May's Exhibitions II

 

Short-lived Settlements by Becky Campbell 

 

Snehta Residency is the only residency in Athens that gives the opportunity to international artists to visit the Greek capital and stay in a typical Athenian apartment. The house is situated in Kypseli, a post-bourgeois area that bears the marks of the current changes of the Athenian landscape.

As is implied by its name, (Athens spelled backwards), Snehta seeks to initiate new readings and cultural responses to the Greek capital, whilst enriching and re-directing the practices of the residency’s participating artists.

The Residency Snehta (was founded in December, 2011 by Augustus Veinoglou) started this April 2012 with the participation of the Scottish artist Becky Campbell. After a months stay in the City, Campbell opened the doors of the Snehta apartment on the 24th of May and shared her personal readings with the audience.

The exhibition titled Short-lived Settlements presented works that fuse structures, colours and textures, while various histories and the present overlap. The muted palette of the city pulsed through with hints of vibrancy; Athens is deconstructed and reinvented through Campbell's works, which project dense visual qualities and a tactile complexity. The plasticity of the urban experience is reversely explored and thought about with a focus on its multiple inward layers. 

 

if you would like to help the  Snehta Residency  to fund their three upcoming artists by becoming an inseperable member of S.R. community then click here.

Cobalt + Porcelain by Olga Alexopoulou 

 

Kourd gallery presents Olga Alexopoulou's Exhibition with the title: Cobalt + Porcelain

 

 Olga's official website is here.

 

and information about the exhibition and the Kourd Gallery here.

 

The exhibition will be open until the 23rd of June 2012

David Gibson's Street Photography Workshop

David Gibson's Street Photography Workshop

Orama Studies hosted a couple of weeks ago David Gibson's Street Photography Workshop in Athens.

David Gibson worked for several years as a Residential Social Worker before pursuing photography full-time in 1994. In 2002 he completed an MA in Photography: History and Culture at the London College of Printing.

David’s work has been widely published and he is often commissioned by leading design agencies in the UK.

In addition to his photography David regularly leads Street Photography workshops in London and increasingly in other cities worldwide.

“I probably spend more time looking at photographs than I do actually taking them. My shelves at home are lined with photography books. The work of the so-called master photographers – and the less heralded – have always been a source of reassurance and stimulation for my own photography.

 

Photographers such as Elliott Erwitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mario Giacomelli, Robert Frank, Sylvia Plachy and Tony Ray-Jones, to name but a few. The list is endless and always open to change. Street photography for me is an instinctive urge and after more than twenty years of wandering with my camera, it still remains about staying curious and inspired – and then looking for the luck”

David is a member of iN-PUBLiC and you can find more about him here.

These photos are taken during that workshop. I would like to thank Orama Studies for their hospitality.  You can find more interesting workshops from Orama Strudies here.

May's Exhibitions I

2+2=5
Konstantinos Pettas, Foteini Chandra
23.05.2012 – 3.06.2012

 

3137 invites you at the show “2+2=5” which is an attempt to negate the notion of self-evident truth. It describes how assumptions can be perceived as “ the truth”, depending on which social environment they are presented in. The exhibition explores how two different parts stop functioning individually but as a whole. The works are being created to be presented in the same space so as to be completed through their coexistence and interaction.

 

Biomorphic forms are the common reference point of the two artists. Konstantionos Pettas investigates the relationship between objects and mental processes. Through the representation of inaccessible symbols he examines the relationship of humans with supernatural and devotion. He questions in which extent faith, knowledge and dogma are socially valid in our days and if they remain indisputable. With reference to internal elements of the human body Foteini Chandra creates volumes out of fabric that develop in space. She investigates the relationship between the internal and the external and how it is reversed when revealing what lies beneath the surface.

 

Once upon a sponge

10.05 - 16.06.12 

TAF presents the exhibition Once upon a sponge by Papairlines, until the 16th of June 2012.

The exhibition Once upon a sponge aims to showcase the different perspectives of design. Design is not just encountered in windows of high-end shops, but also something we experience and interact with on a daily basis: from a sign and a widely recognisable piece of furniture to a love note and a D.I.Y. object that adapts random and accessible materials. Design is about identifying, analysing and solving problems in our everyday life as well as commenting on social phenomena and behaviours.

 

 

For the exhibition Once upon a sponge, 20 designers conceptualise and construct unexpected and imaginative narrative objects with the final destination being to show and tell stories through the use of the iconic yellow sponge. The sponge, a neglected everyday object, transforms into a construction material for the passengers - designers of Papairlines who are invited to redefine the form and the established use of the sponge in order to challenge the perception of the public. The objects emerging from this process will be landing in TAF.

 

At the same time a collection of photographs showcases a series of spontaneous, D.I.Y objects, created by non-design professionals, who at a lack of resources, creatively subvert existing objects to solve problems and overcome design weaknesses.

Papairlines is a creative platform that focuses on exposing the methodologies and process behind all things designed: from an experience to a product and a service with which we interact, inadvertently or not, on a daily basis.

 

Participating designers

157+173 Designers, Ritsa Αnastasiadou, Marcia Argyriades, Christina Billiouri, Angela Chrissaiti, CTRLZAK, DEDE Dextrous Design, Jazzt Design, Kanella, Sotiris Lazou, Vassilis Mylonadis, Kikos Papadopoulos, Stathis Petropoulos, Kallirroy Spyridonos, Zaxos Stathopoulos, Marc Schulthess, Wedid-ID, Alexandros Xanthakis

Curating: Papairlines / Loukas Angelou, Vasso Asfi, Costas Bissas

Apousia (Absence)

Konstantina Katrakazou was inspired by the theme of absence after a long period of philosophical research with the rest of the members of an interdisciplinary group consisting of Fay Zika, Louiza Karapidaki, Thanassis Hatzopoulosand the artist herself.

 

Through her installation the artist explored the transformation of absence into presence. Beginning with death, a form of absence so radical and taboo one refrains from speaking of it, all forms of absence nowadays tend to be invalidated.

 

 

In that installation the artist used various media to explore the concept of absence, primarily in terms of lack of communication and to confront us with another dimension of the idea of absence. Her point of reference is the contradiction of an absent-present person.

 

The exhibition/installation "Apousia" (Absence) is followed by an open discussion on the topic of absence in various fields, a poetry evening, and a guided tour by the artist and the curator. Art historian Louisa Karapidaki curated the exhibition.

Wayfaring Stranger

I am a poor wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world alone
There is no sickness, toil nor danger
In that fair land to which I go

I'm goin' home to see my mother
I'm goin' home, no more to roam
I am just goin' over Jordan
I am just goin' over home

 

I know dark clouds will hover o'er me
I know my pathway is rough and steep
But golden fields lie out before me
Where weary eyes no more will weep

I'm goin' home to see my father
I'm goin' home, no more to roam
I am just goin' over Jordan
I am just goin' over home

 

 

I'll soon be free from every trial
This form shall rest beneath the sod
I'll drop the cross of self-denial
And enter in that home with God

I'm goin' home to see my Savior
I'm goin' home, no more to roam
I am just goin' over Jordan
I am just goin' over home

Jack White

8-Kick

 8-Kick / Improvisation

"Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act.

This invention cycle occurs most effectively when the practitioner has a thorough intuitive and technical understanding of the necessary skills and concerns within the improvised domain. Improvisation can be thought of as an "on the spot" or "off the cuff" spontaneous activity.

The skills of improvisation can apply to many different abilities or forms of communication and expression across all artistic, scientific, physical, cognitive, academic, and non-academic disciplines.

For example, improvisation can make a significant contribution in music, dance, cooking, presenting a speech, sales, personal or romantic relationships, sports, flower arranging, martial arts, psychotherapy, and much more.

Techniques of improvisation are widely trained in the entertainment arts; for example, music, theatre and dance. To "extemporize" or "ad lib" is basically the same as improvising. Colloquial terms such as "let's play it by the ear", "take it as it comes", and "make it up as we go along" are all used to describe "improvisation".

The simple act of speaking requires a good deal of improvisation because the mind is addressing its own thought and creating its unrehearsed delivery in words, sounds and gestures, forming unpredictable statements that feed back into the thought process (the performer as listener), creating an enriched process that is not unlike instantaneous composition [with a given set or repertoire of elements].

 

Where the improvisation is intended to solve a problem on a temporary basis, the "proper" solution being unavailable at the time, it may be known as a stop-gap. This particularly applies to engineering improvisations."

[ source ]



These photos are from 8-kick's show at Bios.Athens, during the Bob-Theater Festival (May 2012)

A short description about 8-kick (in Greek)

Μήπως νιώθετε, καμιά φορά, στο θέατρο, ότι οι ηθοποιοί δεν σας δίνουν σημασία; Μήπως νιώθετε ότι θέλετε να επέμβετε στο κείμενο και στους διαλόγους;

Μήπως θα έπρεπε, επιτέλους, να ανέβει ένα έργο βασισμένο σε ιδέα σας; Ε, λοιπόν, ήρθε η ώρα, όλα αυτά να συμβούν... Στις παραστάσεις κωμωδίας και αυτοσχεδιασμού της ομάδας 8-kick!

Επιτέλους ο θεατής έχει τη δύναμη! Ακριβώς! Εσύ, ο ανώνυμος θεατής, θαδώσεις σε εμάς, τους επώνυμους κωμικούς την ιδέα σου και εμείς θα τη μετατρέψουμε σε ξεκαρδιστικές αυτοσχέδιες σκηνές.

Τα μέλη των AbOvo, των Cheek-Bones και του «Κάψε το Σενάριο»: Γιώργος Αγγελόπουλος, Εύη Δόβελου, Βάσω Καβαλιεράτου, Γιώργος Κρήτος, Μαρία Μπαλούτσου, Ζήσης Ρούμπος, Γιάννης Σαρακατσάνης, Λάμπρος Φισφής, σας προσκαλούν σε ξεκαρδιστικές βραδιές αυτοσχέδιας κωμωδίας.

8-kick's Facebook Page is here. 

(p.s.  Thank you very much Fondeus for the ticket! ;) )