A gathering in Piraeus, the harbor of Athens, a focal point for the events currently unfolding in Europe, to discuss literature and its role in understanding, interpreting and resisting certain “dystopian” social and political conditions..
A dance festival where the arts meet with the body as their center focus. Thoughts on dance and its social organization. A current discussion that was developed in the last 15 years in San Francisco, California.
A literary conference on the issue of emigration organized by the Municipality of Thessaloniki, literary magazine Entevktirion, Allianz Cultural Foundation, Literary Colloquium Berlin & Goethe Institute.
Interested to swap your studio with another artist for a set duration of time? Join the AthenSYN artists’ exchange program.
The German artist Claudia Bosse is temporarily based in Athens with her project “Some Democratic Fictions” which is constantly being enriched along the way.
A festival of Contemporary Greek Art with theater, dance, fine art, and music in Athens, Thessaloniki and Berlin.
A unique collaboration of creators in performance especially designed for SCALE #1:100. A microcosm that has its own anarchy but it does not collapse, it keeps always “on”.
We invite you to an evening of performances with Prumsodun Ok, Stavros Apostolatos, Yannis Adoniou and DJ Spy-K.
We invite you to the inauguration party for the launch of AthenSYN, where we’ll be offering you an appetizer of artistic co-creation and the opportunity to participate in the initiative.
We publish open calls for projects in Greece and internationally.
Through the curation, organisation, and support of festivals, exhibitions, dance and theater performances of Greek contemporary art, we want to facilitate a wider understanding and knowledge of Greek contemporary art abroad and intensify the network with international partners. Our focus is especially on new developments in theater, dance, performance art, visual art, video art, digital art and mixed forms.
We support international artist collaboration with Greece, offering information, networking and project coordination as needed. We establish contacts between institutions and individual cultural agents while creating joint projects, which benefit audiences in the participating countries. In Greece, we introduce platforms for presentation of contemporary art in order to reach wider audiences and strengthen networks within the country. The aim is to jointly devise ideas and ways to implement them, create joint cultural exchange policies, enhance long-lasting cooperations between cultural and educational institutions, and foster art students’ and art instructors’ mobility and mutual training.
The contact and closer knowledge will establish the basis of an exchange, which will not only promote the collaboration between artists and institutions, but create the foundations for mutual understanding and friendship. We intend to raise awareness to old and new audiences towards the context of contemporary art as a forum for dialogue, mutual exchange between actors and audiences from different cultural backgrounds, long-lasting international cooperation, and room for critical discussion of the cultural evolution of Europe.
Sotirios Bahtsetzis holds a PhD on Art History (Technical University of Berlin): He teaches history of art at the European Culture Program of the Hellenic Open University and at the Frances Rich School of Fine and Performing Arts of the Deree - The American College of Greece. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Columbia University, N.Y., taught at Patras University, University of Thessalia (Greece), at London Metropolitan University (UK) and did research at the Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece. Curatorial work includes “SelfConscious” (2014) an exhibition on the impact of new media, “Roaming Images” (2011), an exhibition on image in contemporary Arab culture, “Paint-id” (2009), an exhibition on contemporay painting in Greece, “Women Only” (2008), the first survey exhibition on post-feminism in Greece, “Open Plan 2007”, the first international curatorial project of the Athens Art fair and the exhibition “An Outing” (2006), the first major exhibition on Greek art in the 21st century.
Born and raised in Germany, Katja Ehrhardt completed an M.A. specializing in Performance Theory in Anthropology and Modern and Classical Indology at the University of Heidelberg. She lived, studied, and worked in the United States, Japan, India, Bermuda, Thailand, Nepal, Malaysia, Israel, and Hong Kong. In Germany, she worked in arts management, international project coordination and research i.a. at the University of Heidelberg, at Pruess & Ochs Gallery Berlin (Asian Fine Arts), at the German Academic Exchange (DAAD), at the House of World Cultures Berlin, and at the Goethe Institute. In Athens, she built up, organized, and managed the cultural program at the Athens Centre for University programs from abroad, working together with cultural institutions and embassies in Athens. Before working with Athens, Greece, she coordinated and co-curated the cultural program of the Asia-Pacific Weeks at the Senate Chancellery Berlin and the House of World Cultures Berlin.
Born in Athens, Greece, Yannis Adoniou, a Goldie Award winning art maker, is the co-founder and the Artistic director of the critically acclaimed dance company KUNST-STOFF. A renowned choreographer and a master teacher, he choreographs and conducts classes/workshops across the United States and Europe. In 2010 Adoniou founded KUNST-STOFF arts, a studio/art space located in downtown San Francisco U.S.A.. Yannis Adoniou curates and organizes the performances and artistic teams for Stoffwechsel – Metabolism Festival, Berlin. www.kunst-stoff.org
Tzeni Argyriou is a choreographer and performance/media artist, focusing on the dialogue between performance art and new media. A graduate of the State School of Dance, Athens, she collaborated with international group companies in New York. In 2003, she co-founded the non profit company amorphy.org as an collaborative platform for innovative performances and hybrid installations. Her work has been supported by Stadsdeel Zuid, Greek Ministry of Culture, European Union ‘Culture 2000’, Goethe Institut, British Council, Virtual Museum – Amsterdam, Athens Festival, Benaki Museum, CAMP- Athens, Kalamata Dance Festival, PACT Zollverein Essen-Germany, InteractionsLabor Media Lab-Germany, Lugar Comum-Portugal, Try Angle Marseilles-France, Fringe Festival-N.Y.C etc.. She is the co founder of ‘DoBeDo‘ a mobile platform of artistic meetings on stage and ‘Silent Moves’ a mobile platform of silent films and live music/sound interaction.www.amorphy.org
Joulia Strauss stands for adisciplinary art and for the unity of technology, science, activism and art in Berlin and Athens. She creates sculptural systems as political models based on ancient structures of knowledge, but anarchically further develops those with the simulation technologies. Strauss studied at the New Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg and University of Fine Arts, Georg Baselitz class, in Berlin (Master, President’s Prize). Her sculptures, paintings, performances, drawings, videos, were presented at solo exhibitions such as: “Modulating Politics“, Kunsthalle Palazzo, Switzerland, 2011, “Welcome to the Mediterranean Basin“, Beton7 Gallery, Athens, 2010, “Cat-Notation“, COMA Gallery, Berlin, 2008, “Medienspiritismus. Videokabinet“, Guelman Gallery, Moscow, 2003, “Virtual Kingdom of Beauty“, Pergamon Museum, Berlin, 2000, and were shown in group exhibitions, among others, and multiple times in-part, at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, NY, Tirana Biennale, Oostende Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Esther M. Klein Art Gallery, Philadelphia, Wolfsburger, Fraknfurter, Hamburger Kunstvereins, 2nd Athens Biennale, Fourth Moscow Biennale, Tate Modern, London, ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe. In collaboration with Peter Weibel and Friedrich Kittler †, Joulia Strauss currently works on a book “Gods and Writing around the Mediterranean“, Wilhelm Fink Publishing. Together with Daniel Mützel she has recently edited a special issue “Global Activism“ of the magazine Krytyka Polityczna.
Born in 1984, in Athens (GR), Yorgos Maraziotis is an MA graduate of the Royal Academy in Antwerp. He studied Silkscreen at the School Of Visual Arts in New York City and holds a First Class degree in Visual Arts from the Wolverhampton University. As an artist, he uses various media such as sculpture, installation, painting and publications and often works in thematic series. Since 2008, he has been a member of the participatory-art group November.His work has been exhibited in group and solo shows internationally, in galleries, art institutions and museums such as Marres House for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, Museum Tinguely, AC Institute New York City, 7th Thessaloniki Biennale, School Of Visual Arts NY, Royal Academy Antwerp, CICA Museum South Korea, Benaki Museum Athens, Matadero Madrid, Box Freiraum Berlin, The American College in Greece and Santorini Arts Factory, among others.He was a resident artist at MASS MoCA (MA, USA), at Isadora Duncan Dance Research Center (Greece) and at the Centre des Arts de La Rue (France). He currently lives and works in Antwerp.
