Alexandros understands these complications better than most: he has engaged with the street art community on many levels, at home and, lately, abroad. In Athens, he not only produced his own work, but collaborated with Cacao Rocks, another prominent practitioner [as well as an inaugural SNFA Artworks Fellow], to run a gallery in the city center dedicated to street artists. As he tells me, “Several years ago, Cacao and I shared a studio in the building’s basement. The gallery was on the ground floor. There, we had more or less free rein to do what we wanted. For over three years, we invited people we knew and gave them a welcoming space to experiment with formats. We even flew in artists from abroad to do mini-residencies and exhibit their work, bringing international points of view to Greece. In addition, the gallery worked as a small arts school for the kids of the neighborhood. It was an amazing experience — at its peak, it was a vibrant hub for varied people to meet, collaborate, experiment, and the spark for many new projects. The gallery was at the core of a small street art scene that was growing bigger and bigger. I remember that Cacao and I once had a completely sold-out show — but no matter how many gallery exhibitions we held and no matter how much work we sold, we lived in a parallel world: we were definitely not part of the contemporary art scene in Athens, nor was it something which we were interested in joining at that time.”

As Alexandros looks back on this heady time, I can hear the mixture of pride and frustration that accompanies the position of the perpetual outsider. Being on the edge — whether as a street artist excluded from contemporary art or as an artist living in Athens, a place that remains on the “periphery” of the global art world — affords a great deal of freedom. But it can also be isolating. Regardless, Alexandros reminds me that periphery is always a relative concept. He refers to the example of the 2017 edition of Documenta to underscore how the art world is never monolithic: at every level, there are insiders and outsiders, irreconcilable narratives, and overlapping spectrums of power. He says, “Documenta portrayed Athens as a locality of chaos and crisis and, at the same time, rebirth and self-determination. It was a narrative drawn from many sources, which made it appealing for different people, especially artists. Still, the event ultimately came from the outside, and thus its narrative exoticized Athens. It didn’t, perhaps couldn’t, explore all the complexities contained here.”

Over the past few years, Alexandros’ own path reveals his efforts to bridge these many competing approaches and gaps — between street and art, politics and space, Greece and abroad. As he tells me, “What’s so special about street art, more than anything, is its directness. It can reach people in their everyday lives. I’m interested in working across worlds, not just speaking to curators and critics. I want to create work that communicates with everyone.” In pursuit of a more legible visual language, Alexandros first left Athens to study illustration and visual arts in London. He then returned, now with a wider focus on making work that deals with the idea of public space — not illegally but as an invited guest. He tells me, “I’m not painting outside much anymore. I don’t even consider myself a street artist at this point. Instead, I am contending with the difference between what I thought I was doing and its perception from the outside. Conceptually, I am thinking about questions such as ‘What happens in your body when you paint graffiti? What happens in your mind? What kind of narratives do you come across, what kind of people, how are they communicated — and how has all of this transformed cities around the world? Concretely, my expanded point of view means I now work with a greater range of people, all of whom have widely disparate perceptions of street art and public space more broadly. Through these interactions, I am exploring my relationship to public spaces from other people’s perspective. I try to actively engage them in the creative process or even make them part of the work.”

As a former student of humanitarian law and international relations, Alexandros’ broadening point of view continues to ripple outward, well outside of Greece. For example, this past summer, he spent three months in Berlin and, prior to that, six months in New Mexico as a Fulbright Fellow. He also received public commissions to paint murals in locations ranging from Hungary to Portugal, and even Greenland. He reflects on the privilege, and challenges, of extending his work in this way. “Traveling creates a global community and network of artists who can exchange skills and ideas. This has always existed in the street art scene — while a piece might not travel, the people who make these public spaces are able to move and bring their knowledge with them to new settings. This does present some complications, though. When I travel to make work, I am confronting a place I’m not from, where I might be unaware of specific tensions or histories. The only way to overcome this deficit is to spend as much time there as possible before making any work and to meet and interact as sincerely as possible with people from different communities. Wherever I go, I try to respond to those around me and make the art meaningful for everyone involved. This has become the most challenging and rewarding part of the process for me.”

Alexandros’ new perspective has not only helped him with his work overseas, but to look at Greece with fresh eyes. This was evident in Still Here Tomorrow, the Artworks group exhibition held at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation last summer. In the show, Alexandros’ piece effectively juxtaposed views from inside and outside, embodying his desire to understand other points of view while retaining his local roots. The installation, titled Best served old (Anti-austerity artists are impressing the tourists), mixed street art motifs such as pigeons and stray dogs with aesthetics taken from ancient Greek art — red and black-figure vase painting and portrait statuary — as well as the pan-Balkan blue evil eye. According to his artist statement, the entire installation was meant to evoke the pandering displays in tacky souvenir shops. But beneath the dark humor, Alexandros had a positive message. “Many of the images on these ceramics relate to stories of tradition. Tradition in Greece (and elsewhere) has been the basis for countless horrible, nationalistic, and extremely conservative narratives. But, in some instances, it can also point us towards more radical ideas. For example, tradition can help foster a connection to the land, by which I mean the actual soil — something that has become revolutionary again today since it runs counter to so many globalized forces.”

Still, as we discuss how to synthesize such opposing views, it seems fitting that we end our conversation on the subject of land. After all, street artists are ever-rooted to their physical surroundings. And so we conclude by returning to the city of Athens one final time, with Alexandros saying, “In so many places in the West, public space is tightly regulated: you go to your work and after you go to designated places to enjoy yourself in very predetermined ways (bar, restaurant, theater). In between, public space is used only as a passage, with few actions produced there. But in the words Martyn Reed, I like to think of streets as ‘repositories of meaning for those who occupy and move through them, as places of contested perceptions and negotiated understanding.’ We can see this in Athens, where public space is chaotic and put under many competing demands. People, bikes, cars, and café tables fight over finite space. It’s not always pleasant, but I love the plethora of communication that happens in these increasingly squeezed plots of land. It excites me to see Athenians using every bit of public space available to them; you find people everywhere. The city’s residents continue to spend a large amount of time outside, together. Here, there is an intensity of community that I don’t find in other cities in Europe or the United States. For me, that’s the essential quality of Athens, that’s a big part of what makes it special.”

Alexander Strecker is pursuing a PhD in Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. His research explores how artistic practices register the contradictions inherent in ideas of crisis, periphery, and technology, with a focus on how these tensions are felt acutely in contemporary Greece while also resonating worldwide.

H ARTWORKS συνεχίζει τη συνεργασία της με το  Enterprise Projects υποστηρίζοντας το 9ο τεύχος EP Journal (ΕPJ) σε ανάθεση της SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020 από το πεδίο της επιμέλειας, Ιωάννα Ζούλη.

Διαβάστε εδώ το EP J9 με τίτλο “ΕΙΚΟΝΕΣ ΠΟΥ (ΕΠΙ)ΠΛΕΟΥΝ”

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

An online correspondence between Ioanna Gerakidi and Iria Vrettou, tracing Vrettou’s artistic practice as a vessel for thinking across the limits of the real, the potentials of the imaginary and the pleasure of the habitual, for becoming with monsters, animals, nymphs and other deities.

Ioanna Gerakidi (IG)
A poem

ceremonies rituals broken
legs wide open
allowing for others to come in
or out
to become

fragments monster animals
having more than one
head licking each others
wounds kissing
their darkness their light
where eternity is
real the ephemeral
is always

speculative

when movement is the only
entrance to silence
skin shows when covered
in blood colors clothes
history

when angels are born the water

flows naked when demons

die the earth grieves her cries

turn fire into love her scars

melt the human
psyches into laughter and affect
blues and bruises
of lives lived in parallel
in synch.

Iria Vrettou (IV)

IG

I’ve been reading a text of Raquel Gutierez, on the work of Wu Chang, it starts by them quoting the words of José Esteban Muñoz: “Communal mourning, by its very nature, is an immensely complicated text to read, for we do not mourn just one lost object or other, but we also mourn as a ‘whole’-or put another way, as a contingent and temporary collection of fragments that is experiencing a loss of its parts”. Muñoz’s words echo, in my ears, a cathartic scheme embodied in your practice; a paradoxical mourning arising from what you call “ephemeral border”, when referring to finding new forms of kinship, togetherness, love in between “water and land”, “individual and collective”, “solid centers and liquid peripheries”. And the reason why I think of this perpetual process as a mourning one, is because it comes with a perpetual separation from the self, in order to find and “touch” the other, a perpetual separation from “land” in order to find safety, or that which has never been explored, a perpetual separation from staticness, solidity, linearity in order to “grow bigger”, to quote the words of Kathy Acker. Within these endlessly transforming ways of being and producing and growing, are you ever scared? Have you ever been attracted by the pleasure and comfort of the habitual?

IV

I am scared. I think this ‘thrill’ of transforming, shifting, changing must include feeling scared. Forms of life are always shared — both collective & singular and in that, there is a responsibility.

I see producing as translating sometimes, and through that, new forms of language arise. There was this lecture of the philosopher Steven Shaviro, where he said something like “to imagine a language means to imagine a new form of life”, and then he continued with what Latour calls ‘a proliferation of hybrids’. To me, forms of life stretch everywhere, they do not respect the borders between entities, they have fuzzy outlines and resist definition. So, in this translation sometimes I am scared; in this exact responsibility I feel towards the real, the imaginary and the in between. What is being gained, and what is being lost in the process. And in this process I find comfort, also, and pleasure of the habitual. Creating worlds of hybrids and hybrids of worlds is an escape and something very familiar to me. It is hopeful.

IG

I’m thinking of your “Volcanic Identity”, for which again you engage with transformations, when you write about their power to “regenerate”. I googled the etymology of the word volcano, and realized that it was named after the Roman God of fire, “Vulcan”. And it’s interesting, because fire to me, is not only the most transformative element, but also -at least symbolically or mythologically- a tool and a mechanism to reach empowerment, demand agency, fight for existence, resist. It’s a vessel through which you can break hierarchies, protect your rights, desires and needs. In that sense, with your project “Volcanic Identity”, it’s not only demons, and nymphs, and all kind of deities that speak, shout, or shriek their voices, but also us, women, outcasts, marginalized, dismissed human, non-human, or as you say “more-than-human” beings.

IV

Absolutely. Volcanic Identity is queer identity. Queer, in the sense of resistance, metamorphosis, active participation, remapping, revisiting, recharging, cultivating, birthing, of a radical empathy and I can keep going. It’s an identity that helps me understand different states & concepts but also the realities around me. Volcanic is femme. And femme is a way of thinking for me. One which reclaims power, reclaims nurture, reclaims love, reclaims anger. Volcanic witchcraft.

Recently I’ve been having more and more dreams about volcanoes. And there is always a very familiar face involved. It is usually my mother, somewhere close by, closer to the crater than me.

And even though the Volcano erupts, and there is lava, and smoke, the dream is never angry, nor scary, nor sad. It is reassuring, it is a feeling of tiptoeing around a shift/a change/a leap. The more I dream of volcanoes, the more I speak to them and they speak to me.

IG

I read elsewhere that you speak of your works as portals. And I remembered you mom telling me once something about portals as inductions to things unknown and therefore as something that has to be tender in its abruption, comforting in its scary quality. I’m sure I paraphrased her words, but it’s interesting, because even though your practice uses various media, your (or your creatures’) presence allows for this exact inclusivity, stroke, affect required when entering an altering state.

IV

Dancing for me is a way to portal. Another one is dreaming. To either be a portal or go through one. And portals in themselves are a neverending in-between.

An ever-shifting feeling, which blends, absorbs and births new entities and moments;

Recentering with no center
Rebalancing without balance
Caressing the vicious
Wilding the tender
Becoming extremophilic.

Teeth and limbs and multiple tails.

Eyes and eyelids and tongues speaking

speaking in tongues

haunting in tongues
mumbling lava
mumbling compost
Portals of love
Profoundly in love.
Profoundly teratomorpho

IG

There is this exercise I ask from my students to do in advance of our first meeting, where I encourage them to send me their alternative short bio. And by alternative, I mean, writing about loves and rejections, past fears and future hopes, unrequited or fulfilled desires, astrology, candles, psalms or prayers, dances, walks or any other schemes meaning something to you.

IV

Dream sharing is something I’m hoping to practice more. It structures my thinking and renders my everyday experience. And I dream a lot. A scheme of dreaming? That could be a part of my short bio. This and making my favorite pasta dish. Cherry tomatoes, feta, caramelized with garlic. It’s a process of healing and comfort. The definition of the habitual for me.

Iria Vrettou is an artist, born in 1995 and based in Athens. She holds a Diploma in Animation from University of the Arts London and an MA in Contemporary Art Practice-Moving Image from the Royal College of Art, London. Her work is primarily focused on concepts and modes of hybridity as methods of research and practice, whilst addressing aspects of hand-drawn animation, performance and installation in relation to their conceptual, eco-queer functions. Her practice critically examines the function of the ‘screen’ in the context of cultural production and political processes, and explores the creation of art works that can work as disquieting, complete spatiotemporal experiences. Within this framework, in the last couple of years she has developed a keen interest in the real and symbolic life of volcanoes. She has participated in various art projects in Athens, London, Seoul and others. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). She was a resident of International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City (2022).

Ioanna Gerakidi is a writer, curator and educator based in Athens. Her research interests think through the subjects of language and disorder, drawing on feminist, educational, poetic and archival studies and schemes. She has collaborated with and curated exhibitions and events for various institutions and galleries and residencies and her texts and poems have appeared in international platforms, magazines and publications. She has lectured or led workshops, seminars and talks for academies and research programs across Europe. Her practice and exhibitions have been awarded by institutions, such as Rupert Residency, Mondriaan Fonds, Outset and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS, amongst others.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

In his latest solo gallery show, multidisciplinary artist Yorgos Maraziotis lures the viewer into an environment where not everything is what it seems. The exhibition Monroe Springs at Antwerp’s Base-Alpha Gallery consists of paintings and sculptures of different sizes, installed unorthodoxly to create a carefully-planned spatial choreography that puts the viewer’s body into different situations. The deeper visitors delve into the exhibition, the more they realise that behind the show’s apparent softness and playfulness hides a much darker layer, one that is full of violence, social injustice and late-capitalism ennui.

The exhibition’s title refers to an imaginary place, a Californian town perhaps named after Marilyn Monroe. Maraziotis chose this title because he draws inspiration from California, and specifically Los Angeles, for all the works he created for the exhibition. The artist has never visited Los Angeles though; the place exists in his mind as a collage of the representations he has been exposed to over mass media and through popular culture. The show is referencing the city and its history, but at the same time is also addressing the struggles and plight of any western or westernised modern city. Monroe Springs is therefore not a show about Los Angeles, but turns Los Angeles into a metaphor for 21st-century urban societies and the trappings of urbanisation and capitalism.

Upon entering the gallery space, visitors walk past a set of wall-mounted sculptures in the form of Japanese shuriken made of thick pink marble. The weapons’ sharpness is cancelled by the choice of material, and their colour imbues them with an attractive, almost edible quality. Functioning as the exhibition’s ceremonial gateway, a pedestal stands in the middle of the hallway carrying a pair of pristine white roller skates with iridescent details. The shoes are filled with soil into which two pink candles are standing lit. On either side of the pedestal and near the ceiling hang two neon lights in yellow and pink; they are based on a drawing by Maraziotis of cartoonish blood oozing from an invisible wound.

Passing the pedestal visitors find themselves in the exhibition’s first room. A large copper articulated sculpture is hanging from the ceiling like a metal spine made of laser-cut, identical abstract shapes. The impression of the sculpture changes as one moves around it, becoming almost invisible and razor-like from the side but curvaceous and figurative from the front. The shapes are again based on a doodle by Maraziotis, but being cut out of thin metal adds an element of danger and aggressiveness to them. On the wall across, a small painting is sitting on a metal shelf; a plant removed from its pot is placed right in front of it, concealing its content and at the same time duplicating the tropical plants depicted in the painting.

A pair of large paintings standing back-to-back on the floor conceal the entrance to the next room. They have been placed like a wall that separates this first part of the exhibition from the next, creating an indirect path for visitors to follow. Behind the two paintings and mounted on the wall with magnets is a pair of metal nunchaku, the Japanese karate weapon made famous by Bruce Lee and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Maraziotis’ nunchaku are connected with a very long chain to look more like a skipping rope, confusing in one gesture the limits between violence and play.

In the final and largest room of the exhibition, there are two sculptures. On the left there’s a curving white volume covered in ceramic bathroom tiles and a single metal tube coming out of its top like the railing of a swimming pool ladder. The end of this metal tube that touches the floor is pointed like a weapon. On the other side of the room there’s an austere metal structure that is modelled after a children’s swing with two seats — only in this case the swings are replaced by two angular slates of metal that dangle mournfully from their chains. Above the sculptures, two paintings of identical size are hanging from the ceiling like billboards. A red neon light in the same shape as those in the entrance tints the white wall with an ominous red glare.

The paintings at Monroe Springs are made using a limited palette of bright yellow, pink and red. At first sight, they seem cheerful and harmless, featuring lush palm trees and cartoonish forms painted sparsely on raw canvas. At closer inspection, and especially when one reads their titles, the paintings are in fact a blood bath, referencing violence both real and fictional. In the first room, the 2,4-meter-high painting Rodney King’s Liquor Circus (2019) is back-to-back with LA Guns (2019), referencing Rodney King’s beating by the LA Police in 1991 and the subsequent riots where over 60 people died. Hanging over the dystopian swings in the back room, the two paintings are referencing Kathy Acker’s violent postmodern writing (Cathy’s Eyelids, 2019) and Disney films (Bunny Love, 2019). The exhibition is constantly referencing the 1980s and 90s through various elements — whether that is the vintage roller skates, karate B-movies, the Los Angeles riots or Acker’s punk literature. This conscious decision relates to the constant tug of war that is taking place between violence and play throughout the exhibition, but also to the artist’s own nostalgia for a childhood that is becoming more and more distant (Maraziotis is after all a Millennial, born in 1984). This very clear reference to the late 1980s and early 1990s also highlights that although we change and move on, history repeats itself: this year we saw another filmed incident of excessive police violence in the US that sparked widespread riots, and we’re again sliding into a recession like in the 1990s.

Maraziotis incorporates these issues not only in each work separately but also in the conception of the exhibition as a whole. The nuanced, almost theatrical dramaturgy of moving from one space to the other, the underlying sadness that permeates every attempt to cheerfulness and optimism, the impact that the different materials have on the viewer, the show’s disorienting layout — all are elements that cannot be conveyed via photography and must be experienced in person. That said, Monroe Springs is not just a well-played game of perception and aesthetics, but also a melancholy recollection of the state of the world today. We were promised prosperity and peace, but we ended up with endless war and class oppression. We were promised a playground and we ended up in a torture chamber.

Review by Kiriakos Spirou, originally published on und-athens.com.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

In a way, honeybees are like artists. They venture into their surroundings, seeking out nourishment. In moving from plant to plant, they fertilize flowers and thus bring new life and more beauty to the world. Besides that, deep within their labyrinthine hives, they pool their nectar and painstakingly transform their labor into sustenance. Much like artists, the honeybees’ creative process is opaque from the outside. Few of us ever make the effort to peer into the honeycomb to understand how everyday materials are transfigured into something so sweet and nourishing. The artist’s studio remains similarly remote.

But if any two people are in a position to understand these twinned mysteries, it is the artist-couple Ioannis Koliopoulos and Paola Palavidi. After both growing up on the mainland, and later spending time abroad, the couple have settled together in Komi, a small village on the ruggedly picturesque Cycladic island of Tinos. Ioannis, alongside his artistic practice, has avidly embraced a different art form: beekeeping. And Paola, whose family hails from the island, participates fully in their rural Aegean community while maintaining her own creative output. Together, the pair have formed Hypercomf, a “multidisciplinary artist identity materialized as a company profile.” To understand their playful, boundlessly inventive efforts more clearly, I journeyed to the couple’s charming, white-washed home. While Ioannis was away on a neighboring island, Paola welcomed me into their shared creative universe.

In doing so, Paola put into practice one of her strongest beliefs: that artists need to open up, making both their profession and their work more inviting to the public. She tells me, “I’m against the fantasy of the artist alone in their studio; me alone with my brilliant thoughts. We should involve people in the making. Most times, they only see what happens at the end, and that makes our work needlessly mysterious and misunderstood. If people are let into the creative process from the start, they will have a better appreciation of what the final artwork means.” And so, with our task clearly laid out before us, Paola and I begin, slowly unraveling what Hypercomf — and more generally, what a transparent and truly open artistic mindset — might have to teach us about how we look at the world.

Paola and Ioannis met in London when they were 21 years old. Paola had grown up in Athens, Ioannis in the flat, central city of Karditsa. Both had left Greece for London in order to study art and see more of the world. Each was looking for something bigger out there and amidst this immense metropolis, they found each other. Paola has no trouble recounting the exact moment when their relationship deepened: “From the beginning, we were painting together. That is to say, side by side, in the same space, but still focused on our own canvases. Slowly, we began to play exquisite corpse. That is, we put a canvas in the middle of the room and one person would start painting. Then, they would leave it and allow the other person to pick up in their own direction. We continued this exchange, truly painting together now. It was like a game.”

Paola and Ioannis now had each other; next, they needed to fashion an environment in which they could both flourish. They returned to Athens where, individually, their practices were busy. They found the city’s artistic community welcoming and especially appreciated being once more amidst the Greek sense of humor. But over time, Paola began to recognize a “psychological need to be close to landscapes and nature.” Within the choked streets of the city, Paola did what she could, creating a personal oasis of “a balcony with 500 plants.” Still, she felt she had to get away. When she saw an opportunity to go to Tinos for work — helping run an educational program at a museum on the island — she jumped at it and Ioannis followed.

Upon arrival, Paola and Ioannis connected deeply with their surroundings. Ioannis, who had never before lived in such a rural setting, took up beekeeping. Paola, meanwhile, connected with the community from where her grandmother had originally come. “In Komi, half the people are my family. I call everyone aunt or uncle, since we are all somehow related.” More deeply, the island’s culture resonated with her and began to shape her perspective on the world. “Everything is more real here. I think it’s because death is so close at hand. There are over 200 people in Komi and only a few dozen are under the age of 50. That means people are dying a lot. Just outside my house, there is a bell ringing each time someone has passed away; that’s when you know the soul is departing. But none of this is morbid — it’s simply part of life. Death sharpens your focus and keeps away some of the pointless distractions of modern living.”

Immersed in the rhythms of their island village, the ideas behind Hypercomf began to percolate. Far from the galleries of Athens and the city-dwellers’ need to impress each other with their wit, originality, or cynicism, the project adopted a distinctly approachable character. Paola says, “We wanted to make functional art pieces that incorporated elements of design. The pieces would be easy to buy and appeal to a wide range of people. Our humble goal was to make everyday life a little more interesting.” At the same time, since the project emerged from the playful minds of Paola and Ioannis, it came with a twist. Hypercomf, from its beginning, adopted a “fictitious company profile,” a sort of faux corporate sheen that allowed them to poke fun at the commercialization of art while also opening themselves to the possibilities of reaching a wider audience. As Paola tells me, “For our first public event, we held an exhibition that doubled as a pop-up shop. It felt much warmer than an ‘art exhibition’ — we felt we were with the people. Out of this success, the idea of a fake company became established.”

Since its founding, Hypercomf has been a success: brisk sales, numerous openings, and an international footprint. On paper, the envy of many aspiring brands. But all of this, Paola reports to me with a mischievous glint in her eye, is part of the fun. To anyone who has seen their output, it is abundantly clear that Hypercomf is not your average company. For example, on the company’s e-shop, Hypercomf asks people to use its products for “multiple lifetimes” — an unlikely basis for a profitable business model. And anyways, as Paola reveals to me with a laugh, “The e-shop isn’t open yet. Two years after we started, it still says, ‘Coming soon.’ Yes, real soon, real soon — we’ll keep them waiting.”

But for Paola and Ioannis, the real interest of Hypercomf has been creating a new space for their playful explorations — an updated, online channel for their old games of painting-studio exquisite corpse. Given that the two artists have matured since their art school days, their creative spark has leapt beyond the bounds of their own partnership. As Paola tells me, they discovered that adopting a group identity opened up the possibilities of working with other artists. Paola says, “Something about the utopian idea of Hypercomf seems to activate people’s openness.” Such projects have included curating other artists’ work, set-designing exhibition spaces, all while utilizing a diverse range of mediums ranging from film to purely digital experiences.

Indeed, as she hinted at the beginning of our conversation, this expanding spirit of collaboration extends beyond fellow artists to the wider world. She tells me, “Right now, most people have no idea what artists do all day. Yes, making art is complicated — investigating materials, working through concepts, experimenting in the studio, finding money (that’s part of it too!) — but all of this work is real and many kinds of people can have a worthwhile input. I believe we need to involve our potential audiences: inform them, get their opinion, make them part of the process. Not only will they better understand the work, but I think it will make the work itself more interesting.”

She starts with an example close to home. Komi, her village, and the entire island of Tinos have contributed greatly to the material form of Hypercomf’s work. Like the honeybees which Ioannis tends, Paola describes a symbiotic relationship with the two artists’ immediate environment. “We try to find different ways to repurpose what’s already been made. Our work is not fully organic — we use computers and all kinds of manmade materials. But this reflects the reality that humans are everywhere now and so there is no ‘pure’ nature. For example, we use plastics we find on the beach. We use bones. And most of all, we use fabrics that we find stowed away, hidden in the community. A particularly good source are handmade tapestries and rugs. Our neighbors have been happy to open up their ancestral chests and give us their old fabrics; they just want to see them put to good use.”

She goes on to give another example from a project done in Italy. “We were invited to a textile factory and asked to respond to the building as well as the surrounding landscape. Of course, we could have done all our research online, taking ideas from elsewhere and looking at satellite images of the nearby mountains. Instead, we hiked up onto the slopes, found some shepherds, and explained our project to them. We asked if they would put GPS trackers on their sheep and suddenly, we had live data coming in from the locals. As the sheep’s wool had been used to create textiles, we used the sheep’s data to create new weavings that represented their journeys. We were so happy when the shepherd then came to the exhibition opening. He saw his own lands in a new way and he easily understood everything since he was involved in its creation.”

Hypercomf’s projects, both in Tinos and abroad, exemplify Paola’s belief of getting to know a place through its inhabitants and of making art almost literally from the ground up. In this light, then, it can seem odd that Hypercomf bases itself in such a remote location, seemingly secluded from wider connections to the world. But this is perhaps one of the key contradictions that the couple has learned to relax: between place and movement. With the lessons Paola and Ioannis have learned in Tinos about becoming embedded in their community, their fake company has put itself into global circulation, carrying its embodied wisdom everywhere it goes. She says, “Maybe 50% of our creativity happens in Tinos. We think internationally; we are nomadic. If the internet has done something good, it’s that you can live anywhere and still work just fine.”

This winter, for example, the couple will be in residence at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. Among the endless activities pursued in New York City, Paola and Ioannis found out about a small but tight-knit community of pigeon keepers who understand the city in a way different than anyone else. “Our goal was to research the various networks of the city: urban, digital, natural, transportation, jogging routes, etc. And then we discovered a great entry-point — these crazy pigeons! We plan to explore how this peculiar subculture works as a social structure — both for the humans and their animals.” And then she adds, characteristically, “It also suits us since people claim to love nature but they certainly don’t love pigeons or rats or cockroaches. We’re proud to have a victim of speciesism as the grounding for our next project.”

As we wrap up our conversation, we return again to the idea of structures and scale. It’s funny to think how New York City, a sprawling, bustling center of productivity, can also provide the setting for a small group of fanatics to fly pigeons, unnoticed by the city at large. For Paola, these nested frames are essential to how she sees the world. “I suggest everyone try to experience the full spectrum, from the micro to the macro. I have lived in a village with 200 people, an island with 8,000 people, a capital with four million, and a global metropolis with over ten. What I have learned is the universality of scale. My village neighborhood here in Tinos is like one building in Athens. But the city of Athens, as a community, is not so different from my island. The basic structure of hierarchies and what we individually pursue is always the same. In nature, the atom is round and the earth is round. Maybe the universe is round too? What works on the small scale seems to apply everywhere.”

Alexander Strecker is pursuing a PhD in Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. His research explores how artistic practices register the contradictions inherent in ideas of crisis, periphery, and technology, with a focus on how these tensions are felt acutely in contemporary Greece while also resonating worldwide.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

Nana Seferli’s studio is situated near the Southern suburbs of the city, and that, in Athens, means it can be found within the dense urban tissue, yet a breath away from the seacoast. In the broader region of Kallithea, the artist found a store space, bright and calm, among other small businesses and family houses. The wide street allows the sunlight to enter the room, where she paints among large canvases that brim every available surface. An enormous pink Bougainvillea tree consumes the front window and the entrance of the studio and seems to be enjoying the sun, nearly as much as does the artist, who spends most of her day there, behind that facade that resembles a vibrant summer house.

Seferli started working there after the former resident of the studio, a friend and artist, moved abroad. She explains that her working hours in the studio are more fruitful in comparison with those in her apartment, where she used to paint before. Her house, not very far from Kallithea, is already filled with paintings, material ideas, sketches, drawings and her favorite objects, while it also provides vital space for a cat, two parrots and herself. Beyond being “busy”, her private space functions more like a dynamic ecosystem of affection, comfort and safety for the artist and her loved ones. After all, she tends to establish her painting work in such holistic, non-hierarchical, organic terrenes.

Nana Seferli, Wheat Boat, 2022, acrylic on paper, 32 X 24 cm

She studied at the Department of Fine Arts and Art Sciences of the University of Ioannina and that progressive, decentralized department allowed Nana to explore her subjects, experiment with natural materials and envision the elements that were meant to reappear in her practice: organicity, textures, light, color. The calm and the uncongested environment of her student years in Ioannina is still present through her preferable working state: serene, yet approachable.

However, as part of her discipline and in absolute coherence with the principles that are suffused all over her work, Seferli has recently decided to expose herself in the challenging conditions of collaborative work process. With painting as a vehicle — probably the most lonesome artistic practice — she is currently in a creative dialogue with her colleague and artist Nicolas Simantirakis, sharing the same canvas’ surface. The result is a painting series in progress of monumental compositions, where conflict and unity can be both of great value. The fact that she confronts her tendency to work in isolation, not only challenges her off path, but also liberates her. In parallel, she is part of an alluring initiative, a closed weekly sketch session of a group of women artists that is taking place on a weekly basis at Olga Vlassi’s and Anna Zissi’s studio in Neos Kosmos. There, the participants draw using as models one another, in a healing and empowering process. Seferli is grateful for both experiences, and I find her passionate way of overcoming the challenges of co-creation is exquisitely inspiring and profoundly influential to her work in terms of practice, form and content.

Nana Seferli, Moose Hunt, 2013, ink and acrylic on canvas, 300 x 200 cm

Since her graduation, Nana was intrigued by the power relations between human and non-human entities within ecosystems, representation in patriarchal schemes and the invention of an abolishing iconography, as a response to the above. In her degree show, under the title Simulacra (2013), scenes of hunt intertwine with emblematic authoritative figures, hunters and armed women. Among other scenes and abstract portraits, she visualized an encounter between a moose and Theodore Roosevelt. The American president was a pillar of the belief that nature exists in favor of mankind. Incarnating a patriarchal and mechanical perception of the natural world, the president is here presented hunting the same animal that he used as his own, masculine symbol during his political campaign. Until today, Seferli investigates this arbitrary attribution of meaning — even speech — to silent and precarious subjects by those in power. In 2022, she published her limited self-published edition Metazoa, where she designed the whole Greek alphabet portraying an animal for every single letter.

Nana Seferli, Bird crying, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 40 X 50 cm

Seferli’s animal figures are not wild, nor tamed or enslaved. They are wise, emotional and self-actualized, but not human-like, as her painting is a reflection on an organic, autonomous and unified world. Cats, birds, dogs and plants project a realm of circulation and undisrupted flow, to which they contribute with their own special character and emotional imprint. At the same time, layers of gesso, acrylic and aquarelles form mountains, bring rivers and pulsing arteries into the third dimension. An idealized animistic utopia is very far from her inherently haunted compositions. Enigmatic animal figures, dominating vegetal organisms, scattered undefinable bodily forms evoke a sense of agony, they imply an obscure silent threat. The world as we know it, is at stake. It is not about the death of nature, it is, however, the end of the reign of structure, duality and force.

Nana Seferli, Makkuro, 2023, oil on canvas, 18 X 24 cm

Interestingly, as I am writing these lines about Seferli’s work, an article is going viral: orca whales have been witnessed to be attacking vessels in the ocean, driven by the urge to take revenge for the loss of their babies due to interventional human activities. According to a team of scientists, it seems as though the orcas witnessed a repetitive phenomenon that activated an instinct for defense against extinction. One, of course, cannot argue with certainty that this behavior is entirely mechanical, at least I prefer to think it isn’t. I like to read this behavior as an emotional response to a collective, as well as personal threat. Seferli’s depictions of the natural world incorporate this sense of subliminal lack of safety. The viewer cannot easily choose their subject of identification: are we the endangered ones or the danger itself? The figures of cats and birds have always been used in the classical tradition to evoke feelings of affection, admiration and calmness or even as symbols of high ideas, or people of power, divinities and political personalities. In Seferli’s work, animals govern their own life, and her visual language is not appealing, cute or easy to read. It is, though, as beautiful as a flock of orcas floating in the Iberic sea, seeking for revenge.

As I am leaving the studio, I notice that the closed store next door is a former butcher’s shop. A sign on the glass window informs the business is on sale, along with the store and its equipment. I peek inside: everything is white and clean and the room is nearly of the same width as the artist’s workplace on the other side of the wall. Nothing suggests the slaughter that was once exhibited there. Nothing but the shiny, clean blade lying on the wooden cutting surface. I imagine Nana sneaking in there one night, with her parrots perched on her shoulders, using her magical paintbrush to resurrect the animals and set them free into the wild once again.

Christina Petkopoulou

Nana Seferli (b.1989) lives and works in Athens, Greece. She graduated from the Department of Fine Arts and Arts Sciences of the University of Ioannina and continued her studies with a postgraduate degree from École Européenne Supérieure d’Art de Bretagne in Quimper, France. She has presented her work at festivals and art venues in Greece and abroad. Selected group exhibitions include: Ammophila Vol.3 There Was Land Here Before (Elafonisos, 2022), Imago Mundi in Venice in 2015; PEINDRE # 2 in MICA Gallery, Rennes (France, 2014); 7> 5 in Quimper (2013); Thrills and Chills at CAN Christina Androulidaki Gallery (Athens, 2013); and Kodra Fresh 2013 Floating Walls, part of the Action Field Kodra festival held annually in Thessaloniki (Greece, 2013). Together with Lucie Ferezou, she has co-curated and participated in the duo show Under the Luna, presented in Booze Cooperativa (Athens, 2018); and with Akis Karanos in the duo show The Way the Dog Ran Away, held at Galaxias Municipal Cultural Centre in Nea Smyrni, Attica (Greece, 2016). From 2014 to 2020 she worked as an art teacher in special and general education. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).

Christina Petkopoulou (Athens, 1992) is a free-lance curator, researcher and writer based in Athens. She has studied Archaeology and History of Art at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Paris I-Pantheon-Sorbonne and completed a master’s degree in Cultural Management at the Panteion University of Social Sciences. She is a member and the in-house curator of the A-DASH team, a researcher and curator of the online art projects a time of her own by Zoe Chatziyannaki and Athens Report by Anna Lascari. She has curated exhibitions and public programs (Lipiu, 2020, Playing Ground, Automatic Transmission, 2019, Liminal Aristeidis Lappas solo show, Praxitelous 33, 2016, Choro-graphies-Points of flight, Artscape Athens, 2014 and more). Her texts have been published in several editions and catalogues (The ArtNewspaper Greece, Lipiu, Vera Chotzoglou, Bona Fide, State of Concept, 2021, Ammophila II, Under the Burning Sun, 2021, The Feminine Sublime, 2019 and more). She has worked for the Greek Contemporary Art Institute (ISET) researching and documenting its archive and she has also collaborated with several cultural institutions such as the Athens Biennale (2013, 2015), Art Athina (2014, 2015) and Archaeological Dialogues (2015). In 2016, she was chosen for the Neon Foundation curatorial exchange program in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery and in 2019, she received the SNF Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS. She also works as a teacher and a copy editor.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

“So someone would have to wait for the perfect society before daring to speak? Or perhaps speak while disguising their meaning. Or altogether assume the risk and speak in order to lie,” remarks the protagonist of Theo Prodromidis’ film Towards the Bank of the Future, 2013(2013). As bodily presence in the public sphere tragically reemerges as a right needing to be constantly reaffirmed, we are called on to invent new ways through which we will be able to speak about participatory, political or public art. What do we really mean, or what are we trying to disclose, when we talk about art taking on the notions of the political subject, everyday life or the very art of politics and its historicity? Within the framework of this inquiry, the need emerges to reflect these issues anew in a manner that would bypass a series of archetypal ethical questions, such as who has the right to speak and in which way, and would, instead, focus on the reality of things: what is the vocabulary that could include the excluded subjects. If we want to stop speaking ABOUT these subjects and comprehend the actual condition of being excluded, it is perhaps necessary to dedicate oneself to the study of art’s capacity to let the precarious subjects speak for themselves.

In Prodromidis’ video Towards the Bank of the Future (2013), we follow a writer-intellectual as he visits monumental spaces and monument-spaces across the city and witness his revelatory meeting with a Cavafian character. A film documentation that starts off as an endless questioning of the citizen’s place through time and space soon turns into a record of the subject’s agonising need to become included in a historicity weighing heavily down on his/her shoulders. What ethical measure can a person apply when assuming the responsibility to be actively present within his/her own time? What are the costs involved and which parts of them are levied on the individual? The video contains footage from Cairo during the Arab Spring uprisings, shot in 2011 by Mosireen, the independent media collective that came together to document and transmit images of the Egyptian Revolution. Mosireen’s bottom-up approach delivered archive footage that figures as cracks or traumas inflicted on the narrative of Prodromidis’ video. The real space of action comes to provide an answer -and perhaps at the same time pose a challenge- to the main character’s existentialist self-referentiality and to the moral mire into which he is plunged. Historicity itself provides the answer on our behalf: “Somebody is searching for the right words and cannot find them, that’s why you don’t know what to say”.

Still, a few years later, Prodromidis teams up with actress Angeliki Papoulia and does indeed try to find the right words in the course of two 8 hour-long performances presented at Kunsthalle Athena, which will form the basis for his new installation, Goodbye Etc. Element for the support of new structures (2015). Following an open call, the artist amassed a collection of journals and books containing emblems that marked the development of left-wing political discourse. The gathered texts were then torn and taken apart randomly — or not — before being reassembled in front of the audience. The objective: to create a new book out of the existing ones. The publication resulting out of Goodbye…Etc. Element for the support of new structures (2015) traveled widely: it was shown at the Thessaloniki Biennale of contemporary art and at the Fodazione Sandretto re Rabodengo, where it was presented as an installation without, however, disowning its performative origins. These archives, bound together into 16 bright red copies-objects, claim to forge their own relationship with the audience, which is invited to leaf through them, change their position or even try and remove them from the exhibition space. Both the archives and the visitors participate in a well-orchestrated and surprising choreography in order to shape, using chance and their own mobility as a vehicle, a new, sculptural common space. Fragments of texts that played a key role in the evolution of revolutionary and emancipatory politics and whose echo still reverberates strongly not just in contemporary discourses articulating political demands but also on people’s collective memory, for a moment cease to function as theoretical monuments and organically transform into the joints of a live mechanism calling for involvement and active participation. Rid of the burden of having to deliver a narrative at the end his archival research, Prodromidis explores the possibilities of a dialogue unfolding between the text and the architectural landscape, as well as the public space and the people inhabiting it. The fact that Goodbye etc. performs all of the above in the context of institutionally established cultural settings, such as the ones provided by modern art biennials, already intimated a clear orientation towards a bold artistic practice which, in the following years, would tap even more firmly into the problematics germinating within the axis politics-art-community.

In 2019, the work A poem as an image (Amartolo) lends a voice to groups deprived of one. Woman activists, members of collectivities, and female immigrants read Galateia Kazantaki’s poem “Amartolo” and their voice becomes the focal point of an installation presented at State of Concept gallery in Athens, in the context of an exhibition curated by the collectivity What, How and for Whom / WHW. “From the depths of my hell I scream to you: I am your image, society, and I resemble you”, are the words blurted out from the headphones, thus delivering a public performance, an attempt to claim visibility. The poetry of a woman persecuted for her political activities placed in the mouths of women fighting for their experience of femininity to be acknowledged within the realms of society turns into an almost corporeal assembly releasing an emotional charge akin to that of a public protest. Yet the sound of this installation did not find an outlet into the urban space, which is the natural setting of every collective action, but instead resounded only within the confines of a modern art project space. To what extent, then, did the project manage to circumnavigate the authority of the dominant discourse, so as to challenge it or at least break its continuity? Prodromidis has no illusions: he does not believe that art is capable of bridging the distance separating the exhibition space from the socio-political sphere. Instead, then, of proposing solutions he brings into relief the potential inherent in each moment: he probes into, shapes and delivers a temporary performative field that is conducive to solidarity and participation, a sphere through which inroads can be made into the public.

Pushing on with this peculiar attempt to own up to the artist’s privilege vis-a-vis the community, in March 2020, in the context of the exhibition Translocal Cooperation held in Furtherfield gallery in London, Prodromidis decides to contribute an edited volume featuring texts written by multiple authors. In the work An open newspaper (You can’t evict a movement) (2020), the result of his collaboration with Theodoros Karyotis, Tonia Katerini, Stathis Mitropoulos, Nemanca Pantovic and Ana Vilenica, Prodromidis sets himself the goal of publishing a newspaper gathering new texts discussing the protection of first residence and the movements against evictions. In this manner, he tries to welcome people whose housing rights have been thrown into precarity and the solidarity movements favourably inclined towards them into an area of the public sphere that usually remains barred to them. Most importantly, though, he does this without purporting that his own writings can represent the members of this community, his track record of advocating for social causes notwithstanding. As the editor of the publication, he instead invited grassroots activists as well as scholars studying the solidarity movements organised in recent years for the protection of the first residence in Greece and Serbia. In Theo Prodromidis’ work, political activism, solidarity and the notion of collective action are not embodied in the work but rather heard, seen and strengthened through the work of art, whose visibility and institutional support the artist uses as his instruments. I finish this article, the result of many meetings and conversations with the artist, less with a sense of ownership over it and more with the feeling that it is a piece of writing I have contributed to. And this feeling possibly best encapsulates the importance of producing something in a shared condition.

Theo Prodromidis (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2019) is a visual artist and film director based in Athens, Greece.

Christina Petkopoulou (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2019) is an independent curator currently based in Athens.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

Augustus Veinoglou is a man in demand. Before we were able to find a moment to sit down and talk, I tried no fewer than a half dozen times to schedule a meeting. The recurring phrase I heard in reply was “non-stop.” But when I did finally get a hold of him, I began to understand the cause of his elusiveness. If you imagine that any single artist has x number of concurrent plans, project sketches, fantasies, and crazy ideas running through their mind on a given day, then just think about managing the experience of three or four other artists at the same time. This is Augustus’ daily juggling routine: trying to maintain clarity and headspace for his own work while simultaneously helping to sustain Snehta, an Athens-based artist residency that he founded in 2012, which has plans to welcome 12 different visiting artists over the course of the upcoming year.

Augustus has the stamina, perhaps even a bit of the masochist’s pleasure, to drive the tempo of this treadmill of endless demands. But as we sit together at a bar and ease into a moment of early evening repose — with the promise of a few days of August holiday ahead — I can see Augustus settle in, briefly, to a different mode of being. He seems to appreciate the rare pause for self-reflection. As the various, interlocking logistical loops begin to relax, we turn our attention away from the hustle of Athens and Snehta, focusing on Augustus’ creative origins as a sculptor. We start within the confines of the artist’s studio, and then slowly rippling outward, arrive at a wider view of the city’s contemporary artistic landscape, touching on the most fundamental questions facing Athens’ artists today.

Augustus grew up in Athens and left promptly at the age of 18. He went to Scotland to study fine art for four years, focusing on sculpture. The rigor of art school was formative, and the approach he adopted for solving problems in the studio has stayed with him since. “Sculpture is a battle with matter,” he says. “It’s like being an athlete: you’re striving for a goal that is very hard to see when you begin. Instead, you just go back, day after day, trusting your persistence will bring you closer.” I had seen Augustus around the city many times over the previous months, most often at openings, enthusing about other people’s work. But now it becomes evident that he maintains a hidden reserve of energy for his own practice. He goes on, “When you have a studio full of materials, it is a messy space. In the midst of it, you are standing there, everything depending on your hands and your mind. At the start, it seems like a mythological labor — almost impossible. You forget that you have done this already. And then, suddenly, the reminiscence of those other 100 times gives you the courage to begin anew.”

The other important habit built up during art school was the balance between self-motivation and external critique. “What I learned in school was how to push a project until there are no other options. It’s easy to stop midway, but you know when you haven’t done the best you could do. For me, good art reveals that it went as far as it could. In London, some artists respond to critical feedback by saying, ‘Fuck your opinion, I’m more important than you.’ But I don’t support this position. I know when something works; there is a DNA understanding when ‘it’ is there. It’s a feeling in my whole body — and that belief will resonate with others.”

As we talk, it becomes evident how Augustus’ passions can be infectious, whether over a single work or an entire artistic program. But more deeply, I see that what drives all of Augustus’ efforts is a desire to draw structure out of chaos, coherency from entropy. He says, “Matter and ideas are really the same. To create shape, all you need is space and time. For example, when I’m working on Snehta, I need to have sketchbook time. I start by writing things down: a wood workshop, two interns, a gallery space, three artists. These are our materials. And then I begin putting them together in different arrangements, seeing what will resonate, and what new associations emerge.”

But I divert Augustus back to his early formation as an artist, before Snehta had come into being; its institutional structure was still a long way off. After finishing his BA, Augustus went on a trip to Italy. This turned out to be key to his creative perspective. Little enduring artwork came out of his travels, but he “worked by moving through space and writing many texts, poetry, and observations.” In retrospect, this is where the first seeds of Snehta were planted. “It was here that I became intrigued by the imaginary dimensions of a given place,” he explains. “I had always been drawn to Italian cinema, and as I moved through the landscape, I began to see Italy as a modern, industrialized Greece. It was like my homeland, but as a parallel reality.”

In the years that followed, Augustus bounced between Scotland and Athens, while the idea of reimagining the familiar slowly evolved in his mind. Snehta first began as a personal project, seen solely from the perspective of one person. By reversing the name of his hometown, Augustus pushed himself to understand it differently. “I was back in Athens and began driving around the city. I found myself drawn to its periphery, the lesser-known areas. I used my car as a studio, drawing what I saw from the front seat or out the side window.” All of this was before the crisis, when Athens was still basking in the glow of its 2004 Olympic Games. Having left at a young age, Augustus found that he had both an insider’s and outsider’s view of his birthplace. He became interested in telling a different story about the city, hinting at its echoes with the American way of life. He thought about the similarities between Athens and LA, two cityscapes similarly dominated by the automobile. “Often, I would drive with a friend of mine who is an architect. At the end of the day, we would go up Mt. Hymettus, on the edge of the city, and look down on the expanse below. By removing myself from the city center and the street level, I could contemplate Athens more clearly.”

In 2012, Snehta took on a new form: the artist residency that continues to this day. Rooted firmly in the neighborhood of Kypseli, where Augustus has a long family history, the space offers its residents a temporary home to produce new work, and to also make sense of the endless contradictions of Athens. Snehta, then, continues the mission that motivated Augustus from the start: taking that which is familiar about the city and turning it on its head (hence the name). He explains, “Each residency culminates in a group exhibition, giving the visiting artists a chance to share their experience of the city with others. To me, the core of the project is exchanging points of view.” As Snehta established itself and began to grow, Augustus saw that his own efforts in the studio were in continuity with the work of creating an organization. As with any sculpture, Augustus strove to balance flights of inspiration with stability. He says, “My personal investment in the idea had to exist within a professional, sustainable structure. I wanted to share my experience of Athens with all the guests, but I soon found that I couldn’t always be the one showing the artists around, especially if I wanted to maintain my excitement. So I invited new curators to work on each show. Sharing the burden has made it more sustainable, but it also threatens to become too managerial. Fortunately, its continued evolution means the challenges are always different. That’s what makes it creative.”

Of course, from the first iteration of Snehta in 2006 until today, one thing that has evolved even more than Snehta itself is the city of Athens. In that time, the Greek capital has gone from Olympic host to a region wracked by crisis and, most recently, a city rediscovering itself through its (purported) recovery. Founding Snehta in 2012, amidst such a historically difficult time, has given Augustus a distinct perspective on Athens’ recent rebirth as an alternative, artistic hub.

He says, quite bluntly, “I’ve had a lot of problems with those who came during the crisis. They were opportunists. They came to Athens because it was cheap, warm, and a fun place to party.” Augustus’ opposition is not personal, but rather represents the substantive position of someone who has helped create an institution, however small, in a challenging environment. “My debate with these people is that they come with a very loose, free-spirited approach — and meanwhile, what we need most here is structure. We need to oppose ourselves to entropy. The fact that Athens became attractive to the press and the art world was a complete accident. A small group instrumentalized the crisis for themselves and in doing so, created a chain of effects outside of anyone’s control.” Skyrocketing rents in the center against stagnant salaries immediately come to mind as just one of these unintended consequences.

Augustus continues, “In Athens, we lack both internal structures and an awareness of our identity. As Greek artists, we are not good at contextualizing what we generate. For the outsiders who simply come here to enjoy the chaos, I have no respect. It’s like they’re putting their finger in the jam, and offering nothing in return. It shows that we’re still the tourist nation that we’ve always been. We can make nice facades, but we’re not able to generate anything of our own.”

Just as Augustus gets going, threatening to fall into that characteristic Greek position of criticizing everything to the point of paralysis — he steps outside of the pattern. His years abroad, it seems, grant him an ability to find a precious bit of remove. “It’s getting better, I’m positive about that. But improvement won’t happen on its own. In a city with a non-functional museum of contemporary art and no people in the ministry of culture who support artists, it’s easy to feel stuck. Or, if not stuck, at least demanding some legitimate institutions! Not foreign institutions, but home-grown ones. It’s not about trying to imitate what they’re doing in London or becoming the ‘new Berlin’ — that’s impossible. Even if we did everything like Berlin, we would still be different. But that’s a good thing; there should be thoughtful, structural calibrations towards our particularities.”

As the afternoon turns to evening and the bar around us begins to fill up, it’s easy to see what Augustus means. Anyone who has visited Athens knows the city has a unique energy, a rhythm and texture unlike anywhere else in Europe — as far from Berlin or London as you could imagine. Why should Athens resign itself to be merely an echo, an imitation of another city’s success? Augustus concludes, “We don’t need to become stiff, but we do require some organization. We must create the space to use our difference rather than try to break it; celebrate what makes us Greek, rather than dismissing it. Think about the importance of family structures here and how they are connected to one another. That’s just one example; we always look Westward for guidance without seriously studying our own country. We should maintain our freedom, openness, even our humor. But we can’t give in to chaos.”

Despite his grand vision, Augustus ends our conversation by admitting, “Listen to me going on — I’m just trying to survive.” Indeed, this is where his personal efforts, organizational forays, and institutional critique all come together. He says, “One thing we’re sorely lacking in this community, at all levels, is a discussion about sustainability. As an artist, I wonder how I can keep going, if I still have the fire it takes. For Snehta, I wonder if it can be sustained and continue serving the community. And for Athens more widely, I’m curious if this recovery (economic, creative, and otherwise) will last.”

But ever the problem-solver, Augustus doesn’t allow these questions to hang in the air unanswered. He quickly runs through a mental list of to-dos, areas for improvement. “One thing we are lacking is audience-building skills. I am always asking myself: Why is Snehta relevant to anyone beyond my little world? Who else could I invite to my next event? How can we relate the residency to more people? These are questions for all of contemporary art! I don’t believe the answer lies in changing the art or watering it down. Rather, it’s a question of how we exhibit the work, and how we invite others into the experience. At Snehta, we emphasize participation-based practices. I want to support artists who are interested in the community, and who feed their energy back into their surroundings.” And then, Augustus grows adventurous once more, his desire to develop new forms manifesting yet again. “An art exhibition might not always be the most successful vector. I love trying new things. For example, in the spring, I organized a treasure hunt across Kypseli. Why does art have to stay within the walls of the institution?”

Alexander Strecker is pursuing a PhD in Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. His research explores how artistic practices register the contradictions inherent in ideas of crisis, periphery, and technology, with a focus on how these tensions are felt acutely in contemporary Greece while also resonating worldwide.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

Nicolas Vamvouklis (NV): Foteini, it’s great meeting you at the Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, where your solo show is currently on view. This is actually the first time I get to see your work up close. Could you briefly introduce me to your art practice?

Foteini Palpana (FP): It is great meeting you too, Nicolas, and thank you for this interview. As is the case in this show, my work develops in installations combining different mediums, which tend to become more sculptural over the years. My practice is linked to an interest in categories of the natural environment, such as the ground and the landscape. In the past, my works have adopted the characteristics of the map, the model, the index, or the archive, gradually giving way to artificial environments of geological or even bodily formations.

NV: A couple of years ago, you created “View of Me,” a performance for the camera, and now this exhibition is entitled “View of Us.” There seems to be a shift to collectivity. How do these two cases relate to each other?

FP: Performance for the camera is recurrent in my practice. So far, I am the performer of minimal actions that either put me in some kind of contact with the natural element (e.g., “Stand” 2015) or others that focus on the interaction with my works, which is the case in “View of Me.” I regard this video as a key piece not only to the present exhibition but to my overall focus. When I explore and portray my own response to the natural surroundings, I am hoping to recreate a relatable human experience. So, this shift between Me and Us, far from revealing a change in thinking, it rather indicates that they may be used interchangeably, especially when it comes to (what I consider to be) our universal, fundamental right to experience nature in an unlimited, uninhibited way and access it with our senses.

NV: I’m naturally contrasting at the moment your physical characteristics being petite and fragile to the sculptures here, which are pretty heavy and rough. In a previous conversation with Constantinos Hadzinikolaou, you mentioned that the “scale and weight [of the works] indicate the limits of my abilities.” Could you elaborate on this?

FP: This means that I try to create things I can carry or at least move them around and work on them myself. Inevitably, I often need help with their transportation. However, whether a sculpture is big enough for me to walk on or such that I can lay it on me, their size is always in some rapport with my own. There is this sense of a one-to-one relationship, some kind of respectful confrontation, where I am often surprised to discover my limitations.

NV: I find it quite touching how you move around the exhibits. Your gestures reveal a caregiving relationship. What is your idea of care?

FP: This relationship begins in the making, where instead of bringing a sculpture to match a preconceived image, I set the guidelines for it to develop while I work and observe. Then, there is the handling of the works: no matter how big and rough they are, fragility is also one of their characteristics. At times it resembles a choreography, a slow one, where I have to hug and place them, also being careful not to overwork myself. I am not the most patient person, but I understand that caring means giving time in this instance.

NV: My favourite piece in this show is “View of Us — Soft Sculpture I.” The way you have sewn up the fabric reflects the perpetual shaping of the landscape. But, at the same time, it gives me sartorial vibes, so we return to the body. Could clothing bring a new direction to your research?

FP: I have been making these soft sculptures for some time now, and I enjoy exploring the properties of the fabric and its several possibilities as sculpture material. It is a compensation for the limits set by the hard materials I usually use. Softness is always relatable to the body and the pleasure of touch. Although I like to encounter a corporeal element in the volumes and the surfaces I create, I am not (yet) drawn to building directly on the human body.

NV: I’m trying to imagine your working space. Could you give me a glimpse of your studio?

FP: I share a studio with my partner and fellow artist, Giannis Cheimonakis. Although I enjoy my studio space very much, it may remain unused for large periods of time, while there are times when it resembles a construction site. There was this period while working for the show when the space had to be strictly divided into two zones: the messy, muddy, and dusty one and one impeccably clean, where I could work on the fabric pieces.

NV: Last summer, you spent some time on a residency program in Ios. It is exciting that there are more and more cultural initiatives in the Greek periphery. How was your experience of the local community accessing contemporary art?

FP: The residency in Ios was an initiative by Dimitris Foutris (also the curator of this show) and the association Save Ios. The objective was to foreground the natural environment of the island and raise awareness of the human intervention. In this first edition, I participated together with Dimitra Kondylatou and Orestis Mavroudis. Right before an intense tourist period, people were keen on meeting and assisting us, discovering our approaches to their own familiar place. Dimitra worked on a video based on her interaction with people that live and work in Ios, while Orestis’ work in the public space meant that the community, including the authorities, were involved in order to enable him.

What we gathered from this endeavour was the demand for continuity. People in peripheral communities are interested in strengthening the presence of contemporary art on a continuous basis rather than one-off events — and this is also the intention of Ios Art Residency. We met people preoccupied with the cultural profile of their community and fully aware of the importance of such initiatives for the cultivation of environmental and social sensitivity.

NV: Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are also originally from a Cycladic island. What’s your connection with your homeland? Would you consider launching an art project there?

FP: That would be Syros. I am not from there originally, but I spent there my whole adolescence and go back to my family and friends as often as possible. On the other hand, many of my works do originate there. Interestingly enough, Syros is an important geological site, and of course, apart from that, it carries a rich history from the first prehistoric settlements to today. With Campus Novel artist group (I was a member until 2020), we worked on a site-specific workshop and group show that took place there, focusing on the lighthouse of 1834 on the islet facing the port of Hermoupolis.

Recently, environmental issues have arisen that have people, friends actively involved. As we can see, there are wider concerns across the Cyclades about the welfare of the unique ecosystem and the conservation of the landscape, along with worries about the rapid turn to a tourist-dependent economy and the societal change this inevitably brings about. To return to your question, I am personally preoccupied with all this, and naturally, it has been finding its way into my work. I am not settled yet on launching another project in Syros, but I would very much like among my next steps to be a show there, as a response to the place and the people I love and with whom I share such a common background.

Foteini Palpana (1984) is a visual artist and art educator living in Athens. She holds a BFA and MFA from the Athens School of Fine Arts with a scholarship by the Onassis Foundation, as well as a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Athens. She is a recipient of the 1st ARTWORKS SNF Artist Fellowship Program 2018–2019. Between 2011 and 2020, she was a member of the group Campus Novel, with artistic and curatorial activity. She has participated in artist-in-residence programs, and her work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and project spaces in Greece and abroad. “View of Us” curated by Dimitris Foutris at Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, is her first solo show in an art gallery.

Nicolas Vamvouklis is a curator and arts writer. He is the artistic director of K-Gold Temporary Gallery and has curated exhibitions at Mediterranea 19 Biennale, 7th Thessaloniki Biennale, and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. Since 2016, he has served as senior curator at the Benetton cultural panorama. He has also collaborated with Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Marina Abramovic Institute, Prague Quadrennial, and Triennale Milano. Vamvouklis contributes to art magazines and publications, including The Art Newspaper and MIT Press. In 2021, he was awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

In psychoanalysis, it is common for patients to repeatedly relate the same events. A slight change in the structure of a sentence or a word used mistakenly in the course of one of the many iterations can shift the patient’s way of thinking and force them to see themselves in the reality of the situation, now presented under a different light. Something completely obvious to one’s milieu may remain unperceived by the person in analysis. Once aware of this otherwise conspicuous trait, the patient becomes frightened. It is a little like seeing one’s bare back captured in a picture. How scaringly blatant is this image! The experience produces a displacement of what was previously a familiar part of one’s body and personal narrative and in that sense cannot but inspire fear.

When I look at Anastasia Douka’s sculptures, the same thought always springs to mind. “But it is obvious,” I hear myself musing, though of course I have never before imagined or recalled in this particular way the object Anastasia chose to use. Once Anastasia’s sculptures have rendered their revelatory service to the object, the result is the emergence of a new type of ‘existence’. The object, be it a chain, an inverted ladder or the ‘skin’ of a crocodile or a female figure depicted in a public sculpture, is displaced first mildly, then at an intimidating degree.

This ‘object’ is so close to my nose I almost feel I am unable to see it! Or, to put it more accurately, it is embossed on my nose. Suspended half inside, half outside my nostril, it radiates as it is left to create prismatic reflections on the symbol it has chosen as its content.

Anastasia’s sculpture is embossed on body and conscience alike. Therein, in my opinion, lies the explanation for the coexistence of the positive and the negative in her practice.

The works are like toys that have been cut open, revealing an interior you had always formed a picture of though not quite in this way. When faced with Anastasia’s sculptures, I have the feeling that I am wearing an elastic mask. I suck on it with my mouth so that the plastic skin of the mask becomes attached to mine. Then this skin bursts, and, for a while, I see it reappearing before me.

Anastasia Douka (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2019) is a visual artist working with sculptural media. Her work “Crocodile” is presented in the group exhibition “Unhappy Monuments” at Parko Eleftherias (10–20 October, 2020).

Andreas Ragnar Kassapis (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020) is a visual artist working in painting, text, sound and photography.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

Picture yourself standing alone on the highest point of an island. In every direction you look, the land runs underneath your gaze. It may be bare in places, there may be trees, roads, buildings, terracing, walls, farms, hotels, beaches — but, at some point, everything falls away and ends at the sea. If the island is small enough, you will be able to see its limits in every direction you turn. Your separation is unavoidable: the word “insular” derives from insula, the Latin word for island. Still, if you are lucky, other forms are visible in the distance. No need to despair then: close by, you have neighbours, new people to meet, other lands to explore. As solitary as you might feel standing on these heights, there is the comfort that your island is part of something bigger: an archipelago.

There is no way to understand Kyriaki Goni’s work without the concept of the archipelago. More than a cluster of islands, it is a community — a carefully balanced collection of individualities that each retain their sense of separation and independence. A confederation of singularities. The clear inspiration for Kyriaki, in this regard, are Greece’s approximately 6,000 islands. Indeed, for the seafaring ancient Greeks, the water separating their islands was neither empty space nor a barrier, but an interconnected web of swift roads and fertile feeding grounds.

Kyriaki tells me she spent every summer (“beginning at age 0”) traveling across the Aegean archipelago. As a multi-disciplinary artist who focuses on the relationship between humanity and technology, for Kyriaki, the idea of the archipelago has a contemporary analog: the network. While popular techno-discourse pushes us to feel ever-more connected (to make more and more “friends”), Kyriaki’s vision of a network aims to retain the individual within the larger group. Even her most up-to-date work flows back and forth through time: an InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) overlaid with the ancient geological structures of the Aegean islands; a 19th-century astronomer converses with a machine learning algorithm.

But before ranging too far afield, let’s begin with the single point at the center of this particular assemblage: Kyriaki herself. Born in Athens, Kyriaki was educated at the city’s German school (to the extent that she calls German a “second mother tongue”). Trained first in anthropology, in Greece and then the Netherlands, she eventually returned to settle in Greece. Kyriaki, though influenced by her research-based training, is definitively an artist. She tells me, “The starting point of my works are very emotional. It’s not a research curiosity that drives me but an ‘emotional trigger.’ My topics are ones that I’m moved by as a person, as a human being, living right now; not as a ‘researcher.’ For example, my recent works have focused on observing technology and how it’s connected to society. I want to understand how these processes affect me, and then how they are shaping the way we all live, perceive, and express our emotions.”

But, I ask her, with the growing popularity of research-based artistic practice, she must draw on her anthropological studies to some degree? She resists: “My creative process is never strictly linear. Throughout my preparation, I feel myself falling into a black hole: I become overinformed, I’m in chaos. Eventually, this becomes a period of digestion; eventually, something starts to take shape. It’s not a predictable process, but neither is it driven by luck. Inevitably, my feelings, my observations, and yes, my research, start to form structures which organize my thinking. Still, I am uneasy when people present their artistic process as overly ‘research-oriented.’ Methodologies and rigor are fine but we shouldn’t, as artists, lose our freedom. Creativity and openness are the most important traits we have.”

To drive home her point, she draws one more contrast: “I feel certain that the artistic process cannot be quantified. Yes, there are specific times of day when I’m ‘working’ — that is, consciously thinking and gathering material. But I don’t have an 8-hour schedule; it never stops. Ideas and solutions pop up throughout the day (and the night!), especially when I’m not in the studio. I believe you must put your brain, your body, and your soul into the artistic process — you must expose yourself fully to the questions you’re having. There is never truly a pause; a part of my mind is always dedicated to these questions.”

Going beyond Kyriaki’s internal processes, we discuss how these complex tangles of emotions and research find concrete expression. Take a recent project, Networks of Trust, motivated by an opposition to how world’s largest corporations (Facebook, Google, et. al) are profiting from our memories and feelings. To explore this vast subject, Kyriaki produced a multi-faceted work, consisting of a media installation, drawings, an audio manifesto, and a trove of digital material that can only be accessed when viewers are in proximity with one of three nodes that make up her alternative “network of trust.” Thus, like a pilgrim from days gone by, Kyriaki asks us to travel to one of the trio of nodes (on Tilos; in her studio in Athens; and a nomadic one which pops up wherever the project is exhibited) to experience the work. Through her demand, the universal ease and convenience promised by today’s start-up culture is confronted with an old-fashioned idea of locality, the topos.

Such a sense of place is essential for Kyriaki, since from this groundedness, she can emphasize the idea of collectivity. She says, “It’s important for me to cultivate a collective narration at the bridge between ancient oral traditions and contemporary internet culture. For example, in another project, Aegean Datahavens, I imagine places where our data could be stored and protected, not exploited. These havens would be powered by the sun and cooled by the Mediterranean water. They would be owned through a cooperation of the islands that housed them. They would mirror the way in which memory has always been preserved amongst islanders, as a shared effort.”

Across her works, elegant syntheses of disparate artistic materials help her imagine futuristic possibilities built on past relationships — a return to old ways, but with a difference. Indeed, Networks of Trust, Aegean Datahavens, or any of her projects really, are telling of the way that Kyriaki asks us to question our relationship to technology. She is no Luddite, she does not want to smash the machines. She expertly utilizes P2P and IPFS technologies. But she also wants us to be reminded of other ways of thinking, remembering, relating, and looking. She reveals how the newest, must-have technologies insist on making us forget that we ever lived otherwise.

But she is never didactic, nor patronizing. Rather, Kyriaki’s works reveal themselves gradually; they demand time and listening. She admits, “They are highly complicated. I can’t escape this. They ask for your sustained attention and engagement.” Two things that in our contemporary media environment are often in short supply — which is exactly why such slow work is invaluable today.

The subtlety of Kyriaki’s message may be difficult to grasp for overtaxed adults, but she is gratified with her work with children. In a series of workshops, with titles like, “Do Robots Dream, Mom? Are Robots Afraid, Dad?”, Kyriaki commits time and energy to working through these same topics with the next generation. She is consistently amazed by their flexibility and creativity. For example, a group of children asked to invent their own “Aegean Datahavens” came up with refreshingly original solutions. Meanwhile, in another workshop focused on our relationship to technology, an unaccompanied Syrian refugee child living in Athens spoke about the importance of Messenger for keeping in touch with his distant family. Moments like these help broaden Kyriaki’s perspective. Our contemporary society has countless tech evangelists and a small but vocal chorus of critics. Rarer, though, are those who ask us to be more thoughtful with our machines while connecting their functions to ancient practices of connection and communication.

Kyriaki has another motivation for running her workshops: countering the feeling that people on the periphery have of always being behind. Especially when her work began to focus on technology, she became worried herself about not having access to the latest advances and developments. Even as someone with the fortune of access to a good education, experiences abroad, and the ability to travel, she regretted her remoteness. She didn’t want young people in Greece to have the same fear.

Lately, though, she has begun to see her surroundings in a more positive light. After all, it is the particularities of Greece that have informed her belief in other, older kinds of networks. And anyways, she adds, “People on the periphery are closer to each other.” She then goes on, “Being on the periphery has its problems but it can also be fruitful. You have the space to take a different approach. I feel like I have an off space quality, one that allows me to draw on local and personal experiences to have a more balanced perspective. These days, I don’t feel like I’m chasing after the latest thing. Instead, by being in the periphery, I feel a desire to support other people who are with me on the edge.”

As we conclude our conversation, we turn once more towards the future. While the periphery has often been defined from the outside as that which is behind, away from the center and its cutting-edge developments, Kyriaki points out that the edge also lies at the frontier and the avant-garde. She says, “While preparing my presentation for Transmediale on Networks of Trust, I came across something from a writer about the concept of the periphery. He said that we, on the international periphery, have the destiny to be the first to meet the future. For example, the peripheries have already been the first areas to face the effects of climate change. This is frightening but also inspiring. Who knows what will come out of the periphery next?”

Alexander Strecker is pursuing a PhD in Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. His research explores how artistic practices register the contradictions inherent in ideas of crisis, periphery, and technology, with a focus on how these tensions are felt acutely in contemporary Greece while also resonating worldwide.

3 137 is an artist-run space in the center of Athens that was established on a turning for the future of the city as a contemporary art destination and a manifold political battleground. In the past two years, artists and members of 3 137, Paky Vlassopoulou, Chrysanthi Koumianaki and Kosmas Nikolaou curated a contemporary art project that revolved around the state of the city, as this appears to be ten years after the founding of the organism; a financial breakdown of the Greek state, a documenta hosting and a pandemic later. 3 137 inaugurated F.A.R (Floor Area Ratio), a series of events, radio shows and workshops referring to the particularity of the housing problem in Athens and beyond, while addressing in a characteristically confrontational way the (art)world, and the urban condition under which their hybrid art organism has been born.

In June 2022, as part of F.A.R., the team curated “Ideas and Solutions for your Home”, a group show which took place in the space of 3 137 and the next-door building, former music club Enallax. In this final chapter of the F.A.R project, 3 137, particularly interested in the perception of the notions of home and housing, instigating from the paradigm of Athens, strived for a more esoteric, universal experience: the fragments of familiar memory, common images, the abstract outline of everyday objects that draws our impression of a household.

The group show hosted the work of Greek and international artists and collectives, archival material, design objects, artifacts and texts in order to put together a two-stage setting that enabled the viewer to engage with the artist’s interventions, intrigued by a feeling of coziness, subtly -yet constantly- invaded by a sense of estrangement. How can a house serve as a monument of use? How distinctive to the emotional gaze of its resident is the aesthetic stratigraphy of an apartment? The group’s curatorial approach of the project, instead of reflecting these questions from a certain distance to attempt an epistemologically “correct” aspect of the transitions occurred in inhabiting and cohabiting in the past few years, it aimed to inspect those transformations within the confidence of their subjectivity, like a neighbor behind their window (or perhaps the neighbor’s cat) observing the outside world from the -debatable- safety of their home. The 3 137 team, along with the artists invited, delved into the concept of “home”, as this can be experienced in a house, a neighborhood, a city, in a shared cultural or physical environment.

The show’s title “Ideas and Solutions for your Home” is a reference to an acclaimed design and decoration magazine, printed and published in Greece during the 1990s. In an era defined by a narrative of wealth and ambitious expectations (yet lacking Instagram filters and Pinterest), middle- and upper-class Greeks flipping through its pages, accessed an imagery of prosperity and perfection, culturally neutral and satisfying, with harmonic color tones, smooth fabrics and spacious rooms lacking human presence. Those ready-to-wear design settings and house trends invaded massively the properties of privileged at-the-time Greeks, who could finally buy their own houses with the blessings of the thriving economy and generous housing loans. Surprisingly, in the ongoing economical and real-estate context, the title sounds differently than it did twenty years ago: I unintentionally think of a problem that asks to be solved with good, redemptive ideas.

In the exhibition space, design objects and hand-made rugs from Thrace co-exist with Maria Toumazou’s disarticulated bed headboard, Shreyas Karle’s uninviting cushion, Hera Büyüktaşçiyan’s industrial, carpets with her personal, mysterious carved language, Andreas Sell’s photograph depicting all of his material belongings and Claire Fontaine’s Epikourou 26, key on the wall. With the mental image of the safety locks hanging all around Athens including keys of apartments for short-term rent, I stood above the archive material of the -now closed-Thessaloniki Design Museum staring at fragments of its un-housed collection.

Intimate and mysterious, Marc Camille Chaimowitz’s Vasque tapestry was placed strikethrough the glass window of the 3 137’s studio. Its surface served as a gate to a family room, invoking the feeling of entering a private space, where we have been welcomed at some point of our lives. With the uncanny pattern of decorative urns, the tapestry encloses a memory of the artist’s Jewish-French heritage and at the same time a reminiscence of the banal tapestries covering the walls of the apartments of our grandparents since the 1970’s. There, where one could find framed family photos and paintings, like the fragile canvases by Niki Gulema, lying on the floor and on the tapestried wall. Sensitive glimpses of color deriving from an obscure place of one’s personal history, Gulema’s works responded to the viewer’s uncertainty on how to pose themselves inside the gallery space: as a house guest with a slight reluctance, like the painting on the floor expecting to find its place on the wall.

Wandering in the exhibition space, in and out of the familiar premises of 3 137, out on the street of Mavromichali -my own neighborhood-, to the next-door building of Enallax club -a point of reference of another generation that makes me nostalgic of something I’ve never lived-, I kept thinking of the intensely sensitive nature of comfort. One can feel comfort in familiar spaces that they have once been inhabited or even in ones reminiscents of the latter. Equally, friendly faces can be often as heart-warming as familiar objects, like the ones in the photo prints of Eleni Bagaki hanging on the walls of the club’s first floor, her installation The Importance of Reading, Writing and Exfoliating. A mixer you cooked with ten years ago, a coffee machine that reminds you of your mother and strangely, objects that imply the former use of a stranger, as if their contact with human body broke their glossy, cold, industrial husk forever. All these everyday objects, devices and banal containers, most probably hidden in cupboards in professional design-architectural catalogues, don’t they signify the difference between a space that is being lived rather than just visited? Meanwhile, in the next room, Thodoros Tzannetakis presented for the first time his collection of Braun items, juxtaposing them with care on a case he discovered in the 3 137’s space. The electric devices with their own history, colorful, shiny objects, futuristic in their own time and eye-candies in the present, stand now out of use in a rare assemblage.

Comfort however, doesn’t go along with risk, and crossing boundaries is a risk worth taking. Curator Eva Vaslamatzi wrote a piece that, through her creative collaboration with graphic designer Stavros Bilionis, stood as an artwork on the front door of the music club. Visible and readable from the passers-by, Vaslamatzi’s text was an ode to the fluidity of the term of “space”: physical, domestic, inhabited, or historical. Discussing the rigidly definitive relation of space with time, she exposes herself as a creator moving gracefully into a position of which she has profound knowledge, yet it was never acquired by herself before. Fairly, 3 137’s choice to work solely as curators of this particular project, even though it is not primarily unexpected, since they have been actually curating the space’s program with the strict and the broader sense of the term for the past ten years, one can’t help thinking that it wasn’t the easiest way to go. From the large scale production the activation of a nearly abandoned building, to the creative insightfulness of involving young and established artists, archival material, exhibits from an ethnological art museum and the contributions of artist collectives, 3 137 ran thoroughly an ambitious and courageous curatorial project, owned it and most importantly shared it.

After the exhibition tour, I found myself on the terrace of the former music club, exposed to the actual residents of the neighborhood. An open space, viewed directly from dozens of windows and balconies of the surrounding blocks of flats, hosted the red silk banners of Byron Kalomamas Silk-Banners in Limbo or How to Undo the Meander and Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann’s installation She Vomits the Forty-Seven Oranges she Swallowed Whole for a Bet. They Fall from Her Mouth one By One Strings of Saliva Accompany Them. Neighbors would gaze at the top of the building from their own homes. They were watching us walk among the oranges, spread on the floor, an image well-known for the Athenians, since the streets of the city are occasionally covered with the products of a certain variety of citrus fruit trees. Kalomamas’ blood-red banners with their drawings seeming to have been extracted from a manual of a strange, complex machine, waved in the summer breeze. The former night club is now on sale.

*F.A.R. (FLOOR AREA RATIO)-PART III Ideas and Solutions for your Home took place between June 9 — September 24, 2022 at 3 137 artist-run space in Athens with the participation of: Eirini Apergi, Eleni Bagaki, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Katerina Charou, Elli Christaki & Thessaloniki Design Museum (Dorothee Becker, Bruno Munari, Aldo Rossi), Eteron — Institute for Research and Social Change, Claire Fontaine, Iannis Ganas, Niki Gulema, Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann, Byron Kalomamas, Shreyas Karle, Pennie Key, Audrey-Flore Ngomsik, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Amalia Pica, Viktorija Rybakova, Andreas Sell, Evi Sougkara, Eric Stephany, Tastes of Damascus, Ethnological Museum of Thrace & Aggeliki Giannakidou, Maria Toumazou, Thodoros Tzannetakis, Eva Vaslamatzi, Come to Greece gia na tin vreis (Greg Haji Joannides, Em Kei)

3 137 (Paky Vlassopoulou, Chrysanthi Koumianaki and Kosmas Nikolaou), Eleni Bagaki, Niki Goulema, Byron Kalomamas, Pennie Key and Eva Vaslamatzi are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

Christina Petkopoulou, (Athens, 1992) is a free-lance curator, researcher and writer based in Athens. She has studied Archaeology and History of Art at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Paris I-Pantheon-Sorbonne and completed a master’s degree in Cultural Management at the Panteion University of Social Sciences. She is a member and the in-house curator of the A-DASH team, a researcher and curator of the online art projects a time of her own by Zoe Chatziyannaki and Athens Report by Anna Lascari. She has curated exhibitions and public programs (Lipiu, 2020, Playing Ground, Automatic Transmission, 2019, Liminal Aristeidis Lappas solo show, Praxitelous 33, 2016, Choro-graphies-Points of flight, Artscape Athens, 2014 and more). Her texts have been published in several editions and catalogues (The ArtNewspaper Greece, Lipiu, Vera Chotzoglou, Bona Fide, State of Concept, 2021, Ammophila II, Under the Burning Sun, 2021, The Feminine Sublime, 2019 and more). She has worked for the Greek Contemporary Art Institute (ISET) researching and documenting its archive and she has also collaborated with several cultural institutions such as the Athens Biennale (2013, 2015), Art Athina (2014, 2015) and Archaeological Dialogues (2015). In 2016, she was chosen for the Neon Foundation curatorial exchange program in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery and in 2019, she received the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS. She also works as a teacher and a copy editor.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

As most interactions these days, the conversation between Maria Mavropoulou and myself about her practice happened virtually. Nothing out of the ordinary in these times you may rightfully argue. And yet never has the virtual space been more appropriate to discuss someone’s work as with Mavropoulou it seems. Throughout the past four years in fact, she has reflected through a variety of lenses on our relationship with the digital, it’s pervasiveness in our daily lives, the complex ways through which we have developed a symbiotic connection to devices that seem to start taking up a life of their own. This is the case also with her latest two series Tear Spit and Cum and Image eaters.

Approaching the two newest series developed by the Athens based artist, who has primarily been working with photography throughout her career and has been a member of Depression Era since 2014, one cannot but stop and reflect on how complex our relationship with screens are, especially in these times of overexposure to digital materials. The two series, developed in parallel throughout the past couple of years construct an intricate critique of the screen, shaped around a double perspective: the first, unfolding in Tear, Spit and Cum is based on the flatness and sterility of the surface of the screen, the second in Image-eaters imagines screens as an anthropomorphic and anthropophagous organic being whose metabolism is kept alive by all the elements (in form of information) we constantly feed it. The resulting relationship is more based on a symbiosis, a win-win food chain, in which the needs of the algorithm for information and interactions are matched by our own human/biological needs to ease and improve our conditions. Mavropoulou elaborating on this in our conversation underlines a positive outlook on our relationship with the digital world, however her words seem slightly at odds with the somewhat disturbing atmospheres presented in the works.

Tear, Spit and Cum features a series of images in which a background colour gradient is overlayed by traces resembling various bodily fluids marking lived emotions. The gradients have been developed by Mavropoulou using samples from sites and apps we’re all grown familiar to, from social media to dating apps to porn sites identified by her as the basic digital architecture we inhabit and give life through our emotions. Her project and the traces of these liquids e/affectively highlight the constraints of a life lived from behind a slick surface of a screen. While we are able to interact, share emotions and even live love stories through the screens, our bodily selves are restrained and obstructed by their surface, leaving behind a mark which at first appears to reveal a kaleidoscopic world of colours but soon exposes all the limit of a digital world made essentially by zeros and ones.

The perspective is completely reversed in Image Eaters in which suddenly we are not observing the digital world from outside but are immersed in a universe of references, visual metaphors, sometimes witty but mostly somewhat disturbing commentaries on the images that constantly surround us when navigating the virtual space. In a project that in many ways departs from her more familiar themes and visual language (and does so convincingly), Mavropoulou seems to find the right vocabulary to complete her thesis on the digital. She does so on the one hand through the titles, in itself a rarity in her practice which leaves this aspect usually open for the viewers to determine, and on the other through the images themselves. The images seem to flirt with the aesthetic of the stock images but recalling what could be defined as a concrete-digital-dystopia while the titles, functioning as a biting commentary on each image, only heighten this sensation of being presented elements of our familiar digital surrounding that make visible its contradictions and sharp edges.

The two series are not Mavroupoulou’s first stint at delving into the dichotomy digital-physical world and feel very much like a consequent step from her project Family Portraits (2017). In it Mavropoulou brings us face to face with familiar images of our homes yet presented with an eerie atmosphere lit exclusively by the many screens of our devices, making up for the absence of human figures.

While observing this earlier work of Mavropoulou one would be more than excused to have their mind travel to hauntology and the concept of the eerie developed by Mark Fisher for example. Even more specifically in his “The weird and the eerie” (2016) he points to the circumstances in which to find the rather elusive concept of the eerie, ascribing it to “the failure of presence”. Think of ancient ruins, or a post-apocalyptic landscape to have an image in mind and of the question hidden behind them about the agency, not whether there was one but whether we’ll ever be able to grasp its true force and rationale. Well, in Family Portraits Mavropoulou manages to large extent to make us face this same feeling not about a distant era and long past lives but about our own existence, about the complex forces of capital, technology and human psychology that made those screen take our place in our homes. By extrapolating the light of the screens in absence of their observers, giving them agency and thus turning them into the silent subjects of the images, Family Portraits delivers a bitter-sweet comment on our world in which the relatable environments of our everyday home is no longer only ours and the terrain of a dispute between us and the forces hidden behind the lit screens.

Through our conversation what emerged is the keen interest to observe rather than bring judgment to the specific way we interact with the digital, the fact that while it certainly opens fundamental and dramatic questions on our way of living the digital environment is not by any means a full substitute to nature and the physical world. The images and thoughts through which Mavropoulou is developing her last few years of practice are a mirror of our society rather than a manifesto for or against the increase of our digital selves.

Christian Oxenius is a German-Italian independent curator, author and researcher living between Athens and Istanbul. His academic background in sociology and urban studies led him to pursue a PhD at the University of Liverpool on biennials as institutional model, during the course of which he established collaborations with Athens, Liverpool and Istanbul Biennial; during this period, he developed a particular interest in artists’ communities and storytelling. His research into experimental writing on art has resulted in a number of exhibitions and publications of international relevance.

Γλώσσα πρωτότυπου κειμένου: Αγγλικά

On the Cycladic island of Paros, Giorgos Palamaris tells me, there is a historic Byzantine church. At first glance, the structure appears unremarkable — but he believes that in this humble building, we can have a telling glimpse of Greek history.

He begins by describing how the church was constructed: an assemblage from a wide variety of material and architectural styles, a living cross-section that spans thousands of years. At its base, the foundations of earlier structures can be dimly made out, hinting at other, now-lost functions. On the surface, humble stone and wood mix with marble recycled from ancient temples, the past lending its weight to contemporary forms. As a professionally trained marble sculptor, as well as a frequent aide on archaeological sites (and even, an occasional house builder), Giorgos has a perceptive eye for such details of the built environment.

But for Giorgos, the real interest lies not in the church itself but for how this single place speaks to a much larger issue. Namely, how Greece needs to embrace its underlying reality as a chaotic mix of influences, peoples, languages, and periods. He goes on, “The Greeks have built so much of their identity on a glorious, and highly limited, view of the past: white marble here, Byzantine icons there, the modern state over there. We mustn’t clean up our history and purify it. It’s both racist and inaccurate. We have too often scrubbed away our ambiguities and preferred to force things into neat grids, like carefully laid-out archaeological sites.”

Slowly, Giorgos believes, archaeology has begun to adopt a different vision than the one it held in the past. After years of frustration with the discipline’s insistence on clear-cut divisions, he sees it demonstrating an interest in more ambiguous conclusions. But regardless of this shift, Giorgos is not confined to the field. Archaeological sites have offered Giorgos much more than a job: they have been formative to his art and his life, and allowed him to spend the past several years traveling between the islands of Delos and Despotiko. But ultimately, his identity lies elsewhere. He tells me, “This is why I feel so lucky to be an artist — to be able to look in a more open manner. I can take inspiration and poetic feeling from what I experience, and not feel the need to adhere to strict boundaries or scientific delineations.”

In his work as an artist, Giorgos wants to further blur these lines. While he strongly believes that we must be close to our past and live within it, he rejects a frozen glorification. Rather, through his work, he aims to create a dynamic relationship between past and present, to cultivate a thoughtful, ethical respect for history that also gives space to people living today. He summarizes, “We each have to learn how to make the past our own and find our own way to co-exist with it. Greece, with its rich heritage, has an opportunity to show the world how this can be done. Here, we have a flexibility and an openness to improvisation that many find maddening. But maybe these qualities can be used to help us reimagine old truths in new ways.”

Giorgos grew up in Pallini, a suburb of Athens. His father and grandfather had always worked with their hands, as builders, and thus Giorgos grew up as a child of construction, amidst the smell of churning cement and building materials. The family trade was no accident — the extended Palamaris clan hail from Tinos, one of a number of clustered Cycladic islands famous for their marble quarries and craftsmen. At the age of 19, Giorgos felt the desire to get closer to his roots and so he abandoned the city of Patras, where he had begun his studies, and moved to Tinos. There, he began his artistic training in the island’s School of Fine Art, which specializes in marble. He learned all the technical skills he would need to work with the material, to become a professional sculptor. But at the end of these studies, he felt the need to keep going.

The following year, he won a scholarship to study at the Fine Art School in Athens. The school pushed Giorgos to engage with sculpture as more than a craft, but as a multi-dimensional means of expression. He also began experimenting with installations, stage design, and a wide range of materials. Even more importantly, in Athens, Giorgos found a creative community. For five years, he shared a small studio space with three other friends. Their collaborations and their discussions further opened his eyes. The group offered Giorgos visual, intellectual, professional stimulation. He told me, “My friends have been my biggest inspiration; exchange with them my greatest teacher.”

Within this encouraging environment, Giorgos found himself at a crossroads. Growing up, he had never been interested in the way history was taught in schools. At the same time, he found himself continuously attracted to working with ruins and old objects. But the relationship between the two remained ambivalent. He recalls, with a smile, how he often used to think to himself when he was younger, “The center of Athens is so boring: why don’t they destroy the Acropolis and build something new there?”

Over the course of his time in art school, he steadily began to appreciate more the importance of culture. History, and then art history specifically, became his magnetic pole. He realized that his connection to the past came not from textbooks and ideas but from space and the material themselves. And so, in need of a way to support himself, Giorgos began working on archaeological sites. With this, a new world opened up: he felt like he was having a magical experience with the ancients. But he particularly marveled at how the past co-mingled with the present. He told me, “I can clearly remember a moment when I was working in Despotiko, reconstructing an archaic temple. I was having a break, making an Italian blend coffee on the box of a Chinese generator, between plastic bags full of fragments from the Geometric period. This overlaying of chronologies and cultures electrified me. Whereas an archaeological purist might resent this intermingling, as an artist, I was filled with wonder.”

From this story, we can clearly make out Giorgos’ philosophy when it comes to the past: open, vital, and alive. To further his point, he tells me about a site he worked on in Antiparos. There, a local shepherd had built a manger for his herd on top of what remained of an ancient temple to Apollo. Once the archaeologists came in, they fenced off the area entirely, making it inaccessible to the public. Of course, Giorgos recognized that heritage has to be protected and can’t just be used willy-nilly for livestock. On the other hand, overprotection results in making history even more remote, untouchable, and disconnected from our lives. As Giorgos says, “The essence of the problem is that of complete enclosure. Instead, we need to create a bond between ourselves and the past. By creating such airtight separations, this relationship never forms. In Greece, there are some ancient sites that are totally fenced-off from the public — but then are not well upkept. This is the worst. Because these sites are invisible to us, they are left to further ruin.”

What, I asked him, was an example of a more successful balance between preserving the past and meeting the needs of the present? When not staffed on archaeological projects, Palamaris also works periodically with a company that repairs and restores historic houses. The firm is committed to working on a slow, human scale. They avoid discarding material and do everything they can to find ways to give the existing structures new life. They aim to preserve the past not just for its own sake, but to provide a livable home for the current owners. A philosophy perfectly in line with how Giorgos wants to work with the past, in the present.

As another example, take the sculpture Giorgos made for the ARTWORKS exhibition, Mr. Ruin (Waiting for Hestia). When I first saw the work, it looked to me like nothing more than an unloved pile of rubble on a faded armchair. After talking to Giorgos, the sculpture became the perfect expression of his view on how we can relate to the past more ethically. The discarded material came from derelict interwar houses scattered around Athens — a cityscape long blighted by disused, abandoned structures, but which tragically are some of its most beautiful buildings. Though Giorgos can’t restore each of these houses himself, his artwork places this overlooked rubble in a venue for greater appreciation, giving it another life. It pushes us to reconsider how we move through the city and what could be done to bring its past and present into greater harmony. The fact that Giorgos carries out such work both on archaeological sites and people’s homes in parallel with his art practice is a testament to how deeply this belief guides him.

Mr. Ruin reveals one other important tenet of Giorgos’ perspective: his desire to make the art world more down to earth. With his broad smile, shoulder-length hair, and brimming beard, Giorgos brings something refreshingly humble to the too-often rarefied and disconnected world of contemporary art. Much as history must avoid becoming too separate from our current reality, art faces the same danger. Giorgos, in his work and his way of life, embodies ways to bridge such gaps.

To close, he tells me a story about the day the art-moving company came to transport his sculpture to the Niarchos Foundation in time for the ARTWORKS exhibition. When they came into his studio and saw the pile of rubble sitting on a chair, they told him there was no point in moving this pile of junk — couldn’t he just find some rubble closer to the exhibition space and haul it over himself? At first he joined in their laughter, but he also saw an opportunity. Convincing someone to engage with your ideas in a cultural institution is easy; reaching the wider public is where the real work begins. He explained to them what his sculpture meant and how he had gathered it. The movers grew interested; as their attention sharpened, the old tiles and cracked bricks were no longer being passed over and ignored. Bit by bit, thanks to Giorgos’ loving hand and infectious passion, they began to see things from his perspective, with newly appreciative eyes.

Alexander Strecker is pursuing a PhD in Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. His research explores how artistic practices register the contradictions inherent in ideas of crisis, periphery, and technology, with a focus on how these tensions are felt acutely in contemporary Greece while also resonating worldwide.