Monday, July 31, 2023
APOLLON THEATER, HERMOUPOLIS
11.00
Archipelagic Passage
Contemporary artists and cultural practitioners residing in or coming from the Aegean islands, discuss past and future artistic engagements and exchanges. With James Bridle, Antonis Pittas, and Ersi Varveri & Gijs Waterschoot.
Moderated by Rachael Rakes
James Bridle is a writer, artist and technologist. Their artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. Their writing has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. They are the author of ‘New Dark Age’ (2018) and ‘Ways of Being’ (2022), and they wrote and presented “New Ways of Seeing” for BBC Radio 4 in 2019.
Their work can be found at http://jamesbridle.com
Antonis Pittas’ (Athens) lives and works in Amsterdam, has studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts, the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. In 2021 he was appointed as honorary fellow of the Faculty of Humanity Studies, University of Amsterdam. He has been an artist-in-residence at Bard College, Annandale, New York. In 2024 Pittas will be also an artist-in-residence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) New York. The work of Antonis Pittas focuses on contemporary social and political issues and is characterised by a strong sense of history. He primarily creates context-sensitive installations, influenced by architecture and design, art-historical references, the performative aspects of installation art and its social dynamics. Central to Pittas’ practice is the question of how the past relates to the present, and vice versa.
Pink house press is a duo composed by Ersi Varveri & Gijs Waterschoot, currently working between Syros (gr) and Antwerp (be). Pink House press underlines the importance and urgency of printed matter as a possible medium and vehicle to generate space, and to create dialogues that touches upon topics such as the development of public discourse through artistic practices, and the publication as a portable-hospitable artist-run space. Manifesting that publications are low budget and democratic artworks which everyone can buy or exchange.
Rachael Rakes is a curator, writer and editor, film programmer, and educator who splits her time between Amsterdam, Syros, and other locations. Rakes is the Artistic Director of the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, opening in September 2023. She is also a Contributing Editor for INFRASONICA, a Committee Member of the New York Film Festival, and co-curator of the festival Art of the Real. With Laura Huertas Millán and Onyeka Igwe, she organizes the curatorial and research initiative on alternative ethnographies, Counter-Encounters.
