Curatorial Statement: Spirit

Creative Cities is an online journal and commissioning platform to explore local art scenes. Its inaugural issue Spirit looks at Athens within the context of its life force and resilience in the face of many crises, as well as the global pandemic crisis of COVID-19.

When surveying the idea of spirit many pertinent subjects emerge for artistic exploration of this city. Athens is both an ancient city immortalised in literature, clad in monumental buildings, and with a provocative contemporary story. Like similar cities at the borderline of continents and cultures, present day Athens has borne witness to occupation, migration, war, independence, population exchange, dictatorship, civil unrest, liberalisation EU style, and more recently a large-scale financial meltdown. More importantly, in addition to being geographically the easternmost capital in the EU, Athens is equally one of the first Western frontiers for the large wave of mass immigration from the East.

In order to exist, breathe, survive, thrive and persist spirit is an essential component as the vital life force of man. It also transcends the physical and connects with a greater essence of the divine that is present in Athens; whether through its Ancient and Byzantine heritage, through its mythology, art and architecture or through nature, in particular the sea that frames it. Athens is also a place of refuge; of creativity, volatility and vivacity that are all elements of spirit