selected projects 2009:

Making Worlds - 53rd Venice Biennale
Making Words - Moscow Poetry Club
Common Cause - Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina
Poets Machine - Yioula Chatzigeorgiou

53rd Venice Biennale: June-August 2009
2nd Thessaloniki Biennale: September 2009 

"Making Words" is a collaborative project bringing together visual art and poetry, especially created for "Making Worlds", the 53rd International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, under the Artistic direction of Daniel Birnbaum.
"…The most productive collision is that of a poem being transformed from one langue to the next", Birnbaum comments, "…with every translation of a poem into another language, our collective imaginary universe is enhanced to a new level… a truly polyphonic contribution to the Biennial, will let the languages collide, and thus adds an entirely new dimension, many new dimensions, to the exhibition 'Making Worlds'…"

The starting point for "Making Words" was a performance that took place in September 2008, during the annual visual arts festival Action Field Kodra in Thessaloniki. This was the result of a collaboration between the Moscow Poetry Club and ArtBOX.gr with poets Vassilis Amanatidis and Evgeny Nikitin.
For the 2009 Venice Biennale Daniel, director Birnbaum invited us to further develop that initial idea. As a result, the project evolved into a collaborative platform which included two visual art works: "Common Cause" by Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina and "Poets Machine" by Yioula Chatzigeorgiou. Both installations, presented at the Giardini –in the open space between the Brazilian and the Greek pavilions- were used as a stage for poets' readings during the Biennale preview (3-6 June).  

Co-curators:
Daniel Birnbaum, Artistic Director of the 53rd Venice Biennale
Evgeny Bunimovich, President of the Moscow Poetry Biennale
Evgeny Nikitin, Moscow Poetry Club
Alexander Rytov, Stella Art Foundation
Christos Savvidis, ArtBOX.gr | Creative Arts Management
Lydia Chatziiakovou, ArtBOX.gr | Creative Arts Management.

Organised by: Moscow Poetry Cub, Stella Art Foundation, Moscow International Poetry Biennale and ArtBOX.gr | Creative Arts Management.

Supported by: Stella Art Foundation (Moscow, Russia), Moscow Government, Federal Agency of Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation, 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art and Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus.

Participating poets: Vassilis Amanatidis, Juri Arabov, Alfred Goubran, Riccardo Held, John High, Gennady Kanevsky, Andrea Libin, Vadim Mesyats, Alessandro Niero, Daphne Nikita, Alexey Parschikov, Massimo Rizzante, Andrey Rodionov, Lev Rubinstein, Anna Russ, Mark Shatunovsky, Andrey Tavrov, Igor Vishnevetsky, Svetlana Zaharova.

Participating artists: Igor Makarevich, Yioula Hatzigeorgiou, Alexander Djikia, Elena Elagina, Anja Zhelud, Katja Margolis.

Yioula Hatzigeorgiou’s “Poets Machine” is a work-in-progress that engages with poetry. The project unfolds on multiple levels: it is a wooden cube that can be transformed into a platform for the presentation of video projections and poetry performances; folded, it serves as a crate for the transportation of the project and its props to various destinations; it is also designed to generate a series of interactive projections that transform the poets’ readings into water surges through a mechanism designed by the artist; finally, the project also unfolds virtually as an interactive website – which doubles as an archive documenting the project’s evolution.In her text, Maria Marangou describes Hatzigeorgiou’s contribution as “A participatory work, humble by nature, inducing references to the spectator it addresses, free from narrative connotations. In a way, the piece remains open to host another work on its surface, preserving the autonomy of a semiology of poetry, that is entirely its own”.
After Venice, the project is presented in Thessaloniki, within the framework of the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (September 2009).

Artistic Organisation: ArtBOX.gr 
Artistic Director: Christos Savvidis 
Coordination: Lydia Chatziiakovou
Architectural design: Giannis Epaminondas 
Text: Maria Marangou

TECHNICAL SUPPORT:
Aaudiovisuals advisor / video processing: Makis Faros 
Audiovisuals advisor: Antonis Gatzougianis
Construction: Loukas Chatzis
visual communication: me too / communication design

SUPPORTERS:
Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus
Artventure – visual art network / Culture 2000 of the EU

INSURANCE SPONSOR:
Karavias & associates

TRANSPORTATION SPONSOR:
Nail 2 Nail Fine Art Movers – Texnagogi Fine Art Department by Velostrans S.A.

Following the successful presentations of its Collection in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum and Venice's Ca' Rezzonico, the Stella Art Foundation travels to Thessaloniki through a number of projects - part of the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale parallel program.

Project Directors: Christos Savvidis, Alexander Rytov
Coordination: ArtBOX.gr

The project includes: 

18 September - 1 November 2009
National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation - Thessaloniki Centre
Curator: Thalea Stefanidou
Assistant curators: Lydia Chatziiakovou, Anastasia Dokuchaeva

"The curator of the exhibition, Thalea Stafanidou, selected very good works from the collection and she installed them masterfully." Nikos Xidakis, newspaper KATHIMERINI, Sunday, 25/10/2009

"The curatorial work by Thalea Stefanidou is sterling both for the selection of the works and the installation in the space." Maria Marangou, newspaper ELEFTHEROTYPIA, 5/10/2009

3 September - 4 October 2009 
Lido, Venice

Commissioner of Greek participations: 
Christos Savvidis
Coordination of Greek participations: 
ArtBOX.gr

Greek artists: 
Venia Bechrakis, Aristotelis Deligiannidis, 
Andreas Savva, Under Construction

"Democracy in the Making" is a series of actions organised by ArtBOX.gr in collaboration with various institutions and curators, in the framework of the project "Atlantis. Hidden Histories - New Identities. European Art 20 Years After the Iron Curtain", funded with the support of Culture Programme of the EU.

"Democracy in the Making" includes the following events:

Conference: Democracy, Migration and Identity in Europe today
27-28 February 2009, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art
Speakers: Dr. Natalia Ribas-Mateos, Prof. Saskia Sassen, Nikos Xydakis, Maria Tsantsanoglou, Augustine Zenakos
Moderator: Thalea Stefanidou

Panel discussion: Democracy in the Making
19 September 2009, Warehouse C - Port of Thessaloniki (2nd Thessaloniki Biennale)
Speakers: Mohamed Abouelnaga, Stephanie Bertrand, Lydia Chatziiakovou, Effie Halivopoulou, Igor Makarevich & Elena Elagina, Maria Marangou, Areti Leopoulou, Christos Savvidis, Haim Sokol, Thalea Stefanidou, Under Construction

Workshop: Democracy, Migration, Identity and Contemporary Artistic Practices
30 October - 1 November 2009, State Museum of Contemporary Art
Curator: Stephanie Bertrand

Workshop: Democracy and Contemporary Artistic Practices
6 November 2009, DEREE - The American College of Greece in Athens (Visual Arts Program)
Curator: Effie Halivopoulou

Exhibition: My Wall
21 November - 20 December 2009
In the framework of the 6th Panhellenic Architecture Exhibition - WALLS (Patras, Greece)
(see below for more details)

Workshop with Bulgarian and Greek artists
2-3 December 2009, IMARET (Institute Mohamed Ali for the Research of the Eastern Tradition, Kavala, Greece)
Participants: Iara Boubnova, Aristotelis Deligiannidis, Mariela Gemisheva, Yorgo Manis, Kalin Serapionov, 
Krassimir Terziev 

Exhibition: Breaking Walls - Building Networks
16-31 January 2010, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art 
(see 2010 projects for more details)

"Atlantis" is organised by the Heinrich Boell Foundation Brandenburg (Potsdam, Germany) and Rohkunstbau (Potsdam, Germany). Partners: ArtBOX.gr | creative arts management, Art Today Association (Plovdid, Bulgaria) and Space Gallery (Bratislava, Slovakia).

21 November - 20 December 2009
Former Paper Factory "Ladopoulos", Patras, Greece

Organiser: Architects Association of the Achaia Prefecture (SANA)
Coorganiser: Technical and Professional Chamber of Greece - Department of Western Greece
Supporter: SADAS - National Architects Association
Creative Coordination: ArtBOX.gr  

An invitation to selected artists invited to treat a white sheet of paper as a wall. 
Their own wall. Their own boundary. 

Artists: Adrianos Aggelopoulos, Aristotelis Deligiannidis, Designers United, Panos Famelis, Effie Halivopoulou, Ersi Hatziargyrou, Georgia Kotretsos, Spyros Nakas, Haris Pallas, Artemis Potamianou, Danae Stratou, Two|Four|Two, Chrisie Tsiota, Vasilis Zografos
Curators: Lydia Chatziiakovou, Christos Savvidis

Artist Theodoros Zafeiropoulos is invited to present an interactive installation – comment on the concept of boundary between man and his/her lived environment, architecture, art.
Curators: Lydia Chatziiakovou, Christos Savvidis