1 Curators’ Projects

Through the Roadblocks is a long term project divided into 3 stages, commencing in November 2010 and ongoing until April 2013. This catalogue covers Stage 1, a Network meeting in Limassol, Cyprus, 2010 and Stage 2, a series of independently curated events that were presented in different cities in Europe and the Near East during 2011-2012. Stage 3 will comprise of two events. • An exhibition presenting 12 collaborative artist / scholar works from the 23 November 2012 until 16 December 2012

• A 3 day International Conference scheduled Cultural Services for 23, 24 and 25 November 2012. Ministry of Education and Culture

3 Contents

Introduction The Totality of shared possibilities Helene Black 6-11

Network Meeting 2010, Limassol, Cyprus Zagreb, Croatia 28-41 London, UK 42-58 Beirut, Lebanon 60-65 Dubai, United Arab Emirates 68-84 Athens, Greece: bound 86-119 Athens, Greece: Inter Alios Heidelberg, Germany 120-134 Lemesos International Documentary Film Festival 136-140 France, Paris 140- Palestine Territories (hosted at Evagoras Lanitis Centre)

5 Acknowledging the instability and transformation in search for a more equal The totality of shared possibilities unpredictability of the world around us, cultural and political voice against ‘…the many of the curated responses and their oppressions of one-way monologues’. related documentation have, by default, NeMe sincerely thanks the independent Through the Roadblocks has as its main translations creating a collective space remained incomplete and ongoing. curators and their selected participants concern the way in which concepts cross of thinking. Thus, this project avoided Perhaps this is the only option available who accepted our invitation to contribute boundaries; people cross borders; concepts travel the single leading curator as ‘sole author’ to chronicle a volatile and reconfiguring their voice and hard work to Through through one country, take root in another only predetermining content and form. environment. Some of the curators opted the Roadblocks expanding the project’s to change again as the idea journeys from East Through the Roadblocks was conceived by for a series of events which span over a resonance and contextualisation within to West or from across the West to the East. Peter Lyssiotis, George Alexander and longer period as they felt that a single Europe and the Near East. As such, Through the Roadblocks will be a Helene Black. The Directors of NeMe, event could not address their concerns chain-story in diverse media and genres. The Yiannis Colakides and Helene Black in a comprehensive manner. As the idea is that collaborations mirror the ‘dialogic co-ordinated the various projects and readers will notice, the responses, varied Helene Black, imagination’ rather than the oppressions facilitated discussion within a close in interpretation and scope, maintain August 2012, Limassol of one-way monologues. This investigation working environment. The invited a dialogue and engagement with the includes a focus on the voyage of ideas as they curators were encouraged to work concerns of Through the Roadblocks. cross from different regions and how these ideas collaboratively, experimentally and with Helene Black is an artist and co-founder of metamorphose and adjust as they take seed in very low budgets. The understanding At a time when the concepts of the interdisciplinary NGO NeMe. Since 1992, the cultures they pass through. was that their specific curation would difference, diversity and multiculturalism she has lived and worked in Limassol, Cyprus. be one component of a series of events have lost traction, the question of how To date, she has had 14 one person shows The statement above, written by George representing and shaping this project culture is formed or reformed through and numerous group shows both in Cyprus Alexander and Peter Lyssiotis, was the within an interrelated framework. interdisciplinary collaborative projects and abroad. In addition, she has curated original objective of NeMe’s project as a course of action encouraging and co-curated several exhibitions such as Through the Roadblocks, formulated during In preparation for the curated events unexpected encounters and dialogue “In Transition Russia” with Sheila Pinkel November 2008. Its core intention was abroad, a network meeting was arranged through all forms of barriers, assumes and Alisa Prudnikova, Museum of Modern to investigate cultural parallels shared by NeMe where all the curators, artists considerable significance. As relations Art, Ekaterinburg and National Centre of throughout the region surrounding and scholars were invited to a three-day shift, some roadblocks made porous, new Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia 2008, Cyprus. Since then, the regional burst event during 23 - 25 November, 2010. roadblocks imposed, the state of things “In Transition Cyprus” with Sheila Pinkel, of social and political developments The meeting provided a discussion will remain uncertain, mutable and open Evagoras Lanitis Centre 2006, “…SO NOW together with the punitive funding cuts platform for the participants, many of to change. These focused collaborations WHAT?” for Scope New York and Basel with to culture, have given this project another whom were meeting each other for the hosted in different places and spaces Yiannis Colakides 2008, “COR UNUM” trajectory, that of increasing uncertainty first time. The aim was to enable people provide a good opportunity to consider for the National Centre of Contemporary and complexity. to co-produce ideas within the context the wider notions of cultural influence Art, Moscow with Yiannis Colakides 2008, of the project and hopefully engender and identity and how the specific “Isolomania” at NIMAC 2008 and “Margins Sixteen independent curators from unpredictable and ongoing exchanges. representations function in terms of of Time”, Evagoras Lanitis Centre 2009. nine cities were invited to examine With its emphasis on interdisciplinary language, meanings of ‘place’ and ‘space’ transnational sensibilities within the collaborative projects, many of the and the associated relations between context of their local environment. outcomes reveal an interest in the them. In addition, Through the Roadblocks They were encouraged to examine, uncertainty of art oscillating between entered the contested and much explore, dissect and challenge the mainstream conventions and peripheral discussed domain of the value and ethics initial concept provided by NeMe and praxis which has provided this project of collective projects. We believe that the thus document, through their shared with an engaging path. totality of possibilities through shared contribution, the possibility of multiple co-operation is a never-ending space of

6 7 Το σύνολο των διαμοιραζόμενων παρόντες να συν-δημιουργήσουν ιδέες οι σχέσεις μεταβάλλονται, μερικά πιθανοτήτων μέσα στο πλαίσιο του πρότζεκτ και, αν όλα οδοφράγματα γίνονται πορώδη, νέα έβαιναν καλώς, να επιφέρει απρόβλεπτες οδοφράγματα επιβάλλονται, η κατάσταση To Through the Roadblocks έχει ως κύριο πλαίσιο του τοπικού τους περιβάλλοντος. και συνεχιζόμενες ανταλλαγές. των πραγμάτων παραμένει αβέβαιη, μέλημά του τον τρόπο με τον οποίο ιδέες Παρακινήθηκαν να μελετήσουν, να Εστιάζοντας στα διαδραστικά συνεργατικά ευμετάβλητη και ανοικτή στις αλλαγές. ξεπερνούν όρια, άνθρωποι διασχίζουν σύνορα, εξερευνήσουν, να αναλύσουν μεθοδικά και πρότζεκτ, πολλά από τα αποτελέσματα Αυτές οι εστιασμένες συνεργασίες έννοιες ταξιδεύουν διαμέσου μιας χώρας, ριζώνουν να δοκιμάσουν την αρχική ιδέα που τους εκδηλώνουν ένα ενδιαφέρον για την φιλοξενούμενες σε διαφορετικά μέρη σε μια άλλη μόνο για να αλλάξουν ξανά καθώς έδωσε το NeMe και έτσι να τεκμηριώσουν, αβεβαιότητα της τέχνης που ταλαντεύεται και χώρους παρέχουν μια καλή ευκαιρία περιπλανώνται από την Ανατολή στη Δύση ή από μέσα από την κοινή συμβολή τους, την ανάμεσα στις κυρίαρχες συμβάσεις και στις να σκεφτούμε τις ευρύτερες έννοιες της τη Δύση στην Ανατολή. Με αυτόν τον τρόπο, το πιθανότητα πολλαπλών μεταφράσεων περιφερειακές πράξεις, προσδίνοντας στο πολιτιστικής επιρροής και ταυτότητας Through the Roadblocks θα είναι μια αλυσιδωτή δημιουργώντας ένα συλλογικό χώρο πρότζεκτ μια ενδιαφέρουσα πορεία. και πώς οι συγκεκριμένες απεικονήσεις ιστορία που θα εκφράζεται μέσα από ποικίλα σκέψης. Έτσι, αυτό το πρότζεκτ δεν λειτουργούν στη γλώσσα, σε σημασίες μέσα και τεχνοτροπίες. Το σκεπτικό είναι ότι ανατέθηκε σε έναν κύριο επιμελητή που θα Αναγνωρίζοντας τη ρευστότητα και εννοιών όπως «τόπος» και «χώρος» και πώς οι συνεργασίες αντικατοπτρίζουν τη «διαλογική δρούσε ως «αποκλειστικός πρωτουργός» την α-προβλεψιμότητα του κόσμου αυτές συνδέονται. Επιπρόσθετα, το Through φαντασία» αντίθετα από τους μονόδρομους προκαθορίζοντας το περιεχόμενο και γύρω μας, πολλές από τις επιμελημένες the Roadblocks εισήλθε στο αμφισβητούμενο μονολόγους που την καταδυναστεύουν. Αυτή τη δομή του. Το Through the Roadblocks ανταποκρίσεις και οι σχετικές καταγραφές και πολυσυζητημένο πεδίο της αξίας και η έρευνα εστιάζεται στο ταξίδι των ιδεών γεννήθηκε από τους Peter Lyssiotis, τους έχουν, εξ ορισμού, παραμείνει του ήθους των συλλογικών πρότζεκτ. καθώς διασχίζουν διαφορετικές περιοχές και George Alexander και Helene Black. ατελείς και συνεχιζόμενες. Ίσως αυτή Πιστεύουμε πως το σύνολο των στο πώς αυτές οι ιδεές μεταμορφώνονται και Οι διευθυντές του NeMe, Γιάννης να είναι η μόνη διαθέσιμη επιλογή πιθανοτήτων μέσω μιας διαμοιραζόμενης προσαρμόζονται όταν ριζώσουν στους πολιτισμούς Κολακίδης και Helene Black συντόνισαν για τη χρονολογική καταγραφή ενός συνεργασίας είναι ένας χώρος συνεχούς από τους οποίους διέρχονται. τα διάφορα πρότζεκτ και διευκόλυναν τη ευμετάβλητου και αναδιαμορφωμένου μεταμόρφωσης που ψάχνει για μια συζήτηση μέσα σε ένα στενό περιβάλλον περιβάλλοντος. Μερικοί από τους πιο συμβατή πολιτιστικά και πολιτικά Η πιο πάνω κατάθεση, γραμμένη από εργασίας. Οι προσκεκλημένοι επιμελητές επιμελητές επέλεξαν μια σειρά από φωνή ενάντια «…στις καταδυναστεύσεις των τους George Alexander και Peter παροτρύνθηκαν να συνεργαστούν διοργανώσεις που είχαν μεγαλύτερη μονόδρομων μονολόγων». Lyssiotis, διατυπώθηκε το Νοέμβριο πειραματικά και με πολύ χαμηλούς χρονική διάρκεια επειδή ένιωθαν πως του 2008 και ήταν ο αρχικός στόχος προϋπολογισμούς. Η συμφωνία ήταν, η μια μεμονωμένη διοργάνωση δε θα Το ΝeMe ευχαριστεί τους ανεξάρτητους του πρότζεκτ του NeMe Through the συγκεκριμένη επιμέλεια του καθενός να κάλυπτε διεξοδικά τις ανησυχίες τους. επιμελητές και τους επιλεγμένους Roadblocks. Η βασική πρόθεσή του ήταν είναι μέρος μιας σειράς από διοργανώσεις, Όπως θα προσέξουν οι αναγνώστες, οι συμμετέχοντες που αποδέχτηκαν την να ερευνήσει πολιτισμικές παραλλήλους που θα αντιπροσώπευαν και θα ανταποκρίσεις ποικίλουν στην ερμηνεία πρόσκλησή μας να συνεισφέρουν με τη που διαμοιράζονται σε ολόκληρη την διαμόρφωναν αυτό το πρότζεκτ μέσα σε και στο αντικείμενο, διατηρώντας ένα δική τους φωνή και σκληρή δουλειά στο περιβάλλουσα περιοχή της Κύπρου. ένα αλληλένδετο πλαίσιο. διάλογο με τις δραστηριότητες του Through Through the Roadblocks επεκτείνοντας την Aπό τότε, το περιφερειακό ξέσπασμα the Roadblocks. εφαρμογή και απήχηση του πρότζεκτ εντός κοινωνικών και πολιτικών εξελίξεων Στην προετοιμασία για τις διοργανώσεις της Ευρώπης και της Εγγύς Ανατολής. σε συνδυασμό με τις τιμωρητικές στο εξωτερικό, είχε διευθετηθεί από Σε περίοδο που οι ιδέες περί περικοπές χορηγιών για τον πολιτισμό, το NeMe συνάντηση του δικτύου όπου διαφορετικότητας, ποικιλότητας και έχουν προσδώσει σε αυτό το πρότζεκτ όλοι οι επιμελητές, καλλιτέχνες και πολυπολιτισμικότητας έχουν χάσει την Helene Black, μια διαφορετική τροχιά, αυτήν της ακαδημαϊκοί προσκλήθηκαν σε μια ισχύ τους, το ερώτημα, πώς ο πολιτισμός Aύγουστος 2012, Λεμεσός αυξανόμενης αβεβαιότητας και τριήμερη διοργάνωση από τις 23-25 διαμορφώνεται ή αναδιαμορφώνεται περιπλοκότητας. Νοεμβρίου, 2010. Η συνάντηση προέβλεπε μέσω διεπιστημονικών συνεργασιών μια πλατφόρμα συζήτησης για τους ως μια πορεία δράσης που υποστηρίζει Δεκαέξι ανεξάρτητοι επιμελητές από συμμετέχοντες, πολλοί από τους οποίους αναπάντεχες συναντήσεις και διάλογο εννιά πόλεις προσκλήθηκαν για να συναντιόνταν για πρώτη φορά. Ο στόχος δια μέσου οποιωνδήποτε εμποδίων, εξετάσουν διακρατικές αντιλήψεις στο ήταν να δώσει τη δυνατότητα στους είναι μείζονος σημασίας. Ενόσω

8 9 Çevremizdeki dünyanın değişkenliğini ve monologların baskısı” na karşı daha eşit Paylaşılan Olasılıkların Bütünlüğü önceden belirlenemezliğini idrak eden pek kültürel ve siyasi bir ses oluşturma arayışında çok sergi ve bunlara ilişkin belgeler doğal bitmek bilmez bir dönüşüm uzamıdır. olarak tamamlanmamış ve ucu açık birer Yolkesen engellerden sızarak projesinin esas kolektif bir düşünce uzamını yaratabileceği süreç olarak kaldı. Belki de bu böylesine NeMe gerek bağımsız küratörlere, gerekse kaygısı kavramların ve insanların sınırları olasılığını belgelemeleri istendi. Böylece de uçucu ve sürekli yeniden-düzenleyici bir de bizi kırmayarak davetimizi kabul eden nasıl aştığıyla, kavramların bir ülkeyi katedip bu proje tek bir öncü küratörün “yegane ortamın dökümünü yapmayı mümkün ve hem sesleri hem de yaptıkları önemli bir başka ülkede yeniden kök salması ve bu yazar” olarak biçim ve içerik üzerinde kılacak tek seçenekti. Bazı küratörler ise tek çalışmalarla Yolkesen engellerden sızarak suretle de fikirlerin Doğu’dan Batı’ya veya baskın bir rol oynamasının önüne geçmeyi bir etkinliğin kaygılarını anlaşılır şekilde projesinin Avrupa ve Yakın Doğu’da Batı’dan Doğu’ya geçiş sürecinde nasıl değişime başarmıştır. Yolkesen engellerden sızarak aktarmakta yetersiz kalacağı düşüncesinden yankılanarak anlam kazanması yolunda uğardığıyla ilgilidir. Yani Yolkesen engellerden Peter Lyssiotis, Geroge Alexander ve hareketle daha uzun süreye yayılan bir ilerlemesine katkı koyan tüm seçkin sızarak çeşitli medya araçlarıyla, muhtelif Helene Black tarafından tasarlandı. NeMe etkinlikler serisi düzenlemeyi seçmişti. katılımcılara içtenlikle teşekkür eder. türlerde anlatılan zincirleme bir hikayeler yöneticileri Yiannis Colakides ve Helene Okuyucuların da takdir edeceği üzere, gerek toplamıdır. Özünde yatan fikir tek taraflı Black çeşitli projeleri koordine edip samimi yorum, gerekse de kapsam bakımından monologların baskıcı yapısından ziyade ortak bir çalışma ortamında verimli tartışmaların çeşitlilik arz eden tepkiler Yolkesen engellerden Helene Black, çalışmaya dayanan “diyalojik hayalgücü”nün gerçekleşmesini sağladılar. Davet edilen sızarak projesinin ilgi alanlarıyla uyum ve Ağustos 2012, Limassol. yapısını yansıtır. Ayrıca bu araştırma, küratörler elbirliğiyle, deneysel bir şekilde diyalog içerisindedir. fikirlerin yolculukları boyunca farklı ve son derece düşük bir bütçeyle çalışmaya Translated by: Cengiz Erdem bölgelerden geçerken nasıl değişime uğradıkları teşvik edildiler. Benimsenen anlayışa göre Farklılık, çoğulculuk ve çok-kültürlülük gibi Additional translation and editing by: Aydın ve bu süreçte, içinden geçtikleri kültürlerde sanatçı ve küratörlerin kendilerine has kavramların cazibesini yitirmekte olduğu bir Mehmet Ali nasıl kök saldıklarına odaklanmayı da içerir. sergileri, daha geniş bir etkinlikler serisi zamanda kültürün disiplinlerarası katılımcı içerisinde yer almak suretiyle bu projeyi projelerle nasıl şekillendirilip yeniden- George Alexander ve Peter Lyssiotis birbirleriyle ilişkilerinin oluşturacağı bir biçimlendirildiğini ortaya koyan ve her tarafından Kasım 2008’de yazılan bağlamda temsil edip şekillendirmiş olacaktı. türlü sınırı aşan beklenmedik karşılaşma ve yukarıdaki açıklama NeMe’nin Yolkesen diyalogları cesaretlendiren bu tür bir etkinlik engellerden sızarak projesinin asli amacını Yurtdışında açılacak sergiler için yapılan önemli bir anlam kazanır. İlişkiler değiştikçe anlatıyordu ve ana hedefi Kıbrıs’ı çevreleyen hazırlık aşamasında NeMe tüm küratörlerin, bazı engeller geçirgenleşirken yerlerine bölgedeki paylaşılan kültürel paralellikleri sanatçıların ve akademisyenlerin davet yenileri empoze edilmekte, içinde bulunulan incelemekti. O zamandan bu güne bölgede edildiği, 23-25 Kasım 2010 tarihleri durum belirsizliğini korurken değişime açık patlak veren sosyal ve sisyasi gelişmelere arasında gerçekleşen üç günlük bir iletişim ve dönüştürülebilir hale gelmektedir. Farklı ilaveten kültüre ayrılan kaynaklardaki ağı toplantısı düzenledi. Bu toplantı çoğu uzam ve mekanların ev sahipliği yaptığı cezalandırıcı kesintiler bu projenin artan ilk kez tanışan katılımcılara bir tartışma bu odak merkezli ortak çalışmalar kültürel belirsizlik ve karmaşıklığı konu alan yeni bir platformu sunmuştu. Amaç insanların etkileşim ve kimlik kavramlarını daha geniş izleğe yönelmesine sebep olmuştur. proje bağlamında birlikte fikir üretmelerini açıdan değerlendirmenin yanı sıra, belirli sağlayıp önceden kestirilemeyen bir alışveriş temsillerin dil, uzam/mekanın anlamı ve Dokuz farklı şehirden onaltı bağımsız sürecini mümkün kılmaktı. Disiplinlerarası tüm bunlar arasındaki ilişkiler bağlamında küratör kendi yerel çevreleri bağlamında katılımcı projelere yaptıkları vurguyla mercek altına alınmasına iyi bir fırsat yaratır. ulusötesi duyarlıkları mercek altına almak sonuçların pek çoğu, ana akım gelenekler ve Buna ilaveten Yolkesen engellerden sızarak üzere davet edilmişti. Bu küratörler marjinal praxis arasında gidip gelen sanatın sıklıkla eleştirilmiş ve halen tartışılmakta NeMe’nin ortaya koyduğu öncel kavramı bocalamasına olan ilgiyi ortaya koyuyor, bu olan kolektif projelerin değer ve etiği incelemek, araştırmak, parçalara bölüp da projeyi mevzunun derinine nüfuz eden konusunun tartışma alanına da girmiştir. tahlil etmek ve ona itirazları çerçevesinde bir yapıya büründürmüş oluyor. İnanıyoruz ki olasılıkların bütünlüğü herkesin ortak katkısıyla çoğul tercümelerin paylaşımcı işbirliği sayesinde “…tek-yön

10 11 Network Meeting: Limassol, Cyprus.

23 November 2010 Berengaria Conference Room Evagoras Lanitis Centre Limassol, Cyprus

12 13 Lanfranco Aceti, Yiannis Colakides Iannis Zannos Helene Black, Yiannis Colakides

Srećko Horvat John Francescutti Katarina Pejovic, Boris Bakal

George Katodrytis Lena Ziese, Susanne Weiß Guli Silberstein Andri Michael Catherine Nikita

Nesrine Khodr

14 15 Network Meeting: Limassol, Cyprus.

23 November 2010 Berengaria Conference Room Workshop

16 17 18 19 Network Meeting, Nicosia, Cyprus.

24 November 2010 Visit to Nicosia International Airport, UN Buffer Zone

20 21 22 23 24 25 Network Meeting Berengaria Conference Room Evagoras Lanitis Centre 23, 24, 25 November 2010

Participants:

Lanfranco Aceti (United Kingdom), Boris Bakal (Croatia), Helene Black (Cyprus), Dimitris Charitos (Greece), Yolanda Christodoulou (Cyprus), Yiannis Colakides (Cyprus), Antonis Danos (Cyprus), Nikolas Defteras (Cyprus), John Francescutti (United Kingdom) Yiangos Hadjiyiannis (Cyprus), Srecko Horvat (Croatia), George Katodrytes (United Arab Emirates), Nesrine Khodr (Lebanon), Maria Kyriakou (Cyprus), Maria Lianou (Cyprus), Lea Mauas (Israel), Andri Michael (Cyprus), Catherine Nikita (Cyprus), Katarina Pejovic (Slovenia), Xenios Symeonides (Cyprus), Yiannis Toumazis (Cyprus), Susanne Weiß (Germany), Iannis Zannos (Greece), Lena Ziese (Germany).

Acknowledgements

Organiser:

In Collaboration with:

Main Sponsor: Support:

Cultural Services Ministry of Education and Culture Department of Multimedia & Graphic Arts

26 27 Famagusta/Varosha: Damnatio Memoriae Curators: Bacaci Sjenki (Shadow Casters), Katarina Pejovic, Boris Bakal

13 December 2011 Zagreb Municipality Zagreb, Croatia

28 29 entering a zone of different perspectives, damage of collective memory depending Re-Collecting City/Re-Collecting Time hidden facts and manipulating on the context; the other layer, juxtaposes interpretations. Shadow Casters strove to the Famagusta tragedy with the history include in their project all those different of smaller or greater tragedies that have Re-collecting City/Re-Collecting Time communication outputs: Open Offices readings – historical, etymological, geo- occurred in Zagreb throughout its history. was launched in 2006 with the aim of and Wall Displays - both having in political, economical, climatic – in order This layer adds an external viewpoint as preserving cultural memory – especially common the temporary inhabitation of to produce an open field of interpretation a reminder that one’s own experience urban immaterial memory. In societies public spaces. for each visitor of this Wall Display of tragic events narrows down the undergoing transition in the form edition. F/V: DM thus unfolds the story perspective and is often oblivious of the of brutal capitalism, cities are going http://shadowingthecity.blogspot.com/ of Famagusta in a thematically multi- wider context. through radical and dramatic changes, http://biljezenjagrada.blog.hr/) layered and non-linear way from the often to the detriment of immaterial point of view of its various conquerors, Hence, in a reverse version of the custom cultural heritage. Hence preserving and rulers. It reveals the contradictions of the Hopi Indians who continue urban immaterial memory is of vital Wall Displays of recent history of Greek and Turkish the conversation with the interlocutor importance for their continuity. Wall Displays (WD) were launched in Cypriot enmities, the crucial role of the even when he is gone, Shadow Casters 2007 in seven street display boxes of the USA and Great Britain in shaping the have initiated through this project a Since 2006 Re-collecting City/Re-Collecting former Croatian Cinematheque as a fate of modern-day Cyprus, the tragic conversation with the past, the present Time has featured various incarnations, communication channel/window of the events of August 1974 with consequences and the interlocutor who is still not there: expanding meanwhile from Zagreb to invisible part of the project Re-Collecting lived to this day, and even beyond: one the future. This conversation contains a the entire region of the Western Balkans City/ Re-Collecting Time. It evolved as of the displays features the chronology of humorous note yet with full awareness and Europe. The core of Re-collecting an independent project from 2010 on. events that anticipate in a utopian way of the present-day reality coordinates in City/Re-Collecting Time’s interest is the It is the visible part of the research and the future of Famagusta and Cyprus. This which Famagusta dwells. research (detecting, archiving, studying reflection on the city, public and private chronology, in a manner of docu-fiction and exhibiting) of traces of past events space, urbanity, co-existence and identity. licentia poetica, bestows to the projects The utopian coda on the entire project of in public spaces of a city - mainly artistic of NeMe, their Cypriot colleagues from Famagusta/Varosha: Damnatio Memoriae actions and political protests/acts – that, The WD edition Famagusta/Varosha: Omada One/Off and Shadow Casters the is meant as a call for open public at the time of their unfolding, did not Damnatio Memoriae deals with the tragic role of triggers of positive developments deliberation on the desired future of the aim at any permanent presence but and particular destiny of the city that was – both real and fictitious – in resolving Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities inscribed themselves in the (un)read the target of conquests and disputes many the separation and conflict between the outside the divisions that impede them history of the city. times throughout the tumultuous history Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. both politically and economically and of Cyprus, the latest of them producing a Among other, this utopian perspective continually expose them to geo-strategic Re-collecting City/Re-Collecting Time strives 38-year long quagmire between the Greek projects the re-birth of Famagusta as an manipulations. The entire project is to capture those fragile and ephemeral and Turkish Cypriots and over 26,000 enlightened international architectural, also a story on societies as open thermo- aspects of the past by collecting and displaced people, leaving an entire section urbanistic and human project. dynamic systems, on their conditioning studying memories of individuals -- of the city – Varosha – as a ghost town by the global world order, and a food artists themselves, their collaborators, with UN peace forces as guardians of that In each display, the central theme of for thought on the possibilities of local journalists, historians, accidental passers- uncanny situation. Famagusta/Varosha is framed with two changes through radical thinking and by -- in various forms: from material meta-layers: one is a series of quotations acting, especially on the issues of identity ones (photographs, films, videos, written The very title of the project, evoking an from the essay Damnatio Memoriae by and identification. testimonies) to spoken recollections. Ancient Roman legal term, which reveals Bosnian/Croatian poet, translator and a complex relation towards collective essayist Sinan Gudžević, which elaborate http://zidnenovine.blogspot.com/ The materials were shaped and made memory as such, suggests that dealing more in-depth the Roman legal practice visible to the public through two with the history of Famagusta means of determining both the benefit and the

30 31 Katarina Pejovic is dramaturg, intermedia platforms and associations, e.g. Flying artist, writer, pedagogue, cultural activist University, Orchestra Stolpnik, Croatian Bilježenje grada/Bilježenje vremena and translator. Her works were presented Antiwar Campaign and Theatre of Obvious and produced by production houses and Phenomena. He co-founded and co-authored cultural institutions and featured at numerous the projects of Bacači Sjenki/Shadow Casters Bilježenje grada/Bilježenje vremena (BGBV) Zidne Novine (ZN) international festivals in over 20 countries. (since 2002), an artistic platform that won je pokrenut s ciljem očuvanja kulturne Projekt Zidne Novine pokrenut je 2007. u She has co-ordinated numerous platforms, numerous awards and prizes for its work. memorije – posebice nematerijalne urbane sedam uličnih promidžbenih kaslića bivše conferences and initiatives, and she has memorije. U društvima koja prolaze Hrvatske Kinoteke kao komunikacijski kanal had her articles and essays published in BACAČI SJENKI (SHADOW CASTERS) tranziciju u formi brutalnog kapitalizma, nevidljivog dijela projekta BGBV. Razvio publications and books in 7 languages. -- non-profit international artistic collective gradovi prolaze kroz radikalnu i dramatičnu se u zaseban projekt 2010. On je vidljivi Together with Boris Bakal she is co-founder and production platform dedicated to promijenu. Zbog toga je očuvanje dio našeg istraživanja i promišljanja grada, (2002) and co-author of the projects of interdisciplinary collaboration, creation, nematerijalne urbane memorije od vitalne javnog i osobnog prostora, urbanosti, su- Shadow Casters, the artistic platform that exploration as well as reflection of new važnosti za njihov kontinuitet. života i identiteta. won numerous awards, including two Special artistic languages, especially in the domain Jury Awards at Belgrade’s BITEF in 2007 and of performing arts, urban and public art, Od 2006. do danas BGBV se otjelovio na Edicija ZN Famagusta/Varosha: 2009, and the Avaz Dragon at the Sarajevo new media and its hybrids. SC continuously različite načine, proširivši se u međuvremenu Damnatio Memoriae bavi se tragičnom i MESS in 2008. She is recipient of the 2009 instigate dialogue and active exchange between od Zagreba na cijelu regiju Zapadnog nesvakidašnjom sudbinom jednog grada Desmond Tutu Fellowship Award awarded by Croatian and international artists/professionals Balkana i Europu. U središtu BGBV koji je kroz svoju burnu povijest često bio Global Reconciliation Organisation. through: questioning the existing concepts of projekta je istraživanje (detektiranje, metom osvajača i predmetom prijepora, što individual and collective identities; exploring arhiviranje, proučavanje i izlaganje) tragova je u novije doba razultiralo 38-godišnjom Boris Bakal is theatre/film director and actor, the nature of globalization processes; dealing prošlih događaja u javnim prostorima pat-pozicijom i razdorom između ciparskih intermedia artist, curator, writer, activist and with social, political and cultural issues such as grada – uglavnom umjetničkih akcija kao i Grka i Turaka, s više od 26.000 izmještenih macrobiotic cook born in Zagreb, SFRJ (now the politics of public space, the consequences političkih protesta/akcija – koje, u trenutku osoba, i cijelim djelom grada – Varošom – Republic of Croatia). Throughout thirty years of transition processes, the status and forms of samog događanja, nisu ciljale nikakvu stalnu kao gradom duhova pod paskom UN-ovih of his versatile career, he authored theatre intimacy and systematic production of amnesia prisutnost, ali su se upisale u do sada još mirovnih snaga. and film projects, multimedia performances, and discontinuity. SC activities range from nepročitanu povijest grada. urban-human networks, educational projects, intermedia performances, cultural memory Sam podnaslov projekta, kao navod workshops, lectures, conferences, urban projects, urban-human networks, artivist projects, BGBV teži otkrivanju onih krhkih i prolaznih starorimskog pravnog termina koji performances, installations and exhibitions informal education, workshops, to lectures, vidova prošlosti kroz sakupljanje i proučavanje označava složeni odnos spram kolektivne which have been presented at festivals, conferences, urban performances, installations sjećanja pojedinaca - samih umjetnika, memorije, sugerira činjenicu da bavljenje exhibitions and manifestations in over 30 and exhibitions. For their work, SC have njihovih suradnika, novinara, povijesničara, poviješću Famaguste znači ulazak na countries in the world (including Bologna received various recognitions and awards, among slučajnih prolaznika – u najrazličitijim teritorij različitih motrišta, prikrivenih Cultural Capital of Europe 2000, Steirischer them Special Jury Award at the 2007 Belgrade formama: od onih materijalnih (fotografije, činjenica i manipuliranih interpretacija. Herbst, Bollwerk Beluard International, BITEF - Ex-Position; Avaz Dragon Award at filmovi, video snimke, pisana svjedočanstva) Bacači Sjenki su nastojali uključiti sva ta Eurokaz, BITEF, INTERFERENCES, the 2008 Sarajevo MESS - the entire trilogy do snimaka sudionika. različita viđenja u ovaj projekt. povijesna, THEALTER, Stagione di Caccia, MESS and Process_City; the main award Cloud at the 2009 etimološka, geo-politička, ekonomska, Global Reconciliation Summit). PUF in Pula - Ex-Position; Special Jury Award at Materijal je potom oblikovan i predstavljen klimatska – s ciljem stvaranja otvorenog Boris Bakal was visiting scholar/researcher/ 2009 BITEF - Vacation From History; the main publici kroz dva komunikacijska kanala/ polja interpetacije za svakog posjetitelja/ lecturer at New York University (1998), Stony award Cloud at the 2010 PUF - Vacation From modela: Otvorene Urede & Zidne Novine ice ove edicije. F/V: DM tako razvija Brook University (1999), SACI Studio Art History. SC projects have thus far gathered over – oba imaju zajedničku notu privremene priču o Famagusti iz perspektive njezinih Centres International (Florence, 2000), and 300 artists and professionals from 26 countries okupacije javnog prostora, osvajača i vladara, tematski višeslojnim i Columbia University (New York, 2003). He world-wide and their projects were presented in (http://shadowingthecity.blogspot.com/, kronološki nelinearnim postupkom. Otkriva is co-founder of several artistic and activist USA, Europe, Asia and Australia. http://biljezenjagrada.blog.hr/) proturječja novije povijesti neprijateljstava

32 33 između ciparskih Grka i Turaka, presudnu potpunu svijest o aktualnim koordinatama ulogu SAD i Velike Britanije u oblikovanju na kojima počiva Famagusta. sudbine modernog Cipra, tragične događaje iz kolovoza 1974. s posljedicama prisutnim Utopijska koda na projektu Famagusta / do današnjih dana, ali ide i dalje: jedan od Varosha: Damnatio Memoriae je mišljena kaslića predstavlja kronologiju događaja kao poziv na otvoreno javno promišljanje koji anticipiraju utopijsku budućnost željene budućnosti zajednica ciparskih Famaguste i Cipra. U maniri doku-fikcijske Grka i Turaka onkraj podjela koje ih licentia poetica-e, ova kronologija dodjeljuje spriječavaju i politički i ekonomski. Projekt projektima NeMe, njihovih ciparskih kolega je također i priča o društvima kao otvorenim iz Omada One/Off i Bacača Sjenki ulogu termo-dinamičkim sustavima, o njihovoj inicijatora pozitivnih promjena – stvarnih i uvjetovanosti globalnim svjetskim poretkom, fikcijskih – u razriješavanju raskola i sukoba i poziv na promišljanje mogućnosti između zajednica ciparskih Grka i Turaka. lokalnih promjena kroz radikalno mišljenje Između ostalog, ovaj utopijski pogled i djelovanje, posebice vezano za pitanje najavljuje i ponovno rođenje Famaguste identiteta i identifikacije. kao prosvijetljenog međunarodnog arhitektonskog, urbanističkog i (http://zidnenovine.blogspot.com/) humanističkog projekta.

U svakom je kasliću centralna tema Famaguste uokvirena s dvije meta-razine: jedna je serija citata iz eseja Damnatio Memoriae bosansko-hrvatskog pjesnika, prevoditelja i esejista Sinana Gudževića u kojem se podrobnije elaborira rimska pravna praksa odmjeravanja štete i koristi kolektivne memorije ovisno od konteksta; druga razina sučeljava tragediju Famaguste s poviješću većih ili manjih tragedija koje su se dogodile u Zagrebu kroz njegovu povijest. Ovaj sloj je svojevrsni podsjetnik da pojedinačno iskustvo tragičnih događaja sužava perspektivu i često proizvodi odsustvo svijesti o širem kontekstu.

Tako, u obrnutoj tradiciji Hopi Indijanaca koji nastavljaju razgovor sa sugovornikom i po njegovom odlasku, Bacači Sjenki su ovim projektom započeli razgovor s prošlošću i sadašnjošću, te sa sugovornikom koji još nije prisutan: budućnošću. Ovaj razgovor posjeduje humornu notu i istodobno

34 35 Boris Bakal, Nikolas Defteras

36 37 38 39 Shadow Casters (bacaci Sjenki), Katarina Pejovic, Boris Bakal 13 December 2011

Concept of Re-Collecting City/Re-Collecting Time & Wall Displays: Boris Bakal Concept of the edition Famagusta/Varosha: Damnatio Memoriae: Boris Bakal Author and editor of the edition Famagusta/Varosha: Damnatio Memoriae: Katarina Pejović Design: Mare Šuljak Research: Nikolas Defteras, Maria Kyriakou, Katarina Pejović, Boris Bakal Produced by: Shadow Casters Co-produced by: NeMe & Omada One/Off Supported by: the Ministry of Culture of Croatia, National Foundation for Development of Civil Society, Zagreb City Office for Education, Culture and Sports, Roberto Cimetta Foundation

Acknowledgements

Organiser:

Supported by:

40 41 Art, Culture, Memory and Trauma Curator: Dr Lafranco Aceti Convenor: Prof. Janis Jefferies

1 March 2012 Thursday Club, Goldsmiths College London, United Kingdom

42 43 Helen Sloan has worked as a curator, NeMe - Yiannis Colakides and Helene Black Art, Culture, Memory and Trauma researcher, writer, editor and producer in are the founders of NeMe a non profit, media arts and culture since late 1980s. Cyprus registered cultural NGO. NeMe works Since 2003, she has been Director of SCAN, on two platforms – a virtual and an itinerant A symposium on Art, Culture, Memory Computing, London; teaches Contemporary a networked organisation and creative one – and focuses on contemporary theories and Trauma took place on Thursday, Art and Digital Culture at the Faculty of development agency for media arts in the and their intersection with the arts. NeMe’s March 1st, 2012 at Goldsmiths, University Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University, South of England working on media arts itinerant platform, the IMCA (Independent of London as part of the Thursday Istanbul; and is Editor in Chief of the Leonardo projects and strategic initiatives in arts Museum of Contemporary Art) presents Club. The event is hosted by Prof. Janis Electronic Almanac (Leonardo/ISAST, MIT organisations, academic institutions and NeMe projects which include, exhibitions, Jefferies, Goldsmiths College and is Press). Currently he is the Director of Kasa further aspects of the public realm. Helen publications, performances, new media events, organised in collaboration with Prof. Gallery in Istanbul and was the Artistic Director has worked both freelance and as a curator lectures, workshops and archives. The form Lanfranco Aceti, Sabanci University and and Conference Chair for ISEA2011 Istanbul. at organisations such as Camerawork, FACT, of the IMCA is determined as a practice or NeMe, Cyprus. ICA and Site Gallery as well as directing process by the nature of each project with Janis Jefferies is Professor of Visual Arts festivals such as Across Two Cultures in the notion of the exhibition “space” being Art, Culture, Memory and Trauma focused at Goldsmiths researching electronic Newcastle 1996 (an early conference on the constantly revised and redefined. on the analysis of current curatorial communication in cloth and convenes MFA overlapping practice of creative thinking in and artistic practices that analyse and and PhD practice based programmes in Arts arts and science) and Metapod, Birmingham formalise aesthetic approaches to the and Computational Technology, Department 2001 - 2. Current areas of interest and traumatic inheritance of social and of Computing. Recent publications include curatorial work include the points of political conflictual events and to Interfaces of Performance edited by Janis Jefferies, intersection of science and culture, immersive the processes of memorialisation and Maria Chatzichristodoulou, Rachel Zerihan, environments, media arts and the creative aesthetisation. Ashgate Publishing, The Artist as Researcher economy, nanotechnology, and weArable and in a Computer Mediated Culture (2009), in Art soft technologies. In particular by taking as starting point Practices in a Digital Culture (2010), eds Gardiner the legacy of the Cyprus conflict and and Gere, Ashsgate Publishing, Loving Attention: David Cotterrell is an installation artist the war in Afghanistan, the symposium An outburst of craft in contemporary art (2010) in working across varied media including video, analysed questions related to Body Extra/ordinary: Craft Culture and Contemporary audio, interactive media, artificial intelligence, Politics (Nicholas Mirzoeff), diaspora and Art, Duke University Press, USA, (editor, Maria device control and hybrid technology. His memorialisation. The questions focused Buszek, Kansas City Art Institute, USA), and work exhibits political, social and behavioural on curatorial and artistic practices as Wires and WeArables in This Pervasive Day: The analyses of the environments and contexts, well as on the difficulties of overcoming Potential and Perils of Pervasive Computing (2011), which he and his work inhabit. Over the borders and national cultural boundaries ed. Jeremy Pitt, Imperial College Press, London last ten years, his work has been extensively in order to develop artistic engagements and …and some trace of her: Katie Mitchell’s Waves commissioned and exhibited in North and curatorial projects. in Multi Media Performance (2012), Women: A America, Europe and the Far East, in gallery Cultural Review, Taylor and Francis, Situated spaces, museums and within the public Knowledge: The Subjective and The Personal In realm. Recent exhibitions include: Eastern Lanfranco Aceti Creative Arts Research in Journal of Research Standard: Western Artists in China at MASS London, March 1, 2012 Practice (2012), ed Daina Silina, The Centre for MoCA, Massachusetts, War and Medicine at New Media Culture in Riga, Latvia and Pattern, the Wellcome Collection, London and Map Patterning, Probe in The happening of the social: Gamesat the Today Museum of Modern Lanfranco Aceti works as an academic, devices, sites and methods, editors, Celia Lury Art, Beijing. David is Professor of Fine Art artist and curator. He is Visiting Professor at and Nina Wakeford, Routledge Publications, at Sheffield Hallam University. Goldsmiths College, Department of Art and forthcoming September 2012.

44 45 Lanfranco Aceti, Helen Sloan, David Cotterrell Helene Black, Yiannis Colakides, Lanfranco Aceti, Helen Sloan, David Cotterrell

46 47 Monsters of the Id

On his return from two visits to at John Hansard Gallery, 2012 was the Afghanistan each lasting a month, culmination of their collaborative work, David Cotterrell was asked to present an a one person show of new works that ‘independent observer’s view’ of what reflected Cotterrell’s thoughts around he experienced. The two visits were his residencies. very different in perspective. One was a residency facilitated by the Wellcome Although Cotterrell had taken thousands Trust and UK Ministry of Defence of photographs and had kept a diary, these with the Joint Forces Medical Group were not included in exhibition. There who hosted him for a month. He lived was an element of simulation or staging at Camp Bastion and observed the that he felt covered his perceived limited treatment of wounded soldiers brought experience. The exhibition also attempted back from the frontline. The second, to minimise pro or anti-war statements, facilitated by the RSA, was a month long or other political bias, for a number of stay as a civilian in Kabul, during which reasons around expectation of the art time he was able to explore the city as community and changing readings of his From the Photographic Archive, Afghanistan 2007 – 8 well as taking a car out to neighbouring connections with groups and individuals. villages and the desert. One emphasis in all the work produced Few artists are given the privilege of was the variation of scale. Cotterrell was experiencing these perspectives of a surprised that at Camp Bastion he felt country that in Britain is presented in that he knew less about the conflict than the media as a hostile, war-torn area at he had in Britain through the media. the centre of controversy on both a local Once in the camp, the discussion of and global level. Cotterrell is open about manoeuvres was specific to the range of his lack of knowledge about what to aircraft or the range of coverage of land expect. He had read the newspapers up if combat was on foot. until his departure for Afghanistan and after that had little or no contact with Timescale too had an impact. Most of a media or press. soldier’s time was taken up waiting for and anticipating combat. The focal point Having only spent two months there in the combat can be a few hours out and without what he thought was of weeks. Boredom combined with the the necessary expertise, Cotterrell anticipation of the trauma of conflict can felt uneasy presenting his visit. David make for an intense atmosphere in camp. and Helen Sloan (curator) began to work together in 2009 on ways in The works in Monsters of the Id attempted which he might present his experience to capture this variation of scale, along through his artwork. Monsters of the Id with different individual versions of the From the Photographic Archive, Afghanistan 2007 – 8

48 49 real, by focusing on a sculptural simulation of the desert using calcium carbonate granules. The sculptural terrain was mapped onto a games engine, and video footage of this ‘desert’ environment was shown as a projection in the other pieces networked to the sculpture. The viewer was implicated in each piece as they experienced the desert and its inhabitants from the air, from the top of a mountain, and one to one on a sand dune.

Cotterrell experienced a significant liberating experience during his visits. In talking to Afghanis and soldiers on the ground as an outsider, people were more open especially when he talked to villagers as a civilian. He was able to process this information without the decades and even centuries of protocol and history provided by military, government and NGOs. Perhaps by pulling these additional strands together this is the significant role that an insightful artist or commentator can take in conflict resolution.

David Cotterrell, Helen Sloan 2012

Right: Control, 2012 (Mixed media installation) Installation View, Detail Pages 52-53: Observer Effect, 2012 (Dual channel interactive installation) Installation View, Detail

All images courtesy David Cotterrell.

50 51 52 53 contradictions and a rehashed political art works which no longer make the State of Melancholia: History is the medium rhetoric which promises little assurance distinction between content and form as of transformation. The emphasis, by dual elements within the artwork. these artists, is to create a narrative that In order to make a worthwhile The following text is a summary of the talk and Turkey are officially still at war and distills the Cypriot condition, some using contextualisation of the Cypriot art delivered at the Art, Culture Memory and the status quo is maintained with ceasefire humour and satire, and others using the scene, one has to take into account Trauma seminar held at the Thursday Club, agreements made in September 1974. established official versions of each side’s institutional actors and the wider public Goldsmiths University on March 1st 2012. Being trapped within the overshadow tragedy immersed history. context. Although art is purchased by Specific references to art works and their related of a potential resurgence of war - not the Cyprus State Gallery frequently, very images have been omitted in this revised version. dissimilar to the cold war experienced by Up to recently, due mainly to a marked little funding is given directly towards the West and Soviet Union - Cypriot art absence of a substantial localised its development and production and and media, especially during the following theoretical framework, as I have already almost no opportunities are created “sadness […] would be boundless, were it not decade, were mainly employed to articulate mentioned, the Cypriot artist found it towards its presentation and its analysis for the presence of that intentionality which political events and express the respective necessary to almost exclusively reference or evaluation in a substantial manner. Goethe deems an essential component of every official political points of view. This other cultural trends beyond the The few existing art collectors, still do work of art, and which manifests itself with an essentially ideologically biased translation borders of Cyprus. These artists, thus, not, to my knowledge, support works assertiveness that fends off mourning.”1 of events became the dominant culture for positioned their individual voice on the whose political message is not that of the each of the conflicting communities eager interpretation of a contemporary critical mainstream. Furthermore, the reluctance Cyprus became independent in 1960 to document their own version of history. discourse beyond their immediate core of the government to pass tax exemption after a guerilla struggle against the British. Consequently, much of the dominant art experience, a mediation determined by laws for businesses or individuals who may This independence was imposed upon produced during this difficult and ethically internationalisation and not by recent donate funding to non-profit organisations the community by other vested interests, complex period was informed by the events translations of primary source content or artists, contributes to the reinforcement as during this time, many of the Greek of this media amplified political landscape. within a regional context. However, the of the authorised view as well as an official Cypriots who constituted 78% of the state of melancholia and mourning as a control over what is culturally presented population wanted union with Greece The comprehension of cause and effect, collective condition, has been examined regarding topical political and social issues. and many of the Turkish Cypriots desired time and space has promoted narrative with integrity, by a few artists who do Taksim, their own separate independence. as the main method of collocating succeed in referencing local codes as Perhaps, understandably, Cypriot art The politics played upon and within the these events and making sense of this cultural signifiers without the indulgence production is essentially ideologically island during 1963, resulted in inter- experience. Experimental and non-linear of sentimentality. Other artworks pre-determined as the 1974 events are still communal violence between Greek approaches are rare, with the prevailing may demonstrate sensitivity about the in living memory of all mature practicing and Turkish Cypriots culminating in a model for experimental art continuing experience contained within the subject artists. Unfortunately, through mainly the mainland Greek junta initiated coup to be informed by dominant Western matter but the experience of the work vehicle of education, an insistence on story against the Cyprus government in July discourse. The main reason for this is that itself is usually approached through telling, remembrance and propaganda 1974, triggering a Turkish invasion 5 days almost all practicing Cypriot artists have banal clichés confirming the already has created a new generation of Cypriots later, at which time, the two main ethnic studied abroad as Cyprus still does not defined syntactic experience. Often, the whose ‘unlived memories’ materialise communities were forced into a divide. A have a University of Arts. Even when a use of lament as protest is employed to often, as biased views promoting a sense division which continues to exist today. more experimental approach is evident, represent the enunciation of historical of fear and distrust of the ‘other’. This the subject matter of these works is, in memory and sometimes this has been also has given rise to a number of extreme Although no large scale violent conflict most cases, self-consciously local and successful as these real and subversive conservative groups who advocate that we occurred on the island since 1974, Cyprus reliant on staid narratives. We live in an works are void of prescribed tenets. This are still losing something but at the same environment that does not make social situation is beginning to be addressed by time one cannot see clearly what it is that 1 Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Vol. 2: 1927- and political sense. Many artworks iterate some scholars and already we are seeing has been lost as many younger generations 1934, 1999, 373 this complex situation, full of unresolved the emergence of selected experimental never had it. This, of course, is a sensitive

54 55 area and one which inspires a plethora of In contrast to the Greek Cypriots, the an empowered international identity meaning pertinent to the changing socio- reactions and translations but the point official view of Turkish Cypriots, was and presence, and perhaps, herein, political and scholastic climate of Cyprus. I am making is that the reinforcement of that the 1974 events allowed them to lies the strength of this small cultural melancholia, as a notion of uniting the return home. However, this neatly community whose defined boundaries In conclusion -- and as is the case in many many, is still, a strong medium. packaged version is also contentious, can be limiting, but can also, lead to a other post-colonial countries - the idea in context to the rights of the positive interchange of ideas, questioning of the independent, autonomous and We could describe the general condition Turkish Cypriots. The political and and shared resistance to claustrophobic united identity of a Cypriot today, still of the Cypriot artist as melancholic in social dynamics of the demographic discontent. If we manage to shed the does not exist, as the issue of ethnicity the Freudian sense. Although the events distribution that has occurred by mass ideological imposition of the oppressive still precludes some people from access of 63 and 74 created a lot of internally emigration of settlers from Turkey since agenda of the ‘Cyprus Problem’ together, to full civil and social rights. A historical displaced people, the strategy of the 1974, now constitutes the majority of ensuing the liberation from appropriated paradox which ensures that the duality various governments since then, in the population and its mandate. Most grand cultural/historical narratives and and inequality unfortunately remains. their attempts to establish the promise of these Turkish settlers express loyalty unattainable ideological agendas, we However, and more importantly, this of speedy resolution, was to ignore to the Turkish Administration rather could and would generate a sense of incongruity has stimulated an engaging or dismiss the aspect of collective than comradeship to the diminishing release and triumphant re-focus, much and evolving dialogue through the mourning - a reaction to loss which population of Turkish Cypriots. in the way of a Hegelian self-critical / production of interesting creative and Freud recognises as a normal one. The self-aware process. This would encourage scholarly responses which explore the condition of mourning associated with What may be stated quite accurately, a proactive questioning of (shared) transformative power of art and its unresolved trauma developed into a is that both communities are united identity embedded within a generating relationship to politics and other social collective melancholy, a reaction Freud in their shared notion of melancholia. social critique regarding the ineluctable concerns. It is these works which deserve diagnoses as a pathological state. A This melancholia is entrenched in the responsibility of the individual to a wider public visibility. denial to accept loss is the root of both united Cypriot psyche and is as much question uncertainty. conditions according to Freud. Since politically induced and harnessed as 1974 the official Greek Cypriot position it is cultural and historical. In times Our present situation is in a state of flux Yiannis Colakides is a practicing architect, a was that we will return to our lost land. of crisis, melancholy imposes itself, indicating a transformation beyond the new media artist, a founding member and the This view began to disintegrate in the 90s, lays down its archaeology, produces superficially coherent and hybrid political current president of NeMe. Since 2008 he is especially among young intellectuals, and its representations, its knowledge, and ideologies that have been commodified a peer reviewer at Leonardo LABs. His texts was accompanied with an increase of bi- experience. Napoleon once said “You can as the dominant cultural products of the have appeared in Cypriot and international communal activities. Interestingly, whilst always recover the space lost, but you can two main communities. These ongoing publications. His curatorial work includes The this new attitude and inter-communal never recover the time lost”2. I would like to narratives, although remaining the main Mirror Stage, Lanitis Centre Limassol, Cyprus, co-operation was developing, a member iterate that although the communities in political concern, have now socially and the following with Helene Black, …SO of parliament proposed a law stating Cyprus have parallel shared histories, the transformed into personal experiences NOW WHAT? for Scope New York and Basel, that expressions of defeatism should be state of melancholia has its cause from of fragmented memories, a ‘collection of COR UNUM for the National Centre of made illegal. Fortunately this absurd very different ideological and political moments’. There are, however, indicators Contemporary Art, Moscow, Margins of Time proposal was rejected. The significance readings of history. of a disintegration and re-evaluation of at the Lanits Centre, Limassol, Cyprus and here, however, is the high-handed attempt past experience that is contributing to Dialogues with the machine: Cypriot video art for to further entrench the official view of, Cyprus does not have a large population, the questioning of visual media and the Sala Berlanga, Madrid, Spain. as a nation, all Greek Cypriots should nor the support structures within associated responsibility of the artist embrace the loss until we secure the the cultural community, to establish as chronicler of the prevailing partisan right of return. The state of perpetual relationship between art and politics. anticipation remains. 2 Nam June Paik, INPUT-TIME AND OUTPUT- This developing emphasis, is on the TIME, 1976, http://nobetty.net/parsons_video/ search for a new intertextuality and new paik_inputoutput.pdf sighted 10 August 2010 collaborations in order to communicate

56 57 Art, Culture, Memory and Trauma 1 March 2012 Goldsmiths College, 3/4, Ben Pimlott Building

Participants and Convenors: Lanfranco Aceti, Professor Janis Jefferies, David Cotterrell, NeMe (Yiannis Colakides and Helene Black) and Helen Sloan

58 59 Everybody Knows this is Nowhere Curators: Mayssa Fattouh and Nesrine Khodr

31 May - 6 June 2012 Plan Bey locale - Mar Mikhael An- Naher, Beirut, Lebanon

60 61 Mayssa Fattouh is a curator currently based Suspended still life (2006) and Twelve untitled Everybody Knows this is Nowhere in Doha where she is the artistic director scenes of disaster (2008). and curator of Katara Art Centre, an artist- led platform for contemporary art and the Ghassan Salhab was born in Dakar, Senegal. Everybody Knows this is Nowhere stemmed challenges the understanding of borders creative industries emerging from the Gulf In addition to making his own films, Salhab from the desire to create a collaborative into all that is physically and mentally and the Middle East. She has been invited as collaborates on various scenarios in Lebanon work by an artist, a curator and a outside of oneself. an independent curator to develop projects, and in France, and teaches film in Lebanon. filmmaker. The roles of the three exhibitions and collections in the Middle He has directed five feature films: Beyrouth collaborators - Mayssa Fattouh, Nesrine Opting out the conventional rituals of East, namely in Beirut (Counting Thoughts, Fantôme (selected by Trois Continents/Nantes Khodr and Ghassan Salhab - became exhibition, the project takes a low key Beirut Waterfront - Private collection) and 1998 and various international film festivals); intertwined and blurred, making the turn, making it a week long participatory in Bahrain while working at Al Riwaq Art Terra Incognita (selected by Un Certain Regard, designations of each somewhat obsolete, viewing session in a non-white cube space Space -- formerly known as Al Riwaq Gallery Cannes 2002, and also selected by several where all three turn into the main for a mixed and unidentified public. The (The Ultimate Experience, Transformation of other international film festivals); The Last audience of the work. second life of the collaboration and the Memories, A Beautiful Mess). She participated Man (selected by Locarno 2006; Montpellier, piece as a finished consumable artwork in juries, talks and conferences mainly Torino, Dubai, Singapore; Tribeca, Tous In this video work, Salhab taps on the starts as a discussion form between the around independent and grass root platforms, les cinemas du monde, Cannes 2007); 1958 semantical aspect of borders and frontiers three amongst themselves and expands artists residencies and the critique of the (selected by FID Marseille 2009, Locarno, delving into the human essence. “The with the passing by viewers and their ideology of institutions. Her writings have MEIFF, Dox Box, Istanbul International Film question of alterity poses the question inputs to form a compilation of questions, appeared in platforms and magazines such Festival, Carthage 2010), and The Mountain of borders” -- known to be formulated views and opinions on the nature of such as Fillip, Art Territories, Universes in (FID Marseille 2011, Toronto International by Herodotus -- is a question still as valid a work and project. Universe, M-est, Ibraaz, Canvas Magazine. Film Festival 2011, Doha International Film today as it was back in Greek times in the Fattouh obtained her BA in Fine Arts from Festival 2010) In addition to numerous 5th century BC. The video raises timeless The essence of such an approach is best the Lebanese University in Beirut and is short films and videos, including Le massacre questions, such as duality shown through expressed through Nicolas Bourriaud’s currently a candidate for Masters of Arts in des innocents; (Posthume); Narcisse Perdu; My the use of the diptych and the idea of notion which he highlights in his book Communication at the European Graduate living body, my dead body; La Rose de personne; containment, appearing in the image Postproduction: “The contemporary work School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Baalbeck (co-directed with A. Zaatari and M. of the checkpoint, where the flows of of art does not position itself as the Soueid); Afrique Fantôme; Après la Mort, he has the body, language, and expressions are termination point of the ‘creative process’ Nesrine Khodr is a visual artist, filmmaker, also published his texts and articles in various controlled within a defined territory. but as a site of navigation, a portal, a and television producer who lives and magazines, and a book, Fragments du Livre du generator of activities.” works in Beirut. She has read History at Naufrage (Amers Editions) in 2012. The factor of time again comes to play the American University of Beirut, and a major role in the way it rules the This process driven project highlights received an MSc in European Film Studies body and the psyche. In his minimalist the trading of ideas between curator, at the University of Edinburgh. In 2003 and approach, Salhab’s video immerses the artist and audience, aesthetics and 2004, she was an artist in residence at the viewer in a reality that is known too knowledge production base, challenging Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in well but often ignored, with a reference the often canonised and commodified Amsterdam, and in Dec 2010/Jan 2011 she to the Lebanese political state and the contemporary art world as well as the took part in the research/residency program abstraction in which a human being limits of public and private contexts for art. at Tokyo Wonder Site. She has directed faces in such conditions, highlighted in various short films and documentaries from the poignant pose of waiting, in itself a 1998 to the present including Winter Wind condition relating to the human essence Nesrine Khodr and Mayssa Fattouh (2011), Enclosures (2004), Aiin al Hamra (2000), in Heideggerian philosophy. By raising Of Seduction -- in collaboration with Ghassan the question of otherness, Salhab also Salhab (1998), and installations including,

62 63 Everybody Knows this is Nowhere

ضمن إطار املرشوع “عرب الحواجز” ويف جزئه الخاص التي تظهر عرب إستعامل الفيديوين املزدوجني، ومفهوم بلبنان، إختارت قيّمة املعارض “ميسا فتوح” مع قيمة اإلحتواء الظاهر يف صورة الحاجز، حيث دفق الجسد، املعارض والفنانة “نرسين خرض” العمل مع السيناميئ واللغة، والتعابري املتحكم بها ضمن مساحة محددة. والفنان “غسان سلهب”، الذي قدم ًعمآل يتحدى الفهم كام للوقت ٌدور ٌأسايس يف تحكمه بالجسد والنفس. عرب للحدود بشكل أسايس. يهدف ذلك التعاون عرب مضمونه مقاربته املينياملية يُغرق فيديو سلهب املشاهد يف حقيقة وشكله املطروح إىل تفكيك الحدود القامئة ما بني املشاهد معلومة ولكن غالبا ًما تكون متجاهلة، مشرياًيف الوقت والعرض الكامنة ضمن سياقات األعامل الفنية املعارصة، ذاته إىل الوضع السيايس يف لبنان، كام التجريد الذي يجد ومساءلة اإلستعامل املبالغ للمصطلحات واملفاهيم، خاصة اإلنسان ذاته يف ٍمواجهة معه يف مثل هكذا ظروف، ملقياً تلك التي تتصل بهكذا مرشوع الضوء عىل الوضعية الحادة لإلنتظار، التي هي بحد ذاتها حالة مرتبطة بجوهر اإلنسان يف الفلسفة الهايدغرية. عرب إن خيار تقديم العمل الفني يف “فضاء محتل” كام اللجوء طرح سؤال الغريية يتحدى أيضاًسلهب فهم الحدود يف إىل الفيديو كوسيط فني، يعزز موقف الزوال الكائن يف املادة والفكر صلب املرشوع، دون التغريب عن شكله األويل كعمل فني. تم عرض الفيديو املزدوج )فيديو ديبتيك( ملدة أسبوع، دون أن يتم اإلعالن عنه، محتالً ًفضاء يستعمل عادة كمحل تجاري، تم تحويله إلستقبال العرض. كانت األيام الثالثة األول للعرض حاضنة لنقاش ما بني الفنان وقيمي املعرض، حول العمل بحد ذاته، وكيفية ظهوره لجمهور غري مجهز، والدور الذي لعبه ذاك التعاون من خالل املامرسة الفنية لكل منهم، وتصور هكذا عمل ضمن عامل ّفني مؤسسايتّ

إن نتيجة تلك النقاشات سوف يتم نرشها عىل حدى الحقاً ضمن كتيب، يعطي للمرشوع حياة أخرى متحولة وممتدة يف الزمن

إن أفضل تعبري عن جوهر املقاربة املنتقاة هنا نجده يف املفهوم الذي يسلط عليه الضوء “نيقوال بوريو” يف كتابه “ما بعد اإلنتاج – بوست بروداكشني”: “إن العمل الفني املعارص ال يتموقع كنقطة نهاية “للعملية اإلبداعية” ولكن ”كسياق للبحث، وبوابة، ومولد لألفعال ملخص فيديو مزدوج – ديبتيك “الكل يعلم ان هذا ال: :”مكان

إن السؤال عن الغرييةّ يحيلنا إىل طرح السؤال عن“ Ghassan Salhab الحدود” – )هريودوت( - هل ما يزال ذاك السؤال صالحاً Everybody Knows This is Nowhere اليوم كام منذ خمسة قرون ما قبل امليالد؟ يطرح فيديو ”Two Channel video projection, 15’00 غسان سلهب أسئلة تتخطى حدود الزمن، كاإلزدواجية

64 65 Nomadism and Trans-cities Curator: George Katodrytis

1 - 6 June 2012 Code building, Al Barsha, Dubai, UAE

66 67 spatial-urban approach that emphasises In effect the ‘global tourist’ has been Nomadism and Trans-cities: Films, an enclave but also exclusiveness. Dubai shaping Dubai and Abu Dhabi. is turning into a postcard portrait city. Machines [as agencies and, hybrid] Replicas Panoramas and imagery of unfinished George Katodrytis is an architect involved projects give rise to the exciting promise in practice, teaching and research. He is and landscapes Visionary futures: filmic and of fantasy. This is the future state of world currently Associate Professor of Architecture urbanism. In effect imagery is shaping at the American University of Sharjah in the robotic landscapes as autonomous systems Dubai and Abu Dhabi. United Arab Emirates. He studied and taught at the Architectural Association in London Orientalist Modern Cities and he has been a visiting professor at various The exhibition showed work by 20 the development of design through UAE developers have adopted the schools around the world. He worked in architects who investigate new relations explorations of formal and material elongation of the picture frame -the Paris, London, Nicosia and Dubai. He built a between the territories of science, systems and their association with urban panoramic - especially in landscape number of projects in Europe and the Middle nature and fiction. The work explores networks. Large numbers of nomadic paintings found in Orientalist paintings. East, as well as having published widely on complex, rich and contradictory realities populations are constantly in flux, This technique simulates depictions used contemporary architecture, urbanism, cultural of the present as a site of strange and in a city that is constantly evolving. in historical representations. Despite the theory and digital media. His work addresses extraordinary futures. Projects adopt Its recent rampant growth and the current production of iconic architecture the ‘city’, especially as it is evolving in the 21st machines as events and architectural explosion of mega-scale structures provide this exact historical representation century. He employs digital technology and spaces set to interact and generate opportunities to study new typologies of coincides with a mental map of these scripting as tools for establishing new formal nomadic scenarios in remote landscapes building programs and forms. Within the cities, which paradoxically is still routed and performative models in architecture. (deserts, water and islands). The work urban grid and the already monotonous in their Islamic imagery. Urbanism combines digital and analogue techniques and partly predictable urban condition, in the Arab world has a remarkable that often see projects moving between the generation of prosthetic geometries precedent. Historically urbanizing large digital and manually crafted images and new morphologies acts as catalysts areas and introducing a new aesthetic and collages several times during the and variants for innovation. The work and ‘art’ is very much inherent in the composition of a drawing. challenges the current practice of creation or the contemporary Arab city. architecture in the region and makes The expo of Orientalism is now driven Digital scripting alternative and real proposals for the city. by UAE Master Developers, promoting The new tools of topological procedures a western lifestyle in oriental settings, allow operations such as stretching Satellite Urbanisms representing Gulf culture as haute without tearing, and folding without Dubai’s urbanism poses a preoccupation couture in exclusive towers of wealth or gluing, preserving only a set of very with the fabrication of its perceived gardens in exotic islands. These cities abstract properties invariant. By adopting image. The exploration of places manifest the contemporary interpretation contemporary form-making practices, through imagery is a contemporary of Orientalism, sensual, spectacular, such as modeling in the physical and the phenomenon. As the technology in the artificial, subliminal and above all digital form, the work attempts to break production of imagery of un-built and contemporary and global. Furthermore some of the preconceived boundaries of newly built architecture has become more as the model of the Islamic city was architecture, notably that of the traditional sophisticated, its image becomes an end shaped by Westerners might show an sequence of site, program and proposal. in itself and can now be transmitted ‘indigenous’ space, this imagery is now a across the globe instantaneously. The major export, attracting million of tourist Flat grid with prosthetic geometries imagery of artificial coastlines and intense seeking the authenticity of the Arabesque. Urban centres in the UAE are ‘cities skylines of clusters is now projecting from zero’. The work investigates a new satellite urbanism based on a

68 69 راكتبإل ةعمتجم وأ ةدرفنم لئاسوك تايلأ ، مالفأ تاحطسم كيتوبورو مليف ، لايخلاب ئلم لبقتسم ةركتبم و ةلقتسم ةمظناك قطانمو

املعرض يسلط الضوء عىل أعامل 20 مصمم ومصممة املدن الرشقية املعارصه معامرية التي دارت حول دراسة العالقة بني العلوم املدن الرشقية والتخطيط العمراين يف االمارات والوطن ،الطبيعة والخيال. األعامل تبعث الحارض كموقع العريب بأجمع تأثره بالفن العريب اإلسالمي اللوحات ملستقبل خارج عن املألوف تتناول طبعت الحارض الغنية الرشقية بشكل خاص من خالل تصوير املدن بعدسة واملتناقضة. املشاريع إتخذت من األالت وسيلة لخلق بانورامية ذات أفق ال متناهي، كان الهدف من ربط أحداث وتشغل مساحة معامرية متنقلة عرب مناطق غري الثقافة الغربية والحضارة اإلسالمية يف االمارات هو توفري مأهوله مثل الصحراء ،املسطحات املائيه و الجزر. األعامل بيئة تالئم الحضارة املتعايشة عىل أرض اإلمارات وإنتاج تجمع بني الطرق التقليدية والرقمية لخلق رسومات بيئة هجينة ذات هوية وطابع عمراين مختلف وخاص من مبتكرة. األدوات الفوتوغرافية الحديثة ساعدت عىل ايجاد نوعه طرق مبتكرة للحصول عىل نتائج مألوفة. األعامل تحاول تخطي املعتقدات التقليدية املرتبطة بخطوات املرشوع George Katodrytis املعامري عن طريق إستخدم الوسائل اليدوية والرقمية يف التصميم.األعامل تناولت يف التصميم من خالل دراست الشكل واملواد املستخدمة وارتباطها بالشبكات املحلية تحدي املعطيات الحضارة املدنية يف ديب ، حضارة انشأت من الصفر. وتتطور التصاميم عن طريق دراست تبعات املواد واألشكال وتأثرها عىل املدن. أعداد املرتحلني يف تزايد وتفاوت يف تطور دائم والذي يدفع إىل وجود بناء قيد االنشاء ومواقع إنشاء وعامر توفر فرص لدراسة تبعات البناء وأهميته يف املدن ومواقع االنشاء توفر حدود وخطوط تحبذ روح التنافس يف املصمم البراز وإستغالل هذه املعطيات ، إليجاد حلول جديدة ومبتكرة املدن عن بعد صورة العمران يف ديب أصبحت تشكل عامالً مهام ًيف نقل صورة حضارة يف قيد البناء وترتك صورة مواقع اإلنشاء واألبنية غري املكتملة فضوالً وشوقا ًعند العامل بأجمع لرؤيت صورة ديب حال إكتامل هذه املشاريع. أصبح النظر عىل ديب من خالل صورة األقامر الصناعية متعة بحد ذاته

70 71 Ali Monguno Fadi Banani

Ammar Al Janabi

Farah Mudhefer

Dunia Abu Shanab

72 73 Judy Mahfouz Maha Moustafa

Lara Tahhan Maryam Mudhaffar

74 75 May Al Joodi Rami Al Otaibi

Najwan Al Araji Rodrigo Moura

76 77 Roxanne Djaiji

Shahin Hesar Shourkabi

Samia Othman

Sham Enbashi

Sema Orouk

78 79 Shaza Khursheed Talin Hazbar

Sulaf Aburas Waleed Almezini

80 81 Nomadism and Trans-cities 1 - 6 June 2012 Code building, Al Barsha, Dubai, UAE

Participants: Shahin Manouchehr Hesarshourkabi, Lara Tahhan, Ali Aminu Monguno, May Saad Al-Godi, Talin M-Mahdi Hazbar, Rodrigo Francisco De Moura, Rami Mo’ien Alotaibi, Fadi Faisal Banani, Maha Moustafa Habib, Ammar Mohammed Ali Yahya, Soulaf Maen Aburas, Roxanne Anis Djaiji, Farah Faris Mudhafar, Sema Kasem Al Orouk, Eyad Mahfouz, Maryam Mohammad Alhaj Mudhaffar, Shaza Khursheed, Dunia Abu Shanab, Waleed Al Mezini, Cham Nagwan Al-Araji Enbashi

82 83 bound Curators: Sophia Touboura, Nana Sacchini, Maria Lianou

6 - 15 June 2012 OpenShowstudio Athens, Greece

84 85 historic city Plovdid respectively, reveals -constructed and found- and materials bound: 1. A boundary, a limit. / 2.tied / fragments of history, creates a new space such as a printed coloured textile with in place and transfers space in time. black geometric shapes (a black door 3. to leap forward or upward; spring It reconnects in this way pieces of an and black/gray circles), wood, a pool identity as history emerges at the surface of black liquid that becomes mirror, a and space, leading in turn to a new pedestal with stones, a decapitated Under the multiple readings of the where everything is in a constant state of reading of the here and now. female figure, with a ritualistic approach title, bound presents artists from the ‘being and becoming’. and due to their juxtaposition acquire Balkan region. Given that the issue of Nemanja Nikolic in its stop animation multiple and ambiguous readings. Their ever-reforming identities is constantly In the works of M.Tadic and P.Ivanov Masterpiece focuses in history and its existence, value, and their properties are present in the region -- where historical, we come across the metaphysics of re-reading as well as the concept of shifted and weakened, whilst the ‘low’ racial, political, gender, artistic, ‘being and becoming’ as an attempt to authority -- whether artistic or not-, becomes ‘high’ and gains metaphysical ontological terms are at stake -- the communicate with the surrounded space- through a fictional misreading. Hitler properties, the object of pleasure takes exhibition explores the interrelationship time and wonder about who and where sees a horror to evolve in front of threatening dimensions and the ‘high’ is of participants within this reality of we are. In the stop-frame animation of him and he paints flowers, a ‘still life’. deconstructed with humour. continuous flux, their interaction with Marko Tadic We used to call it moon an The use of plasticine and mutilated and their attitude towards it. Artists open fragmented narrative is created dolls come in contradiction with the The flag, symbol par excellence of from different starting points and which takes us to unknown imaginary tragicomic cannibalistic ritual of skull’s the differentiation from other states, backgrounds and looking towards spaces or u-topos. Lines run on the paper fracture. Charged (overloaded) symbols becomes in the video Geometry and different directions, each one with his/ creating landscapes and interiors, colour -Hitler, dolls as an element of childhood’s animals of Stela Vula the roadmap of her own artistic language, negotiate stains spread, sometimes erasing the innocence, the skull as a ‘hamlet’ is a kaleidoscopic narrative. The digital issues of how to define and abolish previous images, sometimes transforming questioning for the value of existence, the process ends up showing the flags like limits, divisions and restrictions, in a them. The moon-cycle bursts every now ‘still life’ as part of the artistic tradition- mass-produced stickers, where their direct and caustic manner. and then as a catalyst- doubles, multiplies- take part in a frenzy narrative full of black diversity is homogenised and everything disrupting with its multiple presence humour. The lust of power, the triumph is repeated endlessly. At the same time, In the video with painterly qualities of the perception of each environment. of the darkest instincts or how ‘creation’ however, since the passage from the one Jana Stojakovic Schizoid Dream of a Body, The drawing is transformed and altered, and commitment into an absurd dystopia flag to the other is happening through seduction and eroticism are the means reminding us that meanings are elusive, can lead to nightmarish extremes. national symbols-animals (and they are in search of the ‘Other’ and discovery uncertain and in continuous flux and released from their emblematic role) the of the ego. The ‘one’ and the ‘other’ in evolution. The only ‘certainty’ is the The use and the reverse of symbols symbols return to a common place where the beginning in a physical distance, concept of drawing and structure as a way and of stereotypical references, the way the animistic, international, folk tradition they smell each other like animals of understanding the world and this only images are manufactured and perceived more connects rather than separates and explore their differences. Only for the moment that drawing and thus how identities are constructed nations. Maybe after all a common channel of communication, proximity is inscribed on the paper. are common links in the works of Em identity that unifies as well as divides us is and finally acceptance proved to be the Kei & Nicolaich, Stela Vula and Fani the animalistic? body, its distortions and the traction In the two minimalistic gestures- Sofologi. The themes above as well as the between the two bodies. The hamam- interventions 3 Square Meters Cleaned transformation of materials in the work In the performance The illustrated pool as heterotopia becomes an arena, a Up and Minus One Cubic Meter, Plus One Untitled of Em Kei & Nicolaich, become history of everyday life of Fani Sofologi battleground and a bargaining field. The Cubic Meter, Pravdoliub Ivanov deals with part of a discontinued narrative, which the cultural ‘encounter’ between two apparent moisture feeling of a ‘container’ what poetics of space could mean. questions the established way we perceive. countries, Greece and Germany, with a emphasises the fluidity of the situation, The removing of layers of matter-dust A tableau vivant that stands critically contradictive relationship that unfolds of the bodies and sexes and finally of from tiles of an old hamam (roman and ironically against the exoticised through time, occurs through the their very identities as a matrix-womb baths) and of soil from a courtyard in the myth of ‘Greek summer’. Objects presentation of posters with mundane

86 87 matters that have been collected from Meaning has the active posture of the Finally in the photo series Becoming several documentary and video art festivals, the two countries. The semantics of body of the performer who seems to blind of Ender Gelgec their tiny size and visual group exhibitions, has carried out site everyday life, the power of image, the enjoy and question. the way they focus on details of objects specific installations, audiovisual projects, stereotypes and the prejudices in the encourage a fresh way of looking at things. solo presentations and artistic co-operations, way we perceive, the relationship The controversial object Chair ‘distance’ The closeness and the intimacy that was towards which she is especially inclined. She between marketing and aesthetics are of Vassilis Hatzopoulos, where the basic developed between the artist and the is the founder and the head of the team the elements that this performance functions of a chair and of a wheel come objects he photographed, can be found of the non profit artist-run project space deals with. The questions and dilemmas together and create tension between also in the relationship between the OpenShowstudio. She lives and works in posed by the presenter-performer require stillness and motion, questions the viewer and the work. Whether things Athens and Thessaloniki. the activation and the involvement of Western model of time. It urges us not to are misrepresented or corrected through the viewers. Can she affect the public miss other walks and pleasure, but also it the photographic lens it is of a little Nana Sachini studied in Chelsea College opinion? And who ultimately is her reminds us the lost time that is contained importance. The little gestures that tend of Art and Design, London, UK (Master role? Is she rules or is she dominated by in any form of immobility. In search of the to ‘silence’, only ask some of the viewer’s and Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art) the audience? What is pseudo-dilemma (or one amongst many) identity, the lost attention and a slight shift in position-in and in School of Fine Arts in Thessaloniki, and which is the truth every time is time could prove important and beneficial. the way that we see, listen, understand Greece (BA Hons in Painting). Her work questioned and under negotiation. The romantic notion of loss of time, where and approach. embraces various media including drawing, what we have lost is the time we haven’t sculpture, installation and performance. She The dilemmas posed by the western invested in ‘walks’ and not in productive ps. the exhibition bound demanded a has participated in group exhibitions in standard of living and homogenisation time: a challenge towards the mainstream lot of small shifts of positions and limits London, Athens and Berlin and recently she as a tool of exercising power are contemporary western culture. from all of its participants. participated in a two-person show in Athens. examined in the works of Dusica Drazic She is also founding member of the artist - Sam Hopkins and Vassilis Hatzopoulos. Another approach towards objects, their group “KangarooCourt”. Nana lives and In the video performance Young Serbians mode of production as well as their value Sofia Touboura, Maria Lianou, works in Athens. Dusica Drazic and Sam Hopkins, with is suggested by Philippos Gkountzos in Nana Sachini humour and sarcasm wonder about his installation Without any error. Tools Athens, June 2012. Maria Lianou is a visual artist based in the value of the American dream. A and objects of indeterminate identity and Athens. She received two BA degrees from the woman in a rainy landscape without functionality, where raw materials (wood, Athens School of Fine Arts, one in Sculpture references --a motorway anywhere in the iron, lead, bricks) coexist with readymade Sofia Touboura was born in Thessaloniki, and one in Painting. She has received various contemporary Western world- dances objects (pens, fibreglass, lexicon). Perhaps Greece, in 1977. She studied Social scholarships and awards. She has participated with the sound of Bowie’s Young weapons, perhaps torture tools, eroticism Anthropology and Sociology at Panteion in many group exhibitions in Cyprus and Americans, a song criticism on the or dysfunctional hybrids, which were University of Social & Political Studies abroad, as well as in art biennials. She has had American dream. Everything which is altered by the time or somebody made (BA, MA) during the years 1995-2002. four solo exhibitions. moving is behind and away from her. A a joke in order to strip them from clear/ She concentrated in the fields of optical male voice in the chorus paraphrases describable properties. The ratios are not anthropology and social philosophy. Next, and screams Young Serbians. The body achieved and the error in their production she studied at Athens School of Fine Arts, is ‘cut’ in two from the line of the process undermines the logical sequence with tutors Giannis Psychopaidis and Nikos motorway while, due to the line, the ‘This is so as to fulfil (for) that purpose’. Tranos, where she focused on video, sculpture body is integrated with the space. Is the The rules are overturned and no one has constructions, large surface painting and song in the end the abandonment of the power, because no one obtains the visual installations. She graduated in 2008, the dream that she is not able to follow means of production. We arrive at ground with distinction. She uses a wide range of or a release from the compulsive desires zero since we have to re-invent new ways artistic means, from material colour and that the Western dream imposed on her? to manipulate the ‘useless’ items. Let’s see visual installations to digital painting and The definitive answer is meaningless. again who is who. free documentary. She has participated in

88 89 επέκταση σε μια νέα ανάγνωση του εδώ Ένα tableau vivant που στέκεται κριτικά bound: 1. A boundary, a limit. / 2.tied / και τώρα. και ειρωνικά απέναντι στον μύθο- εξωτικοποίηση του ‘ελληνικού καλοκαιριού’. 3. to leap forward or upward; spring Η ιστορία και το ξανακοίταγμά της, μέσω Αντικείμενα –κατασκευασμένα και found μιας μυθοπλαστικής παρανάγνωσης, objects- και υλικά όπως ένα τυπωμένο Το project bound εκθέτει καλλιτέχνες από Στo στοπ καρέ animation του Marko καθώς κι η έννοια της αυθεντίας έγχρωμο ύφασμα (παρεό;) με μαύρα την ευρύτερη περιοχή των Βαλκανίων. Tadic We used to call it moon, δημιουργείται -καλλιτεχνικής και μη- είναι τα επίκεντρα γεωμετρικά σχήματα (μια μαύρη πύλη και Δεδομένου ότι το ζήτημα των διαρκώς μια ανοιχτή σπονδυλωτή αφηγηματική στο stop animation Masterpiece του μαύρους/γκρι κύκλους-ελλείψεις), ξύλα, ανασυγκροτούμενων ταυτοτήτων δομή που μας ταξιδεύει σε άγνωστους Nemanja Nikolic. Ο Χίτλερ βλέπει μια μια πισίνα με μαύρο υγρό που γίνεται –ως ιστορικό, φυλετικό, πολιτικό, φανταστικούς ου-τόπους. Οι γραμμές φρίκη να εξελίσσεται μπροστά του κι καθρέφτης, ένα βάθρο με πέτρες, μια σεξουαλικό, καλλιτεχνικό, οντολογικό τρέχουν δημιουργώντας τοπία και αυτός ζωγραφίζει λουλούδια, μια ‘νεκρή αποκεφαλισμένη γυναικεία φιγούρα, με διακύβευμα- είναι μονίμως παρόν στην εσωτερικούς χώρους, οι χρωματικές φύση’. Η χρήση της πλαστελίνης και των τελετουργική διαδικασία και λόγω της περιοχή, η έκθεση διερευνά τη βιωμένη κηλίδες απλώνουν, άλλοτε εξαφανίζοντας ακρωτηριασμένων παιδικών κούκλων συναρμογής/παράθεσής τους αποκτούν σχέση των συμμετεχόντων με αυτή την κι άλλοτε μεταπλάθοντάς τους. Το έρχεται σε κωμικοτραγική αντιπαράθεση πολλαπλές και διφορούμενες αναγνώσεις. πραγματικότητα αλλά και την στάση τους φεγγάρι-κύκλος εισβάλλει κάθε με την κανιβαλική τελετουργία της Η υπόσταση, η αξία κι οι ιδιότητές τους απέναντί της. τόσο σαν καταλύτης -διπλασιάζεται, διάρρηξης του κρανίου. Φορτισμένα μεταβάλλονται και κλονίζονται, καθώς πολλαπλασιάζεται- διαταράσσοντας σύμβολα -ο Χίτλερ, οι κούκλες ως το ευτελές γίνεται υψηλό κι αποκτά Στο με ζωγραφικές ποιότητες video της με την πολλαπλή παρουσία του στοιχείο παιδικής αθωότητας, το κρανίο μεταφυσικές ιδιότητες, το αντικείμενο Jana Stojakovic Schizoid Dream of a Body την κατεστημένη/οικεία αντίληψη ως αμλετική διερώτηση για την αξία της απόλαυσης αποκτά απειλητικές διαστάσεις ο ρόλος της σαγήνης και του ερωτισμού του εκάστοτε περιβάλλοντος. Το ύπαρξης, η ‘νεκρή φύση’ ως μέρος της και το υψηλό αποδομείται με χιούμορ. λειτουργούν ως μέσα αναζήτησης του σχέδιο μεταλλάσσεται, αλλοιώνεται καλλιτεχνικής παράδοσης- συμμετέχουν σε ‘Άλλου’ και ανακάλυψης του Εγώ. Ο υπενθυμίζοντας ότι τα νοήματα είναι ένα αφηγηματικό παραλήρημα με δόσεις Η σημαία, κατεξοχήν σύμβολο ‘ένας’ κι ο ‘άλλος’ αρχικά σε απόσταση, φευγαλέα, αβέβαια σε συνεχή ροή κι μαύρου χιούμορ. Η ηδονή της εξουσίας, ο (αυτό)διαφοροποίησης από τα άλλα μυρίζονται σαν ζώα κι εξερευνούν τη εξέλιξη. Η μόνη ‘βεβαιότητα’ είναι η έννοια θρίαμβος των πιο σκοτεινών ενστίκτων ή κράτη, γίνεται στο video Geometry διαφορετικότητά τους. Μόνοι δίαυλοι του σχεδίου και της δομής ως τρόπος πώς η ‘δημιουργία’ και η προσήλωση στο and animals της Stela Vula ο μίτος επικοινωνίας, προσέγγισης, εγγύτητας κι κατανόησης του κόσμου κι αυτή μόνο για παράλογο και στη δυστοπία μπορούν να μιας ενιαίας καλειδοσκοπικής εντέλει αποδοχής αποδεικνύονται το σώμα, τη στιγμή που αυτό εγγράφεται στο χαρτί. οδηγήσουν σε εφιαλτικές ακρότητες. αφήγησης. Η ψηφιακή επεξεργασία οι παραμορφώσεις του κι η έλξη τους. Το των σημαιών καταλήγει να τις δείχνει χαμάμ-πισίνα ως ετεροτοπία μετατρέπεται Μια άλλη ποιητική του χώρου Η χρήση και η αντιστροφή συμβόλων και σαν stickers μαζικής παραγωγής, όπου σε αρένα, πεδίο μάχης και διαπραγμάτευσης. διαχειρίζεται ο Pravdoliub Ivanov στερεοτυπικών κοινότοπων αναφορών, ομογενοποιείται η διαφορετικότητά Η φαινομενική αίσθηση υγρασίας του στις δυο μινιμαλιστικές χειρονομίες- καθώς και το πώς κατασκευάζονται και τους κι όλα επαναλαμβάνονται ‘δοχείου’ τονίζει τη ρευστότητα της παρεμβάσεις του 3 Square Meters προσλαμβάνονται οι εικόνες και κατ’ ατέρμονα. Ταυτοχρόνως όμως, καθώς κατάστασης, των σωμάτων, των φύλων και Cleaned Up και Minus One Cubic Meter, επέκταση πώς ορίζονται οι ταυτότητες το πέρασμα-εγκιβωτισμός από τη μια τελικά της ίδιας της ταυτότητάς τους, ως Plus One Cubic Meter. Η μετατόπιση είναι κοινές συνδέσεις στα έργα των Em σημαία στην άλλη γίνεται μέσω των μια μήτρα όπου όλα είναι σε μια διαδικασία των στρωμάτων ύλης-σκόνης από τα Kei & Nicolaich, της Stela Vula και της εθνικών συμβόλων-ζώων, τα οποία συνεχούς ‘γίγνεσθαι’. πλακάκια παλιού χαμάμ και χώματος από Φανής Σοφολόγη. απελευθερώνονται από τον εμβληματικό, μια αυλή της ιστορικής πόλης Plovdid οριοθετικό τους ρόλο και επιστρέφουν Η μεταφυσική του γίγνεσθαι ως μια αντίστοιχα- αποκαλύπτει θραύσματα Τα παραπάνω καθώς κι ο μετασχηματισμός σε έναν κοινό τόπο, όπου η ανιμιστική προσπάθεια να επικοινωνήσουμε για λίγο ιστορίας, δημιουργεί έναν άλλο χώρο μέσα των υλικών στο έργο Untitled των Em αφηγηματική, λαϊκή, παγκόσμια με το χωροχρόνο που μας περιβάλλει και στο χώρο και μεταφέρει τον χώρο στο Kei & Nicolaich, γίνονται μέρος μιας παράδοση περισσότερο ενώνει παρά να αναρωτηθούμε ποιοι και πού είμαστε, χρόνο. Επανασυνδέει έτσι κομμάτια μιας αφηγηματικής ασυνέχειας που διερωτάται διαχωρίζει. Τελικά μήπως μια κοινή εντοπίζεται στα έργα των Marko Tadic και ταυτότητας καθώς βγαίνει στην επιφάνεια για τις κατεστημένες αντιλήψεις γύρω από ταυτότητα που ενώνει όσο και χωρίζει, του Pravdoliub Ivanov. και στο χώρο η ιστορία, οδηγώντας κατ’ τις ταμπέλες που ορίζουν τα πράγματα. είναι η ζωική;

90 91 Στην performance ‘Η εικονογραφημένη παραφράζει και ακούγεται να λέει Young σύγχρονα ready made αντικείμενα (στυλό, υγ. η έκθεση bound απαίτησε πολλές ιστορία της καθημερινότητας’ της Φανής Serbians. Το σώμα ‘κόβεται’ στα δύο υαλοβάμβακας, λεξικό). Ίσως όπλα, ίσως μικρές μετατοπίσεις θέσεων κι ορίων από Σοφολόγη η πολιτισμική ‘αναμέτρηση’ από τη γραμμή του αυτοκινητόδρομου εργαλεία βασανισμού, ερωτισμού ή όλους τους συντελεστές της. ανάμεσα σε δυο χώρες, Ελλάδα και και ταυτόχρονα -εξαιτίας της γραμμής- και δυσλειτουργικά υβρίδια, τα οποία Γερμανία, με σχέση αμφιθυμική και που ενοποιείται με το χώρο. Τελικά το αλλοίωσε ο χρόνος ή κάποιος έκανε ένα ξεδιπλώνεται σε βάθος χρόνου, λαμβάνει τραγούδι της είναι εγκατάλειψη αστείο με σκοπό να τα απογυμνώσει Σοφία Τούμπουρα, Μαρία Λιανού, Νάνα χώρα μέσω της παρουσίασης αφισών με του ονείρου που δε κατάφερε να από ξεκάθαρες/περιγράψιμες ιδιότητες. Σαχίνη κοινότοπα θέματα που έχουν αποσπαστεί ακολουθήσει ή μια απελευθέρωση από τις Οι αναλογίες δεν έχουν πετύχει και το Αθήνα, Ιούνιος 2012 και συλλεχτεί στους δυο τόπους. καταναγκαστικές επιθυμίες που το δυτικό σφάλμα στη διαδικασία παραγωγής τους Η σημειολογία της καθημερινότητας, η όνειρο της επέβαλε; Η οριστική απάντηση υπονομεύει τη λογικοφανή ακολουθία ‘αυτό δύναμη της εικόνας, τα στερεότυπα και οι δεν έχει νόημα. Νόημα έχει η ενεργή στάση είναι έτσι για να επιτελεί αυτό τον σκοπό’. προκαταλήψεις στον τρόπο πρόσληψης, του σώματος της περφόρμερ που φαίνεται Οι κανόνες ανατρέπονται και την εξουσία η σχέση αισθητικής-μαρκέτινγκ είναι να απολαμβάνει και να διερωτάται. δεν την έχει κανείς, γιατί κανείς δεν τα στοιχεία που διαπραγματεύεται γνωρίζει τα μέσα παραγωγής. Φτάνουμε αυτή η performance. Οι ερωτήσεις και Το αντιφατικό έργο-αντικείμενο Καρέκλα στο σημείο μηδέν, καθώς πρέπει να τα διλήμματα που τίθενται από την ‘απόσταση’ του Βασίλη Χατζόπουλου, όπου επινοήσουμε νέους τρόπους για να παρουσιάστρια-performer απαιτούν την οι βασικές λειτουργίες της καρέκλας και διαχειριστούμε τα ‘άχρηστα’ αντικείμενα. ενεργοποίηση και την εμπλοκή του κοινού. της ρόδας συνευρίσκονται και δημιουργούν Ας δούμε ξανά ποιος είναι ποιος. Μπορεί να επηρεάσει τη γνώμη του κοινού; ένταση μεταξύ ακινησίας και κίνησης, Και ποιος τελικά ο ρόλος της; Εξουσιαστή ‘αναρωτιέται’ για το δυτικό αξιακό μοντέλο Τέλος στη σειρά φωτογραφιών Becoming ή εξουσιαζόμενου από το εκάστοτε κοινό; αντίληψης του χρόνου. Προτρέπει να μη blind του Ender Gelgec το μικρό μέγεθός Το τι είναι ψευτοδίλημμα και ποια η χάσουμε άλλες βόλτες κι άλλη απόλαυση, τους και η εστίαση σε λεπτομέρειες αλήθεια είναι κάθε φορά υπό δοκιμασία αλλά και μας υπενθυμίζει το χαμένο χρόνο αντικειμένων παροτρύνουν σε μια εκ νέου και διαπραγμάτευση. στον οποίο μας θέτει οποιαδήποτε μορφή θέαση των πραγμάτων. Το πλησίασμα κι ακινησίας. Στην προσπάθεια αναζήτησης η οικειότητα που αναπτύσσεται ανάμεσα Τα διλήμματα που θέτει το δυτικό πρότυπο της (ή μιας) ταυτότητάς μας, ο χαμένος στον καλλιτέχνη και τα αντικείμενα ζωής και την ομογενοποίηση ως μέσο χρόνος ενδέχεται να αποβεί σημαντικός που φωτογραφίζει, μεταφέρεται έντονα άσκησης εξουσίας διαπραγματεύονται στα και ευεργετικός. Ο ρομαντισμός της και στη σχέση του θεατή με το έργο. Το έργα τους οι Dusica Drazic-Sam Hopkins έννοιας της απώλειας του χρόνου, όπου αν τα πράγματα διαστρεβλώνονται ή και ο Βασίλης Χατζόπουλος. η απώλεια έγκειται στον χρόνο που δεν διορθώνονται μέσα από το πλησίασμα επενδύεται σε βόλτες και όχι στον χρόνο του φωτογραφικού φακού λίγη σημασία Στη video performance Young Serbians που δεν επενδύεται στην παραγωγή: μια φαίνεται να έχει. Οι ελάχιστες χειρονομίες η Dusica Drazic και ο Sam Hopkins, με αμφισβήτηση της επικρατούσας σύγχρονης που τείνουν στο όριο της σιωπής, ζητάνε χιούμορ κι αυτοσαρκασμό διερωτούνται δυτικής κουλτούρας. απλώς λίγη από την προσοχή του θεατή για την αξία του αμερικάνικου ονείρου. και μια μικρή μετατόπιση θέσης-στον Μια γυναίκα σε ένα ‘στεγνό’ από αναφορές Μια άλλη προσέγγιση στα αντικείμενα τρόπο που βλέπουμε, αφουγκραζόμαστε και τοπίο με βροχή-ένας αυτοκινητόδρομος και στον τρόπο παραγωγής και αξίας τους αντιλαμβανόμαστε. οπουδήποτε στο σύγχρονο δυτικό προτείνει ο Φίλιππος Γκούντζος στην κόσμο- χορεύει μόνο με το σώμα υπό εγκατάσταση Δίχως κανένα σφάλμα. τον ήχο του Young Americans του Bowie, Εργαλεία και αντικείμενα απροσδιόριστης τραγούδι-κριτική στο αμερικάνικο όνειρο. ταυτότητας και λειτουργικότητας, Ό,τι κινείται είναι πίσω της και μακριά όπου πρωτόλεια υλικά (ξύλο, σίδηρος, της. Μια αντρική φωνή στο ρεφραίν μόλυβδος, τούβλα) συνυπάρχουν με

92 93 Fani Sofologi The illustrated narration of everyday life, 2012 Performance Concept: Fani Sofologi Jana Stojakovic Performers: Fani Sofologi (main), Shaky Schizoid Dream of a Body, 2006 Cathedral (assistant) Video, 5’ 36’’

94 95 Next page (from left to right) Ender Gelgec Dušica Dražić and Sam Hopkins Becoming blind, 2009 Young Serbians, 2006 Photographs Video performance, 5’ 43’’

Vassilis Hatzopoulos Chair distance, 2010 Sculpture

96 97 Marko Tadic Stela Vula / Albania We used to call it: Moon, 2011/2012 Geometry and Animals, 2011 Video-animation, 4’ 15’’ Motion –tweening animation, 2’42’’

98 99 Pravdoliub Ivanov Minus One Cubic Meter, Plus One Cubic Pravdoliub Ivanov Meter, 1994 Nemanja Nikolic, 3 Square Meters Cleaned Up, 1995 Site-specific intervention, dug up soil, Masterpiece, 2011 Cleaned corner, framed title, Old Turkish Old City of Plovdiv Puppets Modeling and Animation, 5’47’’ Bathhouse, Plovdiv, Bulgaria in collaboration with Kamen Cvetkov

100 101 Filippos Gountzos Em Kei and Nicolaich No fault, 2010 Untitled, 2012 Installation Installation

102 103 bound 6 - 15 June 2012 OpenShowstudio, Athens, Greece

Participants: Pravdoliub Ivanov (Bulgaria), Nemanja Nikolic (Serbia), Marko Tadic (Croatia), Ender Gelcec (Turkey), Stela Vula (Albania), Dušica Dražić & Sam Hopkins (Serbia & Kenya), Jana Stojakovic (Serbia), Filippos Gountzos (Greece /Albania), Vasilis Hadzopoulos (Greece), Fani Sofologi (Greece), Em Kei & Nicolaich (Greece)

104 105 Inter Alios Curator: Artemis Potamianou

6 - 15 June 2012 OpenShowstudio Athens, Greece

106 107 of Birmingham), The Benaki Museum Inter Alios (Athens), Biennale Internazionale Dell’ Arte Contemporanea (Florence). Potamianou completed her BA (FA) at the School of Fine People need to “belong” to groups with not serve a unifying purpose but instead, Art (Athens) in 1997, and has subsequently shared common roots with defined the opposite. Denying the beneficial received an MA degree from the Staffordshire cultural parameters and also a collective outcomes of shared interaction and University (1999) and she is now an MPhil/ consciousness based equally on historical exchange based on synthesis and diversity PhD candidate. She has curated more than facts and future objectives. This has is catastrophic. Since we define ourselves 30 exhibitions of important artists of the always been fundamental for survival. through similarities and differences with international scene, such as Joseph Kosuth, The development of our abilities and others; it is quite apparent that insisting Terry Atkinson, Peter Greenaway, Candice expansion of our capabilities are better on this notion of “purity” signifies a Brietz, Guerrilla Girls, Damien Hirst and accommodated within the context of deterioration of perception and shared others. Potamianou has written essays for a protected, familiar environment. commonality. exhibition catalogues and books. This culturally, socially and politically www.artemispotamianou.com constructed identity is configured into Cultural creativity has the potential to a national identity through the prism create bridges over diversity by organising, of common language, religion and also discussing and determining similarities through social dynamics. and differences through the development of a shared interdisciplinary visual In a social reality where information language, thus going beyond the borders of -- and consequently opinion -- moves place, language, race and space. Therefore, faster than light and populations shift the need for the presentation of artworks through necessity, thus changing the which promote dialogue and common demographics, the issue of national spaces is effortlessly understandable. identity as defined by geographical boundaries, has been a topic for Artemis Potamianou is an artist and curator numerous discussions. At a time who is currently based in Athens. Potamianou where the reality of globalisation has had 15 one-person exhibitions, including has galvanised an outrage of cultural at the Hellenic American Union (Athens), “exorcism”; Mediterranean nations offer Pleiades Gallery (Athens), Hellenic Centre an interesting example where one can (London), Borough Museum and Art see that close proximity and cultural Gallery (Newcastle), Fizz Gallery (Athens), exchange has supposedly strengthened Tint Gallery (Thessaloniki), etc. She has the special characteristics of different participated in 61 group shows such as the national identities with the goal of 1st Biennale of Thessalonica, the BIDA - ensuring their longevity. Biennale of Spain, 3rd Athens Biennale, Vista Mare Foundation (Pescara), International However the notion of “purity” of Young Art 2002: Sotheby’s Amsterdam, national identity becomes a dangerous Sotheby’s Tel Aviv, Sotheby’s Moscow, quest towards the accomplishment of Change and Partner Contemporary Art predetermined objectives, Past experience (Rome), “Greek Sale”- Bonhams (London), has demonstrated that this obsession does Birmingham (MAC -Midlands Art Centre

108 109 Inter Alios

Οι άνθρωποι χρειάζονται να «ανήκουν» Παρ’όλα αυτά, η έννοια της «καθαρότητας» σε ομάδες με κοινές καταβολές, της εθνικής ταυτότητας μετατρέπεται πολιτιστικές συνισταμένες όπως επίσης σε μια επικίνδυνη αναζήτηση προς την και μια κοινή συλλογική συνείδηση που επίτευξη προαποφασισμένων στόχων. να βασίζεται εξίσου σε ιστορικά γεγονότα Εμπειρίες του παρελθόντος έδειξαν πως και μελλοντικούς στόχους. Αυτό υπήρξε αυτή η εμμονή δεν εξυπηρετεί το στόχο για ανέκαθεν θεμελιώδες για την επιβίωσή ενοποίηση αλλά κατ’ακρίβειαν, επιφέρει τους. Η εξέλιξη των ικανοτήτων μας το αντίθετο. Η άρνηση των ευεργετικών και η ανάπτυξη των δυνατοτήτων μας αποτελεσμάτων της αλληλεπίδρασης και εξυπηρετείται καλύτερα μέσα στο ανταλλαγής που βασίζονται στη σύνθεση πλαίσιο ενός προστατευμένου, οικείου και την ποικιλότητα είναι καταστροφική. περιβάλλοντος. Αυτή η πολιτιστικά, Από τη στιγμή που ερμηνεύουμε τους κοινωνικά και πολιτικά διαμορφωμένη εαυτούς μας μέσα από τις ομοιότητες και ταυτότητα μετατρέπεται σε μια εθνική τις διαφορές μας με τους άλλους, είναι ταυτότητα μέσα από το πρίσμα της σαφές ότι η προσκόλληση στην έννοια της κοινής γλώσσας, θρησκείας αλλά και «καθαρότητας» συνεπάγεται με επιδείνωση κοινωνικών δυναμικών. της αντιληπτικής μας ικανότητας και των κοινών μας πεποιθήσεων. Σε μια κοινωνική πραγματικότητα όπου πληροφορίες –κι επομένως Η καλλιτεχνική δημιουργία έχει τη απόψεις- κινούνται γρηγορότερα και δυνατότητα να κτίζει γέφυρες που από την ταχύτητα του φωτός και οι υπερπηδούν τη διαφορετικότητα πληθυσμοί μετακινούνται λόγω ανάγκης, οργανώνοντας, σχολιάζοντας και αλλάζοντας έτσι την αναλογία τους, το κρίνοντας τις ομοιότητες και τις ζήτημα της εθνικής ταυτότητας όπως διαφορές μέσα από τη σύνθεση μιας ορίζεται από γεωγραφικά όρια, υπήρξε κοινής διαδραστικής οπτικής γλώσσας, ένα θέμα πάμπολλων συζητήσεων. Σε υπερβαίνοντας τα όρια του τόπου, της μια εποχή όπου η πραγματικότητα της γλώσσας, της φυλής, και του χώρου. παγκοσμιοποίησης έχει προκαλέσει ένα Έτσι, η ανάγκη παρουσίασης έργων που ξέσπασμα πολιτισμικού «εξορκισμού», προάγουν μέσα από το διάλογο κοινούς οι λαοί της Μεσογείου αποτελούν ένα χώρους είναι εύκολα κατανοητή. ενδιαφέρον παράδειγμα όπου η γειτνίαση και οι πολιτισμικές ανταλλαγές λέγεται πως έχουν ισχυροποιήσει τα ιδιαίτερα χαρακτηριστικά των διαφορετικών εθνικών ταυτοτήτων εξασφαλίζοντας έτσι τη μακροβιότητά τους.

110 111 Nikos Papadimitriou Trireme, 2012 Linoleum print

Athina Nicolaou Vasilis Asimakopoulos Adonis Volanakis Tough Memory, 2012 Metrisis 3, 2012 o-live song, 2012 Photographs collage C-type C-print

112 113 Giorgos Papadatos Georgia Kotretsos Artemis Potamianou HAPPY DAY (Notes on flies trapping), 2012 we are what we see, 2012 Mediterranean carpets, 2012 Ink on paper, A4 C-print Photographs collage

114 115 Alexis Avlamis Eva Marathaki Turmoil, 2012 Country of origin: Suspect, 2012 Mixed media on paper Drawing

Inter Alios 6 - 15 June 2012 OpenSpacestudio, Athens, Greece

Participants: Vasilis Asimakopoulos, Alexis Avlamis, Yiannis Grigoriadis Antonis Volanakis, Yiannis Grigoriadis, Georgia Untitled, 2012 Kotretsos, Eva Marathaki, Athena Nicholaou, George Photograph Papadatos, Nikos Papadimitriou, Artemis Potamianou

116 117 Ties of the Transitory Curators: Susanne Weiß and Lena Ziese

Seminar 23 June 2012

Exhibition April 19 - June 16, 2013 Heidelberg Kunstverein, Germany

118 119 Installation: Luis Camnitzer, “Ein Kunstverein ist eine Schule”, site-specific work for “AMATEURISM” at Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2012 what does a transient format possibly mediation played an important role within the The Ties of the Transitory: A Collection of look like? Which ties are obvious, which exhibition itself. are hidden? Is it possible to develop in- www.mukimaki.de Brief Moments between Media, Dimensions between typologies or is it more about www.hdkv.de acting beyond these possible structures? and States of Being Lena Ziese is an artist and independent The context of the international exhibition curator. She is the founder of the exhibition project Through the Roadblocks, launched space JET in Berlin, which she ran from Within the framework of the two-year way familiar things transform into the in anticipation of Cyprus’s presidency 2005 to 2009. As Junior-Professor for “Freie project Through the Roadblocks, taking unfamiliar in Magritte’s paintings: “to look of the Council of the EU, serves as an Kunst, Gestaltung und deren Vermittlung” place from November 2010 until at what you wouldn’t look at, to hear what opportunity to metaphorically capture (Art, Design and Transfer of Knowledge) at December 2012 in various locations and you wouldn’t listen to, to be attentive to fleeting transgressions of boundaries. Bauhaus-University Weimar 2010-2012 she constellations, Susanne Weiß and Lena the banal.”1. Duchamp described the infra- The nature of the project allows for a considered different approaches on how to Ziese will take a closer look, within the mince as the warmth of a subway seat, left polyvocality whose form is intended to show and tell artistic practices. Being involved three-dimensional field of an exhibition, behind by a person who has just vacated it. reveal the varying ways moments are in diverse forms of bodywork, she recently at the phenomenon of the moment. A Or the smell of tobacco smoke, which also perceived. The exhibition we take place at also integrates performative strategies into moment is typically fleeting, bound up smells of the mouth from which it comes. Heidelberger Kunstverein from April 19 to her artistic and curatorial practice. From in a constellation and functions as a The possible, encompassing the incipient, June 16, 2013. October 2012 onwards she will be Professor stratagem, referring, in its meaning and or, the thought that arises when the at Hochschule für bildende Künste (HfbK), explication, to a translation converging interplay of the senses comes to mind.2 the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg. Lena into other moments. This means that a Susanne Weiß is director of Heidelberger Ziese lives in Berlin. moment is also a reference to something The exhibition will investigate the Kunstverein since January 2012. From www.lenaziese.net else; it is a constellate medium, suspended functions of a moment in the location 2007-2008 she was artistic director of the in a state of inbetweenness or anticipated of between two points in time, that Kunsthaus Dresden, Municipal Gallery for transfiguration. illusive interval. Questioning such issues Contemporary Art. She studied museum as functions of limited temporality and studies in Berlin from 1997-2003. Before and Moments are “infra-medial,” beneath which form a moment can adapt and during this time, she worked in the field of media, and thus stand in opposition to which necessity does a moment have for exhibition organisation, as an independent inertia and cohesion. It was the artist its larger contexts? What perspectives arise curator and art mediator in various places, Marcel Duchamp who, with his expression when we systematically focus on what lies but mainly in Berlin and Dresden. She ‘infra-mince’, reminded us of the tissue- between -- or, similarly, to the periphery? worked as Robert Bosch Cultural Manager thinness, the superfineness and ambiguity How can one structure an exhibition that with the Sharjah Museums Department of categorical distinctions such as those reflects upon the state of inbetweenness from 2009 to 2010. In 2006 she was working between cause and effect, identity and and how can this structure be a reference on the Felix Gonzalez-Torres retrospective difference, reality and possibility, original point for the translation processes that at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum and iteration, affirmation and parody, took place beforehand? In which style and of Contemporary Art, Berlin with the self and other. Infra-mince thus becomes a constellations can the moments appear, RealismusStudio, NGBK Berlin. Since then logically indeterminable difference between she is an active member of RealismusStudio. 1 see Michael Wetzel at two moments, which are no longer subject Her curatorial approach is driven by the http://www.inframedialitaet.de. to the “either/or” of a dyadic logic. In the idea of communicating sociopolitical topics 2 Marcel Duchamp, Notes. Arranged and same spirit, the philosopher Paul Virilio through art and additional forms of content. translated by Paul Matisse, G.K. Hall, speaks in The Aesthetics of Disappearance This led to various projects where the art of the “infra-ordinary” to describe the Boston, 1983.

120 121 Wie lässt sich eine Ausstellung Los Lassen – Am Ort des Dazwischen strukturieren, die dem Zustand des „Dazwischen“ Rechnung trägt und die Der Moment zwischen Medien, immer auch auf die Übersetzung in andere Zustände verweist? Wie kann ein Dimensionen und seinen Zuständen Moment zur Aufführung gebracht werden und hierbei gleichzeitig flüchtig und verbindlich sein? Im Rahmen des zweijährigen Projekts Philosoph Paul Virilio in seiner “Ästhetik „Through the Roadblocks“, das im des Verschwindens” von einem “Infra- Die Ausstellung nimmt den Kontext des Zeitraum Februar 2011 bis Dezember Gewöhnlichen”, um das Umschlagen der internationalen Ausstellungsprojektes 2012 in unterschiedlichen Orten und vertrauten Dinge in ein Nicht-Vertrautes „Through the Roadblocks“, das anlässlich Konstellationen stattfindet, widmen auf den Bildern Magrittes zu beschreiben: der zypriotischen EU Ratspräsidentschaft sich Susanne Weiß und Lena Ziese “Betrachten, was man nicht betrachten 2012 initiiert wurde, zum Anlass flüchtigen Momenten, die in bestimmte würde, hören, was man nicht hören flüchtige Überschreitungen von Konstellationen eingebunden sind. würde, auf das Banale achten …”1 Grenzen metaphorisch einzufangen. Momente nehmen die Funktion eines Der Charakter des Projektes ermöglicht Dispositivs ein und verweisen in ihrer Duchamp beschreibt die Infra-mince eine Vielstimmigkeit, deren Form die Bedeutung und Entfaltung auf die zum Beispiel mit der Wärme des Sitzes unterschiedlichen Wahrnehmungen von Übersetzung in andere Momente. Das in der U-Bahn, die eine Person, die Momenten sichtbar machen soll. heißt ein Moment ist immer auch vor einem aufgestanden ist, hinterlässt. der Verweis auf etwas Anderes, er ist Oder dem Geruch des Tabakrauchs, der Hierbei wird es notwendig sein, den konstellatives Medium, ein Zustand des auch nach dem Mund riecht, aus dem er schmalen Grad zwischen dem Banalen Dazwischen. kommt. Das Mögliche, das das Werdende und dem Besonderen auszuloten. Die einschließt. Oder: Der Gedanke, der Ausstellung, deren Gestalt sich zu diesem Ein Moment ist inframedial und steht entsteht, wenn das Zusammenspiel der Zeitpunkt noch in der Entwicklung somit in Opposition zu Statik und Sinne in den Sinn kommt.2 befindet, wird vom 19. April bis 16. Juni Geschlossenheit. Es war der Künstler 2013 im Heidelberger Kunstverein gezeigt. Marcel Duchamp, der durch seine Welche Funktion nimmt ein Augenblick Formulierung der “infra-mince“ an am Ort des Dazwischen in seiner das Hauch-Dünne, Über-Feine und begrenzten Zeitlichkeit ein und welche Doppeldeutige von kategorialen Notwendigkeit besitzt er genau in dieser Unterscheidungen z. B. zwischen Ursache Nische für größere Zusammenhänge? Was und Wirkung, Identität und Differenz, für eine Perspektive ergibt sich, wenn wir Wirklichkeit und Möglichkeit, Original uns systematisch auf das, was dazwischen und Wiederholung, Affirmation und liegt, fokussieren? Parodie oder auch Selbst und Anderem erinnert hat. Infra-Mince wird somit zu einer nicht logisch entscheidbaren 1 Siehe hierzu: Michael Wetzel auf: Differenz zwischen zwei Momenten, http://www.inframedialitaet.de die nicht mehr dem “entweder-oder” 2 Marcel Duchamp, Notes. Arranged and einer zweiwertigen Logik unterworfen translated by Paul Matisse, G.K. Hall, sind. In diesem Sinne spricht auch der Boston, 1983.

122 123 Sonja Hempel, Lena Zeise

Yiannis Colakides Antonis Danos, Susanne Weiß Yiannis Colakides, Nicola Carpenter

124 125 Boris Baltschun, Serge Baghdassarians zweite konservatorische Maßnahme, 2008 dimensions: variable duration: endless material: cans, cord, glass plates, gear motors, light sensors installation creates analogue sound

126 127 Evie Haines Four Pictures from the series Likeness, 2006

Likeness I asked my mother, father, sister and brother to draw me. And they did. I then asked them to draw me again, but to try and imitate the others’ drawing-style. The result is a constellation of likenesses, where their own features also seem to appear and disappear.

128 129 Johanna Diehl Larnakas tis Lapithou/Kozan, Cyprus (North) C-Print, 2008 Edition 5 122 x 95 cm

[to displace (verb 1. move (sb/sth) from the usual or correct place 2. take over the place, position, or role of (sb/sth) 3. (especially of war or natural disaster) force (someone) to leave their home – Oxford Dictionary] For over 37 years Cyprus has been divided. Until today you find on both sides of the demarcation line abandoned places, homes and deserted temples, that indicate the displacement of its former inhabitants. Especially the empty, converted and destroyed churches and mosques are demonstrators of the ethnical separation, of the replacement and absence of a community. The title ‘Displace’ stands both for ‘exile’ as well as ‘substitution’. It refers to the visible absence of the people from the photographs; the people, who had to leave their places of worships and their homes. On the other hand, it also describes the process of reappropriation and the re-inscription by a different ethnic group, who has moved into the villages.

130 131 The Ties of the Transitory: A Collection of Brief Moments between Media, Dimensions and States of Being 23 June 2012 Heidelberg Kunstverein, Germany

Seminar participants: Lena Zeise, Susanne Weiß, Yiannis Colakides, Helene Black, Dr Antonis Danos, Sonja Hempel, Nicola Carpenter

Exhibition: Confirmed participants at this stage: Boris Baltschun, Serge Baghdassarians, Evie Haines, Johanna Diehl

132 133 Lemesos International Documentary Film Festival Curator: Yiangos Hadjiyiannis

1 - 8 August 2012 2nd Municipal Market (Theatro Ena) Limassol, Cyprus

134 135 Lemesos International Documentary Film Festival

This year, the 7th Lemesos International Documentary Film Festival, organised by Brave New Culture and the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation was also in collaboration with NeMe and thematically curated as an independent parallel event to NeMe’s Through the Roadblocks project. We are very grateful to Yiangos Hadjiyiannis who accepted to allow his curation of international documentaries to be informed by the concept of NeMe’s project. It has been a pleasure sharing discussions with him regarding the content of the films and their contribution to the ongoing dialogue of experienced and perceived roadblocks. NeMe, August 2012

The list of films presented this year are: 5 Broken Cameras, Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, 90' / 2011, The Netherlands, France, Israel, Palestine The Vanishing Spring Light, Xun Yu, 112' / 2011, China, Canada Mustafa's Sweet Dreams, Angelos Abazoglou, 80' / 2012, Greece, Turkey, UK Saving Face, Daniel Junge, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, 40' / 2012, USA The Punk Syndrome, Jukka Kärkkäinen, J-P Passi, 58' / 2012, Finland The Ambassador, Mads Brügger, 94' / 2011, Denmark Bad Weather, Giovanni Giommi, 82' / 2011, UK, Germany Christoforos Savva (1924-1968), Yiannis Yapanis, Antonis Danos, 51' / 2011, Cyprus G-spotting: A Story of Pleasure and Promise, Gilles Boyon, Segolene Hanotaux, 52' / 2011, France, Canada Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present, Matthew Akers, 104' / 2012, USA Planet of Snail, Seung-Jun Yi, 87' / 2011, South Korea Children of the Riots, Christos Georgiou, 52' / 2011, Greece, UK Meet The Fokkens, Gabriëlle Provaas, Rob Schröder, 75' / 2011, The Netherlands The Kid and the Clown, Ida Grøn, 53' / 2011, Denmark Athenian Mammals, Giorgos Apostolopoulos, Ioakim Mylonas, Panayiotis Fotiou, 21' / 2012, Cyprus If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Marshall Curry, 85' / 2011, USA Khodorkovsky, Cyril Tuschi, 111' / 2011, Germany ½ Revolution, Omar Shargawi, Karim El Hakim, 72' / 2011, Egypt, Denmark Birds of a Feather, Stefanos Evripidou, Stephen Nugent, 40' / 2012, Cyprus Girl Model, David Redmon, Ashley Sabin, 77' / 2011, USA, Russia, Japan, France China Heavyweight, Yung Chang, 89' / 2012, China, Canada Payback, Jennifer Baichwal, 86' / 2012, Canada Dad Made Dirty Movies, Jordan Todorov, 57' / 2011, Bulgaria 900 Days, Jessica Gorter, 58' / 2011, The Netherlands Paparazzi, Piotr Bernas, 33' / 2011, Poland Ballroom Dancer, Andreas Koefoed, Christian Bonke, 85' / 2011, Denmark Call me Kuchu, Malika Zouhali-Worrall, Katherine Fairfax Wright, 87' / 2012, USA The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossoms, Lucy Walker, 39' / 2011, Japan

136 137 Lemesos International Documentary Film Festival 1 - 8 August 2012 2nd Municipal Market (Theatro Ena) Limassol, Cyprus - www.filmfestival.com.cy

Acknowledgements

Organisation

Sponsors

In Collaboration with:

138 139 From Hand to Hand Project Curator: Andri Michael

23 September 2012 Paris, France

140 141 Andri Michael is a curator and an Art Hand to Hand Project Historian, a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts The project From Hand to Hand curated Acknowledging that the outlying suburbs at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne, for NeMe’s Through the Roadblocks takes of Paris do have more urgent issues to Amiens, France, and a member of the place in France’s regional cultural centres address, this project nonetheless, aims Research Centre Images and Forms at the and especially those situated in the outer to investigate what is the role, focus and same University. Her recent research focuses suburbs of Paris which are ten times larger interaction of these cultural centres with on Picasso and Duchamp and especially on in population than the centre. It involves those from central Paris. the reception of their work. She is the editor the dissemination of a specifically designed of numerous contemporary art exhibition post card which requires a written or The methodology used in From Hand to catalogues, articles and publications, among verbal response from the participant to the Hand is to engage in direct dialogue, it is which: Picasso -- Propos sur l’art in collaboration question What does the phrase ‘Through a more dynamic action and contributes with Marie-Laure Bernadac, Paris, Gallimard, the Roadblocks’ mean to you? to immediately create discussion and collection “Art et Artistes”, Paris, 1998, Picasso exchange of ideas between people. That’s poète, Les beaux-arts edition, Paris, 2008, Les Although there are no acknowledged why the postcard is delivered personally happenings de Jean-Jacques Lebel, Hazan, Paris, borders in the conventional sense; there by the curator, from hand to hand, 2009. She is currently working on the book is nevertheless, a division between the thus forming a discourse that may be Contemporary Art in Cyprus for Cherche-Midi centre and the periphery, even though seen as both a real and symbolic chain editions in Paris. She has designed, curated they are situated only a few minutes apart between the participants. Because of and organised many contemporary art from the ring road which separates them. the manual nature and intimacy of this exhibitions and events among which: Mapping This is because the ring road of Paris acts project, the element of “slow time” comes Cyprus, contemporary views, Palais des beaux-arts as an unintentional demarcation line, as a into operation which is used here as a (Bozar), 2012 and Envision Cyprus, Memories kind of uninhabited zone. direct avoidance of media technology, alive, EESC in Brussels, on the occasion so pervasive in our society including the of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council Visiting these places around Paris with art world. Without using intermediaries, of Europe. She has recently co-founded the question of borders in mind gives the From Hand to Hand overcomes the use of with Erotokritos Antoniades the non-profit opportunity to have a more analytical any third parties, making communication association Chypre Culture, which aims at point of view of the area especially the and exchange a vibrant, personal and promoting Cypriot culture in all its aspects. relationship to the established cultural immediate process. Chypre Culture collaborates with various centres and their visitors. The dialogue organisations, institutions and cultural centres between these factors reveals several Special attention will be given to the in order to create dynamic experiences, which interesting aspects and observations: collection of archival material comprising will function as cultural diplomacy between for example, art centers considered to of the participants’ testimonies and France, Cyprus and other countries. belong to the periphery are actually experiences. This documentation is an geographically close to the center and it essential component of this project as it is our perception that places them as afar, will serves to focus the aspects of separation inaccessible and isolated. Furthermore, characterising the ambiguous and often and according to the Directors of these neglected spaces comprising the periphery. centres, attendance at events is mainly from outside the immediate vicinity Andri Michael with little local support and interaction. Paris, 21 September 2012 and ongoing

142 143 Hand to Hand Project (de main en main) «A travers les barrages routiers» et note les réponses – avec la possibilité de les recevoir ultérieurement par écrit. Une attention J’ai choisi comme terrain d’action pour main en main) par le commissaire créant particulière est donnée à la collecte d’une le projet «Through the Roadblocks» le centre un lien entre les participants. documentation sur les témoignages et de Paris mais surtout les centres d’art se l’expérience des participants. trouvant dans la périphérie et notamment Le but consiste à créer une géographie ceux des banlieue parisiens, qui sont mentale qui «archive» la circulation de la Pour conclure, le projet «From hand du point de la population largement carte et qui unit de façon potentielle les to hand» élargit certains éléments de l’ plus grands que la capitale. Sans qu’il y participants. A l’encontre de la vitesse– «esthétique relationnelle» ; Il fonctionne ait véritablement de frontières au sens utile bien évidemment mais qui mine comme un processus de communication classique du terme entre le centre et la parallèlement la sensation du temps dans le domaine de l’art mais en même périphérie, il existe néanmoins une ligne «lent» - le commissaire prend en charge temps comme une réflexion quant à son de séparation alors que la distance qui la réalisation du projet et l’implication efficacité. les séparée du périphérique n’est souvent d’un très grand nombre de personnes, que de quelques minutes. Le périphérique mettant l’accent sur la communication La présentation final du projet fonctionne en effet comme une ligne de et le contact entre les personnes. Sans comprendra: division, créant une sorte de no man’s intermédiaire – attaché de presse, land inhabité entre Paris et ses banlieues. journaliste, critique d’art etc – le projet - Un poster témoignant du mouvement «Hand to hand» traverse toute sorte dynamique de tous les mouvements – L’idée du barrage routier concernant ce d’obstacles, faisant de la communication chaque point sera représenté sur une projet en particulier ne renvoie pas à des un processus créatif vivant. carte. régions chargées de tensions politiques - Les noms de tous les participants mais se réfère de façon métonymique à Au lieu des messages électroniques… le (noms de personnes ou d’institutions) tous les genres de séparation qui peuvent contact «hand to hand» - Une sélection de réponses à la exister encore même dans les endroits Au lieu d’une position statique du question «Que signifie pour vous la bénéficiant d’une stabilité politique et spectateur devant une œuvre… la relation phrase «Throught the roadblocks» d’un état de paix. dynamique entre le commissaire et le - Matériel de documentation public. (photographies, enregistrements Au lieu de l’organisation d’une exposition Au lieu d’une exposition conventionnelle sonores etc) conventionnelle j’ai préféré de traiter le de courte durée dans un espace fermé sujet d’une façon dynamique sous forme …le déplacement de lieu en lieu et de Andri Michael d’action favorisant la proximité. J’ai personne à personne Paris, 21 Septembre 2012 nommé cette action «Hand to hand» ; le processus créatif prend en effet la forme Le projet «Hand to hand» exprime de d’une mise en mains propres d’une carte façon concrète et littérale le concept plus postale sur laquelle est inscrit en plusieurs large du projet «Through the Roadblocks». langues la question : «Que signifie pour Il instaure la communication au niveau vous la phrase «A travers les barrages artistique, qui, tout simplement renforce routiers» ? La carte postale est remise les relations interpersonnelles. Le personnellement «hand to hand» (de commissaire pose aux participants la question «Que signifie pour vous la phrase

144 145 From Hand to Hand Project 23 September 2012 and ongoing

All photographs courtesy Maria Lianou

146 147 All the other lovers Curators: Lara Khaldi and Yazan Khalili

24 - 31 November 2012 Palestine Hosted at Berengaria Room Evagoras Lanitis Centre Limassol, Cyprus

148 149 Biennial 10 catalogues). And has curated the film All the other lovers and video programme “In the Name of the Father” Independent Films from Palestine in 2011 and “Cinema of Independence” in 2009 and 2011 as part of the Arab Shorts initiative by Goethe Institute, Cairo. She was also Assistant one of us said: I was thinking we need and politics are the two great figures Curator for the exhibition “Disorientation II” at to maybe do some research into pan of social engagement. Politics is Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, 2009. Khaldi also Arabism, before films even, you have any enthusiasm with a collective; with love, worked as Assistant Director at Al Riwaq Art books in mind? it would be nice if maybe two people. So love is the minimal Gallery in Bahrain in 2007. She was Assistant diaries? or a novel, but we need some form of communism.” but something curator for the exhibition “Never Part”, Bozar, sort of lived history, no ask our fathers? is wrong with it; two people make up a Brussels, 2007. And has Co-curated the exhibition would Warda be a source? I was thinking dialectic… Perhaps that’s why the love Reconsidering Palestinian Art, Fundacion it would be nice to use pieces from other affair between Syria and Egypt did not Antonio Perez, Cuenca, Spain 2006. Lara lives novels in our performance/text… to weave work out, they needed the rest; the between Jerusalem, Beirut and Amman. them together somehow. collective to work out… But then there is also the invisible third, the one you Yazan Khalili (Palestine) was born in 1981, and the other replied: Warda would be a good need in order to form this bond; to be lives and works in and out of Palestine. Khalili book to begin with, at least to think of able to recognise yourself, like the mirror received a degree in architecture from Birzeit it, a love story written by an Egyptian stage in Lacan; that’s how we recognise University in 2003 and in 2010 graduated novelist about an Omani revolutionary ourselves; through our mother’s gaze… with a Masters degree from the Centre for woman who was fighting in Oman and Perhaps that’s what Pan Arabism was Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, Yemen, that takes its threads to Lebanon about; the other’s gaze in order to London. He was one of the founding members and elsewhere in the Arab world… this produce, manifest your subjective self… of Zan Design Studio (2005); a finalist in mixture of contemporary Arab history Or the national self, who was excluded the AM Qattan Foundation’s Young Artists and Arab political geography with so then? Because you exclude other selves Award (2006); artist-in-residence at the Delfina much attention to the socialist movement when you try to unify…Perhaps that’s Foundation in London (2008); and Production that was emerging from the heart of Arab what we need to look for; the neglected Coordinator for Sharjah Biennials 9 and 10. nationalism… (did i tell you what my lover; who was that? or perhaps all the Recent solo exhibitions include Landscape of father once told me about how they in the other lovers? Darkness at Transit Gallery, Belgium (2010) and Arab nationalist movement began reading Urban Impression at the French Cultural Centre marx, he said that they did that simply to in Palestine (2007/08). He has contributed work be able to defeat the communists when Lara Khaldi and Yazan Khalili to numerous group shows internationally, and they debate with them, to end up by was one of the participants in Sandi Hilal and becoming Marxists themselves, this is why Lara Khaldi (Palestine) was born in Jerusalem Alessandro Petti’s project Ramallah Syndrome he is afraid to read for Islamic thinkers, sometime in the eighties. She received her BA in the Palestine c/o Venice Pavilion at the 53rd he is afraid to fall in the trap again)… this in Archaeology and Art History with a minor in Venice Biennale (2009). In 2008 and 2009, he love hate relation that surrounds the Pan English literature in 2005. Khaldi co-curated the was nominated for the KLM Paul Huf Award. In Arabism… i tell you something (that you Jerusalem Show IV: On/Off Language, Al Ma’mal 2009, alongside Lara Khaldi, Khalili co-curated told me once) Pan Arabism is a failed love Foundation, October 2011 and will be co-curating We Were Never Heroes as part of the Jerusalem story… and nothing else… the next one in November 2012. She held the Show, and Independent Film in Palestine, at the position of Assistant Director for programmes Arab Shorts Festival presented by the Goethe the first one answered: This sentence at the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE from 2009 Institute, in Cairo. by Badoui is stuck with me; “Love - 2011. Khaldi Co-edited Provisions I&II (Sharjah

150 151 Όλοι οι άλλοι εραστές Independent Films from Palestine

ένας από εμάς είπε: σκεφτόμουν είπες κάποτε) o παναραβισμός είναι μια πως χρειάζεται να ερευνήσουμε τον αποτυχημένη ιστορία αγάπης… και τίποτα παναραβισμό ίσως, πριν ακόμα και από άλλο… τις ταινίες, έχεις κάποια βιβλία κατά νου; θα ήταν καλό, ημερολόγια μήπως; ο πρώτος απάντησε: αυτή η πρόταση ή ένα μυθιστόρημα; όμως χρειαζόμαστε του Badoui με συντροφεύει, «Η αγάπη κάποιου είδους ζωντανή ιστορία, να μη και η πολιτική είναι οι δύο μεγάλες ρωτήσουμε τους πατέρες μας; θα ήταν πηγή φυσιογνωμίες της κοινωνικής δέσμευσης. το Warda; σκεφτόμουν πως θα ήταν ωραίο Η πολιτική είναι ο ενθουσιασμός με το να χρησιμοποιήσουμε κομμάτια από άλλα συλλογικό, με την αγάπη, δύο άνθρωποι. μυθιστορήματα στην περφόρμανς/κείμενό Έτσι η αγάπη είναι η ελάχιστη μορφή μας… να τα υφάνουμε μαζί κάπως. του κομμουνισμού.» αλλά κάτι δεν πάει καλά με αυτό, δύο άνθρωποι αποτελούν ο άλλος απάντησε: το Warda θα μια διαλεκτική… Ίσως γι’αυτό η ερωτική ήταν ένα καλό βιβλίο για ξεκίνημα, σχέση μεταξύ Συρίας και Αιγύπτου δε τουλάχιστον να το σκεφτούμε, μια ιστορία λειτούργησε, χρειάζονταν το υπόλοιπο, αγάπης γραμμένη από έναν Αιγύπτιο το συλλογικό για να δουλέψει… Όμως μυθιστοριογράφο για μιαν επαναστάτρια υπάρχει και ο αόρατος τρίτος, αυτόν που από το Ομάν που πολεμούσε στο Ομάν χρειάζεσαι ώστε να σχηματίσεις το δεσμό, και στην Υεμένη, που μεταφέρει το να είσαι ικανός να αναγνωρίζεις τον θέμα της στο Λίβανο και αλλού στον εαυτό σου, όπως το στάδιο του καθρέφτη αραβικό κόσμο…αυτό το μίγμα σύγχρονης του Λακάν, έτσι αναγνωρίζουμε τους αραβικής ιστορίας και αραβικής πολιτικής εαυτούς μας, μέσα από τη ματιά της γεωγραφίας με τόση πολλή σημασία στο μητέρας μας… Ίσως περί αυτού επρόκειτο σοσιαλιστικό κίνημα που ξεπρόβαλλε από ο παναραβισμός, η ματιά του άλλου έτσι την καρδιά του αραβικού εθνικισμού… (σου ώστε να καλλιεργήσεις, να εκδηλώσεις τον είπα τι μου είπε κάποτε ο πατέρας μου υποκειμενικό σου εαυτό… Ή τον εθνικό σχετικά με το πώς εκείνοι του αραβικού εαυτό, ο οποίος δε συμπεριλήφθηκε τότε, εθνικιστικού κινήματος άρχισαν να επειδή αποκλείεις άλλους εαυτούς όταν διαβάζουν Μαρξ, είπε πως το έκαναν προσπαθείς να ενοποιηθείς… Ίσως αυτό απλά για να είναι σε θέση να συντρίψουν είναι που χρειάζεται να ψάξουμε, τον τους κομμουνιστές όταν συζητούσαν μαζί παραμελημένο εραστή, ποιος ήταν αυτός; ή τους, καταλήγοντας να γίνουν μαρξιστές ίσως όλους τους άλλους εραστές; οι ίδιοι, γι’αυτό φοβάται να διαβάσει τους ισλαμιστές στοχαστές, φοβάται μην ξαναπέσει στην παγίδα)… αυτή η σχέση Lara Khaldi και Yazan Khalili αγάπης-μίσους που περικυκλώνει τον παναραβισμό… σου λέω κάτι (που μου Μετάφραση: Μαρία Χ΄΄Αθανασίου

152 153 Jumana Emil Abboud, The Diver, 4’00”, resilience. She poses questions related to 2004 memory as read through the body, through folklores and folktales, through home and The Diver is a video narrative that tells the homeland, and through cultural ritual story of a Diver whose gender, name, and or practice. How is history (personal and nationality are ambiguous, and who is on collective) told and retold and how does an endless search to find ‘Heart’. The places it affect or impose on one’s present time/ the Diver visits are nameless, referred to life? How do we remember and how does only as “earth, sea, sky, and snow.” They are memory fragmentation leave its imprints? unclaimed territories which the Diver passes Jumana’s interests also lie in storytelling through on the quest for ‘Heart’. Using the practices, as they are associated for example diving suit as the ultimate veil, disguise or with folklore, myths, icons and archetypes, defence mechanism, the Diver’s world (and as well as in language, both as a visual and identity) is somewhat unknown, unclaimed. textual tool, and the reading and re-reading of On one level, the Diver is an outcast: it is it. In this way, her work consistently reflects certain that he/she has a home but it is not a Palestinian cultural landscape in which the known where. The Diver seeks the advice struggle for continuity amid the wider political of others and wanders from one place to context necessitates a constant process of another, committed to the quest. Yet, on metamorphosis and ingenuity. another level, the Diver is portrayed as a kind of “superhero”, applauded for being She has participated in numerous international unique: an independent traveller ready group exhibitions over the last decade. From to venture into “unknown places” with 2009, this included the Venice Biennale, relentless will and calm solitude. the Istanbul Biennale, the Bahrain National Museum, Manama, the Institute du Monde Born in 1971, Jumana Emil Abboud uses Arabe, Paris, The Jerusalem Show, Darat drawing, video, performance, objects and al Funun, Amman, and at the Carré d’Art, text to navigate themes of memory, loss and Nimes. She lives and works in Jerusalem.

154 155 Basma Alsharif (b. Kuwait) received an MFA Basma Alsharif, The Story of Milk and from the School of Art and Design at the Honey, 9’00”, 2011 University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007. produced with the Her work has been shown in exhibitions FundaciónMarcelinoBotín Grant for and film festivals internationally, including: Visual Arts Fund. Transmediale, the 17 th International Contemporary Art Festival: SESC_Video Brasil, Brasil; Forum The Story of Milk and Honey is a short Expanded: Berlinale, Germany; Images Festival experimental video belonging to a larger Toronto, Canada where she received the project, which includes photographs, Marion McMahon Award; the Yamagata drawings and text, detailing an un- International Documentary Film Festival in named individual’s failure to write a Japan; Manifesta 8: The Region of Murcia; the love story. Through voiceover narration Toronto International Film Festival, Canada; that weaves together images, letters, and The 9th Edition of the Sharjah Biennial in the songs, a story of defeat transpires into a UAE where she received a Jury Prize; the journey that explores how we collect and Contemporary Arts Centre of Southern Australia; perceive information, understand facts, The Jerusalem Show, Palestine; ArteEast history, images, and sound and where the CinemaEast Film Festival, New York, USA; The individual is to be found in the midst of Palestine Film Festival in London, Chicago, the material. Boston, and Ann Arbor; and she was awarded the Fundación Marcelino Botín Visual Arts Grant in 2009-2010.

156 157 Monira Al Qadiri, Oh torment (Wa Wailah), 10’00”, 2008 Eroticism and sensuality are played out through scripted moves as notions of the A series of repetitive choreographies majlis, the harem and the convoy -- among are set to Abdul Wahab Al Rashid’s sad other social practices -- are alluded to. folk song of love and lament. Complete with over the top costumes, props and Monira Al Qadiri is a Kuwaiti conceptual make-up, Wa Wailah is lodged somewhere artist working with video, photography, between a Shakespearean play and an performance and installation. She studied MTV music video as rich and colorful in Tokyo for 10 years and received her PhD contemporary visuals are mixed with in fine arts from Tokyo University of Art in traditional attire. 2010. The themes of her work mostly deal with gender dysfunctionality within Arab Al Qadiri scrutinises gender roles and society, and the displacement of cultural or conventions (be they social, musical or religious identity due to over-communication cinematic) by switching the roles of the and mass migration. She chooses to express sexes: thus the filmmaker herself plays these themes through the use of masculine the role of the male singer, while all of self-portraits, highlighting the idea that the the female dancers are played by cross- narcissism and melancholy associated with dressing men. self-identity can often exist simultaneously.

158 159 Alaa Abu Asad, untitled: extracts from after which he transferred to Bezalel Academy ‘Harem’ by Tony Dark 1984, 2012 of Arts and Design. He is currently in his fourth year of studies in the photography untitled is a video that is extracted from department at Bezalel. a porn film ‘Harem’ that was made in the eighties exposing stories that frame In 2011, one of Alaa’s videos was chosen to be the porn scenes; a french man roaming screened for a panel on Palestinian film and the streets of Casablanca is looking for a queer identity at Yale University and NYU. He fast fix of exotic love.The video explores also took part in the open Studio exhibition at notions of postcolonial relationships, Khalil Sakakini Culture Center in Ramallah, intimacy as a field of power and an Arab and was invited to participate in the Queer city’s image in a sensual context. Easter Seminar in the “Kurt Löwenstein” education center in Werftpful, Germany. In Alaa Abu Asad was born in Nazareth in 2012, Alaa took part in an exhibition at Beit 1989. In 2009 he started his studies in animal Al Karma art Gallery in Haifa. science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

160 161 All the other lovers 24 -31 November 2012 Artists’ Biographies Palestine

Hosted at: Beregaria Room Evagoras Lanitis Centre Limassol, Cyprus

Participants: Jumana Emil Abboud, Basma Alsharif, Munera Al Qadiri, Alaa’ Abu Asaad

162 163 bound Art Project, 2011, Ultima-Ljubljana, Slovenia, difference, flexibility, intuition and focuses autonomous works; art which can be read Drawing a line between-drawing a line on, ITCH on abandoned, forgotten places in the urban without necessarily knowing a specific canon Fani Sofologi received her BA from Athens Magazine issue III e.08 (online), http://www. structure of modern cities. Dražić explores of Art. Whilst Art will always be referential School of Fine Arts and an MFA from itch.co.za/?article=482 , 2011, CrossSections- their transformation and rethinks them at in the sense that it is not produced within the Public Art and New Artistic Strategies Kesitler, 8. Korea-Turkey Artist Exchange the level of cultural continuity, symbolic a cultural vacuum, these references are not program of the Bauhaus University in Exhibition, Mustafa Kemal Cultural Center irregularities and individual actions. Dražić the intended primary mode of meaning. As Germany. Her works (performance, video, Exhibition Hall-Beşiktaş, 21 December perceives the city as an archeological site, his practice is triggered and defined by a photograph, drawing) have been presented in 2010-20 January 2011, Istanbul, Turkey “A where one can find artifacts, architecture, context, the work exhibits a broad spectrum numerous institutions and art spaces such Dice That I Need”, 9. Trieste International bio-facts and cultural landscapes. She of both media and content. Although wary of as Museum of New Art (M.O.N.A.) (Detroit), Contemporary Design Contest Exhibition, looks for, works with and collects traces grand narratives, much of his work does seem DESTE Foundation (Athens), Generali 23 October-11 December 2010, Trieste, Italy, that show how culture is constantly being to orbit around issues of public space and Foundation (Vienna), AD Gallery (Athens), Okan University Academic Staff Exhibition, negotiated, redefined and transformed. Dražić the negotiation of participatory practice. La Casa Ensendida (Madrid), Kappatos Faculty of Fine Arts, Okan University also works with the borders and margins Process is a critical component of the work, Gallery (Athens), Greek State Museum of 8 November- 10 Aralık 2010, Istanbul, of public and private space. She believes which is often project-based and long term. Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki), Benaki Turkey , “Remember Remember”, “Zine- that both are constantly (re)created, that Projects such as Slum TV and Urban Mirror Museum (Athens), International Festival of If I Jump A Bridge, Will you Follow Me”, they do not exist as fixed parameters, but build and develop over many years. However, Serajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) etc. She Edinburg Arts Festival, 7 August- 22 August rather are in a constant flux. She exhibited his practice also encompasses more immediate has collaborated with several art collectives, 2010, Edinburgh, UK, “Moonlight series”, in various solo exhibitions and her work is and lyrical responses to the city as seen by participating in projects, actions and installation, Sølyst Artists in Residence included in shows at What happened with his work with the Usually4 collective. He happenings. Her personal work focuses on Center, Jyderup, Denmark, 18 Sept-9 Oct, the Museum of Contemporary Art?, MoCAB, has developed a body of interventions and different options of reality, the ways that place 2008, “Homage to Hajduks” , “Tide Low / Belgrade, Serbia (2012), Rearview installations, which recently have begun to and space can determine our perception as well Tide High”, in-situ installations, with Hasan Mirror, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada focus on the peculiarities and aesthetics of as on the interactive and participatory nature Salih Ay, EkoSusak, Museum of Modern (2011), The Power to Host, ISCP, New York, the ‘Development’ sector which is of powerful of art. http://fanisofologi.blogspot.com and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia USA (2011), Conversations in Silence, Goethe symbolic importance in Kenya. (samhopkins. and BJCEM, Susak Island, Croatia, 20-27 Institute Nairobi, Kenya (2011), Qui Vive? II org) Jana Stojakovic was born in 1981 in Belgrade, August, 2008, Terminal00 Balkan Art Festival, Moscow International Biennale of Young Artist, Serbia, where she currently lives and works. In “What is White?”, selected video, Ada Street Moscow, Russia (2010) and many others. Marko Tadic was born 1979 In Sisak. Lives 2009, she received master’s degree in Fine Art Gallery, London, UK, Sept-Oct, 2008 , “Art (dusicadrazic.wordpress.com) and works in Zagreb. He was trained at with classification of distinction from Chelsea is my playground”, Küçük Çiftlik Park, the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence. College of Art & Design in London, UK. She TERSHANE Contemporary Art and Idea Sam Hopkins was born in 1979 in Rome, Individually, he exhibited at ISCP in New acheived Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art Production Platform, Istanbul, Turkey, 16-29 he was raised in Kenya and England York; LINIeNSTrASSe113 Gallery, Berlin; from the same college in 2008. Jana graduated June, 2008 before studying History and Spanish in Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb, Gallery from Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Serbia, Edinburgh and Cuba. He then proceeded to VN, Zagreb; Galženica Gallery, Velika in 2006. In the same year, she received a Dušica Dražić was born in Belgrade, postgraduate studies in Contemporary Art in Gorica and Nova Gallery, Zagreb. He Diploma in Gender Studies from Faculty of Yugoslavia, 1979. As well as her own solo Oxford and Weimar, returning to Nairobi on also participated in the following group Political Sciences in Belgrade. practice, Dražić initiated and curated a permanent basis in 2006. Sam Hopkins is exhibitions: And then nothing turned www.janastojakovic.net collaborative projects and exhibitions. The an artist whose work responds to the specific itself inside out, WUK Kunsthalle, Vienna; issues that Dražić explores within her social and political context within which he Donumenta, Regensburg; Glow Festival Los Ender Gelgeç 1978 born in Izmir Turkey art practice deal with the ambivalent is living. In a sense his art is maybe more akin Angeles; Croatia First Minute, Avesta; Heroes Recent Exhibitions and Screenings: Water interrelationship of the citizen and the city, to documentary; probing, investigating and in Transition, Nottingham; Side, New Gallery, Tower Art Festival, 2011, Sofia, Bulgaria, their mutual support and protectiveness, re-imagining stories, characters and elements Gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Sweeping an envelope, Papergirl Istanbul, Milk but also their isolation and destruction. of daily life. Rather than work with strategies Arts, Belgrade and Gorges of the Balkans, Gallery, 2011 Istanbul, Turkey, Ultima Mail Dražić searches for spaces of irregularity, of reference and allusion, he tries to make Fridericianum, Kassel. 2010 third award at the

164 165 T-HT@MSU exhibition,2008 first prize - artist Academy for Fine Arts, Sofia in 1993. Ivanov graphic & spatial design in Greece and the understanding that in many ways is connected award for Contemporary Art Radoslav Putar, has participated in the following solo and two UK. They also take part in solo/group shows with a carefree stripping of established systems 2006. The winner of the Youth Salon Zagreb person shows: 2011 Półprawda / Half-Truth, independently. During 2012, they have shown and dogmas and their manipulation, so as for drawings. And multiple winner of first Gallery Le Guern, Warsaw, Poland, Curator their collaborative work at Unanswered to size down important ideas and issues to prize at the Youth Salon in Sisak. He was in Kamil J. Malinowski, 2010 Works, Non-Works Prayers, 2012, CAN Christina Androulidaki the equivalent of a laughable fable. His new the residential programs ISCP’s, New York; and Illusions, Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv, 2008 Gallery, Athens, Bound, 2012, Open Show body of work creates a feeling of investigation, Kultur Bunker Frankfurt, Thoughts Within Thoughts - two person show Studio, Athens and Parnassos, Parnassos dissection and eventual distortion of KulturKontakt, Vienna and the 18th Street with Alec Finlay, ARC Projects, Sofia, 2007 Literary Society, Athens. traditional western art as a symbol of western Art Center, Santa Monica. Filmography: The Double Trouble - two person show with Valio ideals and ethos, winking in a sense at the Black Ouija Board, 2008, I speak true things, Chenkov, Gallery Steinle, Munich, Germany financial and social tribulations in the western 2009 Selected group shows: 2012 In Crisis – Terra Inter Alios world. Vasilis Asimakopoulos lives and works Mediterranea,The Nicosia Municipal in London. He has exhibited extensively in Stela Vula was born in 1981, studied at the Art Centre, Associated with Pierides Athena Nikolaou lives and works in the UK and France and has won the 2011 Athens School of Fine Arts, Department of Foundation, Curator: Dr. Yiannis Toumazis, Athens, Greece. She studied sculpture at the Mostyn award. Figurative Arts after she completed her studies Utopraxia,TAF / the Art Foundation, School of Fine Arts, Aristotle University in at the Technological Educational Institute Athens, Greece, 21.06 – 02.09.2012, Curator: Thessalonica. She has obtained her MFA Nikos Papadimitriou GR, (Chios,1971) of Lamia, Diploma in Computer Science Evangelia Ledaki, Beautiful game, City Art degree (Master in Fine Art) at the Edinburgh lives and works in Athens and Seoul. Engineering and Information Technology. Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia Curator: Alenka College of Fine Arts. Selected exhibitions Papadimitriou studied at the School of Fine Selected exhibitions are Geometry and Animals, Gregorič, Co Curator: Luchezar Boyadjiev, are: Inter Alios: Collaborative Art Book, Arts in Athens, specialising in painting and animation OpenShowstudio, Athens, Greece Sport in Art Museum of Contemporary Art 2012 openShowstudio, Curator: Artemis printmaking. He also completed an MA 2012, 8th INTERNATIONAL THEATRE in Krakow, Poland, Curator: Monika Kozioł, Potamiano; Ritorno al Mediterraneo, 2012 course in Visual Communication at Kent UNIVERSIADE 2012, Arta, Serres, Greece, Delfina Piekarska, Maria Anna Potocka Milano, Curators: Melina Scalise-Pierre Institute of Art & Design (MA in Visual 2012, Untitled, video projection, Gazi Area, Kalousian Velissiotis; Human trace and its mark, Communication), Kent, England and pursued Athens, Greece, 2012, Student Exhibition, Philippos Gkountzos was born in 1981. He 2011 EPASKT Athens; Behind the mask of a further studies at Edinburgh College of Art Athens School of Fine Arts, Athens, Greece, studied painting at the School of Fine Arts woman’s power, Bonicos Gallery, Karageorgis with an Erasmus scholarship. To date, he has 2011, THESSALONIKI CENTER OF of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Servias 12-14; Image-Space-Action, 2008, had 11 solo shows in Greece, participated CONTEMPORARY ART, AnimaCall and has a Masters in Theatre School of Presentation of New Artist, Technopolis Art at 4 Biennales (Sarajevo, Tel Aviv, Prague, Project, Geometry and Animals, animation, Thessaloniki. He is founding member of Center, Athens; ecoart.gr Art and Ecology, 2007 Istanbul) and many group shows, both within Thessaloniki, Greece, 2011, Group Exhibition, the group KangarooCourt which since 2010 Free Expression Gallery, Athens. Greece and internationally. Pefki Area, Athens, Greece, 2007 is active in Live Art. He has participated in various exhibitions and projects such as: Vasilis Asimakopoulos work explores man’s Adonis Volanakis (Athens,1976) Adonis Nemanja Nikolic was born in 1987 and lives Symposium (Communication of Crisis) 2011, enquiry into social and political events, by Volanakis studied at the University of Arts and works in Belgrade. Graduated from the curated by Institute For Live Arts Research, creating platforms and avenues that range of London: BA (Hons); Wimbledon College Faculty of Fine Arts in 2010 with a major in Nafpaktos, The 7 Deadly Sins .. +, Artforum from the use of technology to cultural media. of Art, Master of Arts; Central Saint Martins painting. Nikolic is currently a student of Gallery, Thessaloniki, ROOMS-2007, Although major concerns and phenomena act College of Art, School of Motion Picture; Doctoral art studies at the same faculty. He Kappatos Gallery, Athens. His works are in as a starting point, his work focuses on the Aalto University of Helsinki and is a PhD is also the initiator of U10 Art Space. Since private collections such as Nikos Alexiou impact of the everyday, history and culture. candidate at the University of Athens. He 2007 his work was exhibited on numerous collection etc. Thus, ecological disaster, the financial crisis has received the following scholarships and exhibitions in Serbia and abroad. He lives and works in Thessaloniki. or nuclear war are transfused ironically distinctions: Arts and Humanities Research with elements such as sci-fi films, everyday Board, University of Surrey; London Pravdoliub Ivanov was born in in Plovdiv, Em Kei & Nicolaich are two artists who work decadence and pure stupidity in order to Institute. He has also received support Bulgaria, 1964. Lives and works in Sofia, as a group since 2011. They live and work in present new possibilities and frontiers from the following foundations: Fulbright, Bulgaria. Graduated from the National Athens, Greece. They both studied fine art, for our understanding of the world. An Onassis, Vardinogiannio, Leventis, Propontis,

166 167 Spyropoulos and Goulandris. He taught 2011 curated by Lo and Behold; Kulturhuset studio practice, Kotretsos co-founded Boots and abroad such as: Beltsios Collection, courses of visual language of performance 2011,Stockholm, Sweden; Battlefield, 2010, Contemporary Art Space, St. Louis MO, US Emfietzoglou Collection, Kitis Collection, (2004 till 2012) at the University of Taf, Athens, Greece; Expanded ecologies, 2009, (2006-10) where she had the opportunity to Liakounakou Collection, Djurhuus Collection Peloponnese/Nafplio and at the University EMST. Athens; Delphi is a place to meet, 2009, work with many emerging as well established (Denmark), Henan Art Center (China), RISD of Patras,. He has participated in exhibitions Greek American Union,Athens; Round professionals. Kotretsos further founded collection (USA) and others. with installations, video, photographs, Trip, 2007, Couvent des Recollets, Paris; Boot Print, a publication dedicated to sculptures and participatory and/or video Gates, Cruises, Terminal, 2006,Bari; Napoli contemporary art, which was published by Eva Marathaki (1977) lives and works in performances at the Macedonian Museum Presente, 2005, Palazzo delle Arti, Naples; Boots, where she served as the editor-in-chief Athens. he graduated from the University of of Contemporary Art; the State Museum Inhabituel,2005, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan; (http://bootscontemporaryartspace.org/ North London where she studied French/ of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki; the Αθήνα by Art, 2004,Athens; Tirana Biennale2, blog/bootprint/). Kotretsos currently is a Spanish and Latin American Studies in European Cultural Centre of Delphi; School 2003,Tirana; RAM,Utopia Station, 2003, 50th columnist for the PBS Arts feature Art:21 in 2001 and later in 2010 she graduated from of Fine Art, Athens; Contemporary Art Venice Biennial,Venice; SuperMover,Fotofest, New York, where she has a monthly column the Athens School of Fine Art (ASFA) with Museum of Crete; Cacoyannis Foundation; Huston,2002,US; Gravità Zero, 2001, Palazzo entitled Inside the Artist’s Studio (http://blog. distinction. She is currently doing her MA 2nd Athens Biennale, National Theatre of delle Esposizioni,Rome; Ventana Hacia Venus, art21.org/author/georgia-kotretsos/). in Fine Art at ASFA. She has received the London; Historical Site Korai 4 galleries; 2000, Bienel de la Habana,Habana,Cuba; Georgios Jacobides Award of Excellence, from He has also created site-specific projects and Fuoriuso‘99, 1999, Ex Clinica Baiocchi,Pescara. Alexis Avlamis (Cephallonia, Greece, 1979) the N.G. Papadimitriou Educational and shown in other independent exhibition He has also participated in residency programs graduated with a BFA (hons) degree in Painting Cultural Foundation, 2011, and the Early spaces. He has created performances such as such us: Nordisk Kunstarsenter Dalsasen, from Athens School of Fine Arts, 2002. In Entry Award Winner for the Power of Self, 2011. I AM LI-eaVING at the Royal Opera House- Dale i Sunnfjord, 2005, Norway and Centre 2004 he was accepted to the Master’s program She has participated in exhibitions like: Objet Covent Garden and Yamambo! at the Benaki International Couvent des Récollets, 2003/4, in Furniture Design and Manufacturing at petit a, IsnotGallery, Nicosia, 2012, Unswered Museum etc. As a visual artist he has designed Paris. Giorgos Papadatos is also a founding the Rhode Island School of Design, but a prayers, CAN Gallery, Athens, Boiling sets, installations and costumes for the Athens member of the ngo Lo and Behold. year later he deferred his admission. His work point, Künstlerhaus, Wien, 2012, Landschaft, Festival / Odeon of Herodes Atticus, National cartographises the philosophical notions of Tint Gallery, Thessaloniki, 2012, ¨Justice is Greek Theatre, National Greek Opera and Georgia Kotretsos ( born in Thessaloniki, Utopia and Heterotopia. The imagery stems Mine¨, CAMP, Athens, 2012,Public Domain, the Onassis Cultural Centre. Since 2007, he 1978, raised in South Africa and repatriated from the notions of utopias/heterotopias Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden, curated BLIND DATE#12, a research platform, to Greece in 2005). Kotretsos is a visual through the use of maps, aerial views and 2012, Drawing Room, Omikron Gallery, where contemporary artists collaborate artist and writer based in Athens, Greece. photography. Throughout 2009-2011, he Nicosia, 2011, Rooms to let, Action Field Kodra, with writers and philosophy researchers – She has attained an MFA Degree, 2004, was interviewed for Art21’s blog: Inside the Thessaloniki, 2008. blinddate12.blogspot.com. Currently he is an from The School of the Art Institute of Artist’s Studio; ERT3 (Greek national radio); invited artist and Fulbright Scholar at the Chicago, US, on a Full Merit Scholarship free press newspaper: Free Sunday; Chinese Yiannis Grigoriadis (1971) studied sculpture Department of Art and Politics/ Tisch School and a BFA Degree, 2000 from the Durban newspaper: Global Times; landed a solo show at Athens School of Fine Arts (1990-1995), of Arts, New York University. Institute of Technology, iKwaZulu Natal, at Zina Athanassiadou gallery, Thessaloniki and then post graduate studies at the ZA. Her work primarily challenges and and worked as an artist-in-residence at the Staffordshire University (1996-1997), majoring Giorgos Papadatos (Athens 1969) studied in critiques the conformity of seeing and Vermont Studio Center (USA), Beijing in video art and video installation. He has the fine arts academy of Rome. He lives and perceiving artworks when displayed within Studio Center (China) and at Arteles Creative taken part in numerous solo and group works in Athens. Selected solo shows are: the museum. By introducing and studying Center (Finland), respectively. He recently exhibitions. His work studies the city and Corporate cities Ltd, 2007, E31 gallery, Athens; liberating approaches of art viewing - she joined New York’s Drawing Center’s Viewing shows off the multiple readings through Light unit factories, 2002, Galleria Umberto has created an interdisciplinary body of Program, his work was selected in Dave Bown the systematic recording, examines the built di Marino, Naples; The master-list of dead work. She has exhibited her work in over Projects 4th Semiannual Competition, NY and environment as a reservoir of meanings media, 2000, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome. 60 group exhibitions in Greece and abroad in HESA inprint, Helsinki, Finland. Avlamis that constitute memory, and represents He has also participated in many group and 5 solo ones. She has shown her work has exhibited his work in Greece, Finland, the urban equipment as an intervention shows such us: Forgetmenot, 2012 curated by in Greece, the United States, South Africa the United States, UK and China. His work in the urban environment. He has curated Sumermina, Elica gallery, Athens; PIGS Case, and at major European cities. Parallel to her can be found in major collections in Greece exhibitions and screenings. He teaches as

168 169 an assistant professor in the Department of Plastic Art at the University of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens. Grigoriadis exhibited in the following shows during 2012: The Limits of Togetherness, The Symptom Projects, Amfissa; PArabola short film festival at the Cultural Center Tensta Träff, Stockholm; The distant relative of a blind man, ABOUT, Athens; Justice is mine, CAMP!, Athens; Boiling Point, Kuenstlerhaus, Wien,Tracing Traces, Fizz gallery, Athens; Videodrome, Campoint, Athens.

170 171 Published by NeMe in conjunction with the project Through the Roadblocks, 2010-2012. www.neme.org

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ISBN 978-9963-9695-2-4

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