Announcing the Runners Up for our Athens Artists Open Call
RUYA MAPS ran an open call for artists based in, or from, Athens. We were impressed by the strength of the submissions received, with installation, photography, dance, and graphic design among the arts practices that were represented. The artists wrote thoughtfully about their connection to Athens, some shared childhood memories having seen it change in recent years, others explained their decision to move to it as a supportive hub for emerging artists.
Whether an established artist or fresh out of art school, an Athens native or a recent resident, each of the artists included here has a relationship with the city that connects with the unique spirit of Athens.
Alkistis Mavrokefalou
Vernal, 2019, flowers, wire, latex, silicone resin, dry colour pigments / 47 x 30 x 30 cm.
Alkistis Mavrokefalou was born in Athens, where she continues to live and work. She says that her work is ‘‘based around the duality of frailty and durability observed in organic shreds found in nature (such as flower petals, exoskeletons, etc) and the elliptical, illusory presence of them and their surroundings.’’
photo: Th. Galanopoulou
Anastasia Pavlou
Metaxourgio, 2019, Oil paint, gesso, poster print paper, 80 x 160 cm
Anastasia Pavlou is an emerging artist from and currently based in Athens. Notably, Anastasia was the youngest artist to be selected for the New Museum x DESTE show at The Benaki Museum last summer. Her works often incorporate collage, a composition strategy that lets her ‘‘create works that bear witness to a world entangled.’’ As a result, her work ‘‘can be deeply personal and emotional, diaristic and fragmented.’’
Tolis Tatolas
SP Urbanogram, 2019, Site specific installation created at the Residência Artística FAAP in São Paulo, 5 x 10 x 3 m
Tolis Tatolas is a visual artist and spatial designer who also experiments with sound and the human voice, In this installation produced at the end of a residency, he records the brain process of gathering data through observation in a megacity. Reflecting his interests in intertemporal urban dystopias, the piece abstractly represents problems that result from huge urbanization.
Tzeni Argyriou
Phrasis to Build, 2020-Ongoing, performance
Tzeni Argyriou is an independent choreographer and media artist. ‘Phrasis to Build’ is a solo piece inspired by sculptures and paintings with strong use of gestures from the ancient times up to the contemporary art scene. These gestures were decoded and interpreted as a speaking language. The work is part of PHRASIS, a broader project conceived and curated by Argyriou that consists of fragments (phrases) that are interconnected as autonomous parts of a whole project. Two of these fragments were part of the program "All of Greece, one Culture" initiated by the Greek Ministry of Culture & Sports, as an official selection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (ΕMST).
Cora Marin
II. Did YOU protest? and III. You didn’t protest, 2020, series of analogue collages and mixed media on watercolor paper, 27.2 x 38.5 cm
Cora Marin’s series ‘New Forms of Agency’ is inspired by the sharp story-telling of ancient Islamic miniature paintings and illuminated manuscripts, According to Marin, the collages illustrate ‘‘the ‘tale’ of how mankind begun to perceive of itself as different from nature, and all the repercussions (and new forms of agency) that came with it.’’ She lives between Berlin, Barcelona and Athens.
Louiza Ntourou
Radio Silence, 2019, 3 min, b&w /16 mm
Radio Silence is a film about the imaginary communication of a daughter with her father through the radio. In it artist-filmmaker Louiza Ntourou explores the complexity of human relationships commenting on the paradoxical ways of experiencing the presence and/or absence of the other. The film was commissioned by the BBC New Creatives in 2019 and presented at the ICA, London, in 2020. It will be shown at the London Short Film Festival, 2021.
Jenny Saridi
Medusa, 2020, Collage, Acrylics, Inks and Markers on Paper, 43 x 53 cm
Graphic designer and visual artist Jenny Saridi primarily draws from memory what she desires or fears, driven by her dreams and nightmares and the disturbing elements or sexual insinuations they accommodate. She often uses symbols, underlying meanings related to Greek mythology and cultural stereotypes.
Ermina Apostolaki
Urban Songs, sound game performance
Ermina Apostolaki is a spatial designer, born and raised in Athens. ‘Urban Songs’ is a sound game that resulted from research on Cretan folk music - a genre that was developed and performed in Cretan urban centres such as Chania and Herakleion. and was performed in the Chania's municipality garden. A response to the influence of other cultures on Cretan music, Apostolaki explains that the project looks ‘‘for traces that discography did not preserve, we focus on how the changing social structure of Chania influenced this music scene.’’