Curation
Organisation of Exhibitions and Conferences
“Some Call Us Balkans” (2023)
Type Contemporary art exhibition
Venue Termokiss, Rilindja (Pristina, Kosovo)
Involvement Curatorial Committee member
Fund Creative Europe Programme
Partners Biennale of Western Balkans, ZK/U, ICSE&Co., SocioPatch – Platform for civic engagement through artistic and cultural practices, UNSA Geto, Tačka komunikacije, Termokiss, TULLA Cultural Center
Exhibition showcasing newly commissioned contemporary art in two industrial sites in Pristina, exploring alternative forms and ecologies of representing and living in the Balkans. The group exhibition hosts eight contemporary young artists whose artworks explore the Balkans, its myths and misconceptions, reclaiming the space beyond stereotypes, envisioning new ecologies, modes of inhabiting and coming together on a common ground. Τhe artistic practices cross different places, engage communities and express social claims under the vision of an open-traveling practice across the Balkans and the implementation of participatory art-based research.
“Iatrosophia: On Folk Medicine & Phytogeography - Art Pluriverse II: Community Science Series on Intangible & Natural Heritage in the Balkans” (2021-2022)
Type Community science project (Virtual)
Involvement Organiser
Fund Ministry of Culture and Sports (Greece)
Partners Biennale of Western Balkans, Wikimedia Community User Group Greece, Network Intelligence Laboratory - University of Brasilia
Co-curators Elli Leventaki, Katerina Zachou
Annual community science programme for the study and promotion of intangible & natural heritage in the Balkans, involving local communities of practice that are holders of traditional knowledge and safeguard intangible heritage practices, co-documenting them in open, educative and participatory ways based on open science principles. The project outcomes are the co-creation of open-access digital community archives through an educational course and the co-creation of participatory art-based research through artist-community synergies. This edition focused on folk medicinal traditions and local botanical knowledge of Balkan-based communities who are holders of biocultural memory.
“Textile Heritage and Weaving Communities - Art Pluriverse I: Community Science Series on Intangible & Natural Heritage in the Balkans” (2020)
Type Community science project (Virtual)
Involvement Organiser
Fund Creative Commons Organization, Ministry of Culture and Sports (Greece)
Partners Biennale of Western Balkans, Wikimedia Community User Group Greece, Creative Commons Organization
Co-curators Artemis Papageorgiou, Elli Leventaki, Katerina Zachou
Annual community science programme for the study and promotion of intangible & natural heritage in the Balkans, involving local communities of practice that are holders of traditional knowledge and safeguard intangible heritage practices, co-documenting them in open, educative and participatory ways based on open science principles. The project outcomes are the co-creation of open-access digital community archives through an educational course and the co-creation of participatory art-based research through artist-community synergies. This edition focused on textile heritage and weaving communities of the wider Balkan region.
“DATeCH 2019 – Digital Access to Textual Cultural Heritage” (2019)
Type International Conference
Venue Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (Brussels, Belgium)
Involvement Assistant (3 member team)
Partners IMPACT Centre of Competence in Digitisation, Dutch Language Institute (INT), DARIAH-BE, CLARIN
Interdisciplinary conference bringing together researchers and practitioners seeking innovative approaches for the creation, transformation and exploitation of historical documents in digital form, taking place at the intersection of computer science, (digital) humanities, and cultural heritage studies.
“The future of tradition: Documenting cultural heritage and artistic creation – interdisciplinary approaches, contemporary media” (2019)
Type Conference
Venue Silversmithing Museum - Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (Ioannina, Greece)
Involvement Organiser
Fund Ministry of Culture and Sports (Greece)
Partners Biennale of Western Balkans, ICOM-International Council of Museums, Balkans Beyond Borders, History of Art Laboratory - University of Ioannina
Co-curator Elli Leventaki
Part of the official ICOM programme for the International Museum Day and its 2019 subject “Museums as cultural hubs: the future of tradition”. A curated event with presentations, screenings and a workshop on the creative reuses of digital intangible cultural heritage, developed as a project on-the-go that explored cultural heritage in relation to technology, communities and new media.
“Intangible Meetings” (2018)
Type Conference
Venue General Archives of Greece – Historical Archives/Museum of Epirus (Ioannina, Greece)
Involvement Organiser
Fund Ministry of Culture and Sports (Greece), Region of Epirus, Municipality of Ioannina
Partners Biennale of Western Balkans, Ministry of Culture in Greece - Directorate of Modern and Intangible Cultural Heritage, History of Art Laboratory - University of Ioannina
Co-curator Elli Leventaki
The conference included presentations and on-stage dialogues that surveyed, analysed and debated aspects of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), offering multi-vocal and interdisciplinary perspectives. The programme explored the emerging landscape of ICH in research and applied knowledge, with a focus on the European and Balkan region.
“Common Myths” (2018)
Type Multimedia exhibition
Venue General Archives of Greece – Historical Archives/Museum of Epirus (Ioannina, Greece)
Involvement Curator
Fund Ministry of Culture and Sports (Greece), Region of Epirus, Municipality of Ioannina
Partners Biennale of Western Balkans, History of Art Laboratory - University of Ioannina
Assistant curator Katerina Zachou
The exhibition presented contemporary art and research that places myth at the core of an interdisciplinary exploration. The exhibition examines concepts as the re-interpretation, re-creation and re-enactment of cultural legacies, intangible forms of representation, transient collective memory, community-based art, epistemologies of mythical thought and contemporary rituals. Art included augmented reality, video art, hologram and mapping projections, connected with community workshops and traditional craftsmanship.
“GIF: Morphologies of a copyleft tale” (2017)
Type Digital media exhibition
Venue Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki, Greece)
Involvement Curator
Fund Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki
Partners Moving Silence Network, HMKW University of Applied Sciences (Germany)
Coordination Eirini Papakonstantinou, Art director: Matthias Fritsch
The exhibition concept is based on Vladimir Propp’s book ‘Morphology of the folktale’, where Propp introduces patterns that come along a story formation. GIFs reflect the anonymous, collective narratives from a contemporary visual perspective. The exhibition explores the transformativity and underlying patterns of the GIF-medium in semantic ways, where a micro-fiction is expressed in manifold ways, relating to an initial pattern or element. The exhibition focuses on visual, textual and software patterns that propagate through multiple derivative GIFs, forming a digital folklore of collective web-user engagement.
“Micro-cinema of Attractions – GIF art imageries and creative techniques” (2016)
Type Digital media exhibition and open air projection exhibition
Venue ARTos Foundation (Nicosia, Cyprus)
Involvement Curator
Fund Goethe-Institut Cyprus, Ministry of Education and Culture - Republic of Cyprus, Creative Europe
Partners ARTos Foundation, Artecitya, Moving Silence Network
Assistant Curator Elia Neophytou
The exhibition draw an analogy between Tom Gunning’s concept ‘cinema of attractions’ on the early phase of silent cinema (1907-1913) and GIF art. The exhibition explored the aesthetic micro-worlds of GIFs, highlighting their unique visual techniques. It was realized as a media exhibition in the space of ARTos Foundation, framed by an urban tour with pop-up GIF projections, whole night GIF projection ‘stations‘ within the city and an analogue GIF workshop.
“Jiggling Golems – The art of GIF” (2015)
Type Digital media exhibition
Venue Goethe-Institut Athen (Athens, Greece)
Involvement Curator
Fund Goethe-Institut Athen
Partners Braunschweig University of Art (Germany), Athens School of Fine Arts, Moving Silence Network
Art director Matthias Fritsch
Jiggling Golems explored the cinematic qualities of the GIF medium, the narrative potential of very short moving images and their semiotics. In the context of the Festival for Silent Film Culture, the GIF art exhibition expanded the silent film format in the networked digital space. The project was realised as an ‘immaterial’ exhibition in html format, hosted within the open-source local networking toolkit ‘Piratebox’ and traveling along the venues. The audience could access the exhibition only on-site through their mobile devices.
“Future Past – Past Future” (2014)
Type New media exhibition
Venue SUPERMARKT Cultural Center (Berlin, Germany)
Involvement Curatororial assistant
Fund Goethe-Institut
Partners Goethe Institutes of Ankara, Sofia and Athens, Transmediale
Curator Sandra Naumann, Festival Manager: Markus Huber
The exhibition questioned the power of old and new media, asking about the possible alternative future scenarios, but also about the relationship between the past, present and future in the Balkans. How do the respective historical identities and individual stories of their own history, shape the ideas of a possible tomorrow?
“Lullaby Monsters on the Road” (2013-2014)
Type Audiovisual exhibition
Venue The Art Foundation (Athens, Greece)
Involvement Curator
Fund The Art Foundation (T.A.F.), Greece
Partners United African Women Association, Association of Greece-China, Greek-Indian Cultural Association, Armenian Cultural and Educational Association Hamazkayin
A curatorial and research project, awarded by The Art Foundation, Greece. The project collected urban fieldwork recordings of traditional lullabies performed by women who are bearers of indigenous and migrating cultures, combined with art-based documentary photography which explored the paradoxical concept of monsters as protective entities in different cultures.