|
500 artists and creators from 27 countries; 11.000 square meters spread over 12 exhibition spaces - many of which used for the first time, including old port warehouses; 20 parallel projects and exhibitions; 6 main organising institutions in collaboration with over 35 partner institutions; 200 volunteers; 100+ technicians; 280 pages’ colour catalogue; 33 curators; 20.000 visitors.
Intro: The International Association for the Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (BJCEM)Why, after 26 years, does BJCEM still promote the Biennale de la Méditerranée? Because of the confidence in the importance of the idea that we all share one fundamental common value: we are all Mediterraneans. Certainly, religions, countries, political ideas, social values, personal behaviors are not the same, but all those differences and their coexistence in a relatively small area, in which live hundreds of millions of people for thousands of years, have created something unique. Thus, the title "Symbiosis?", proposed by a pool of experts and curators from Thessaloniki, was adopted by BJCEM as the title for the overall event in 2011, as a clear and straightforward indication of the urgency of responding to a very relevant question: how can we live together now?
In the Mediterranean area, our roots are deep and tangled, whenever you cross the Mediterranean Sea, from one shore to another, you’ll find it like watching yourself in a mirror. In the faces and bodies of others, in the natural landscapes as in the urban development, in the food as in the language, in the way of dressing as in the way of thinking, you will find another you. But nowadays we feel the space in which we live becoming tighter and tighter: economical crisis, local wars, poverty, fundamentalism, illegal migrations, ruins and pollution are creating a strong isolation of our Mediterranean that doesn't seem to be a wide crossroads anymore. Our caravanserais are in decline and we need to see new horizons, cross new borders, feel like we are an ocean and not a dead sea. That’s why BJCEM, through the Biennale de la Méditerranée, encourages and promotes new generations of emerging artists, in order to contribute to raising questions, showing new directions and chasing away fears. This year, the choice of including two cities, Thessaloniki and Rome, is born from the necessity to create an articulated path through the different countries which are part of the BJCEM network. The realization of such a series of events is not fragmentary but on the contrary makes it possible to take a long journey through the unedited views of young artists from the Euro-Mediterranean area. Starting in early October and for a whole month, Thessaloniki will host the sectors of Visual and Applied Arts, as well as Gastronomy. Back in 1986, the 2nd edition of the Biennale, which later became a landmark in the history of the event, had taken place in the city, promoted by the then Minister of Culture Melina Merkouri as an outsanding cultural event. In the current local reality, which of course is bound to the international conditions, the meaning of culture does not concern only the aesthetic pleasure of artistic creation, but it entails more dimensions, such as social and economic ones. In times of crisis, culture minimizes the differences, offers a wide range of communication, exchange of ideas and views, and supports social cohesion. As a contemporary practice, culture also demands a relevant political management. It demands a cultural policy which will meet today’s needs but will also include the vision of tomorrow, something that young people today need more than ever. In this cultural policy, the city itself, Thessaloniki is a valuable ally! In Rome, the sectors of Music, Cinema and Literature will be presented at the end of November. Loyal to the motto “Beauty will save the World”, the local organizers consider the Biennale an opportunity to promote many of the values that Rome is already working on, in order to become a “youth friendly” capital: sharing, fantasy and hope, thanks to concrete enterprises that have a real effect on the urban territory. All the institutions involved in this year’s organization have joined forces in order to make this Biennale successful and useful, trying to invest energy, time and money in the wiser possible way to create this great momentum. Special thanks are owed to all the institutions and professionals who worked on the organization of the events in the two cities, Thessaloniki and Rome, and also to all the people from the BJCEM network, the BJCEM partners, donors and everyone who has contributed to make this event possible. We do hope that people will enjoy it and that we will, even slightly, offer a contribution towards a truly symbiotic Mediterranean. The Presidium & The Organising Committee Symbiosis?
|
”SYMBIOSIS?"
XV Biennale de la Mediterranee
Thessaloniki, Greece
6 October - 6 November 2011
Rome, Italy
16 & 17 December 2011
GREECE
Organized by:
BJCEM aisbl – Association Internationale pour la Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs de l’ Europe et de la Méditerranée
General Secretariat for Youth (GGNG)
Municipality of Thessaloniki – Department of Culture, Education and Youth – 46th Dimitria
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA)
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh)
Presidium:
Luigi Ratclif (President of BJCEM)
Yiannos Livanos (Secretary General for Youth)
Yiannis Boutaris (Mayor of Thessaloniki)
Xanthippe Skarpia-Heupel (President of the Board of Directors, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art)
Yiannis Mylopoulos (Rector of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Stelios Aggeloudis (President, Thessaloniki Port Authority SA)
Organizing Committee:
Spyros Pengas (Deputy Mayor of Culture, Education and Youth)
Tania Dimitriadi (Special Advisor on Culture & Social Policy to the Secretary General for Youth, Artist)
Emiliano Paoletti (Secretary General, BJCEM)
George Papakostas (President of the School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Matoula Scaltsa (Member of the Board of Directors, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art)
Maria Loukou (Administrative Officer, Department of Culture, General Secretariat for Youth, Artist)
Artistic & Organizing Director:
Christos Savvidis (ArtBOX.gr)
Director - Architect:
George Papakostas (AUTh)
Assistants to the Directors:
Lydia Chatziiakovou (ArtBOX.gr)
Ioanna Tokmakidou
Curators (Visual Arts - Main Program):
Stephanie Bertrand
Effie Halivopoulou
Christos Savvidis
Curator (Applied Arts - Main Program):
Maria Triantaphyllidou
Curator (Gastronomy - Main Program):
Maria Netsika
Visual Communication:
Designed by: Ambigram & PAD
Creative team: Melina Maltsidou, Leoni Sion, Niki Tambaki, Yiannis Valtis
Architects:
POLIS: George Papakostas, Κostas Proios, Yiannis Vlahos, Sofia Voulgaraki
Lighting and Installation of
Audiovisual Works:
Giorgos Kosmidis – DIAPASON
Constructions:
Dinos Makedos
Art Works Mounting:
Periklis Galanos
Insurance:
Y. Karavias & Associates LTD
Volunteers Program Coordinator:
Makis Ananiadis
Volunteers Program Coordinator:
Makis Ananiadis
Artists:
More than 500 artists, from 27 countries; half of them part of the official program, and the other half part of the parallel program (see below)
Partner Institutions
National Bank of Greece; Cultural Foundation – Thessaloniki Centre (Villa Kapandji & Bookshop); Piraeus Bank Conference Centre; Institut Français de Thessalonique; Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki; American Embassy in Greece; University of Western Macedonia, Florina; School of Architecture - Istanbul Technical University; Technical and Professional Chamber of Greece – Section of Central Macedonia; School of Architecture – National Technical University of Athens; School of Architecture – Faculty of Engineering, Demokritos University of Thrace; School of Architecture – Faculty of Engineering, University of Patras; School of Architecture – Faculty of Engineering, University of Thessaly; School of Architecture – Faculty of Engineering, University of Crete; Interuniversity Postgraduate Program Museology, School of Architecture – Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Thessaloniki Photography Museum; Thessaloniki Film Festival
CATALOGUE:
Coordination:
Federica Candelarsi, Lydia Chatziiakovou, Ioanna Tokmakidou
Editing:
Olga Chatziiakovou
Proofreading:
Marcus O’ Connor
Designed by:
Ambigram & PAD
Creative team:
Melina Maltsidou, Leoni Sion, Niki Tambaki
Yiannis Valtis
Colour, English, 280 pages
Parallel events:
More than 20 parallel events in different venues and public sites around the city (see below)
Main Program
Visual Arts
When we first accepted the invitation to curate the XV Biennale de la Mediterranée, it was immediately clear that the project would present an unusual host of possibilities, freedoms and limitations. The artists and their works were selected by local organizations in each of the participating countries through an open call. And the conceptual framework for the biennial, Symbiosis?, was determined by a group of local curators, architects, professors, artists and museum directors, following a roundtable that occurred in Thessaloniki months prior to the arrival of the material. This particular set of conditions meant that our work would primarily be aimed at developing display strategies that would accommodate and support these pre-existing parameters within the context of a large-scale exhibition.
As we set ourselves to the task, it soon emerged that although broad in its implications and laden with ethical conundrums, the idea of “symbiosis” –or “living together”, as the Greek word suggests– perhaps best synthesizes the biennale’s structure. Indeed, the latter’s particular mode of operation is bound up in a process that gathers a heteroclite collection of artworks and practices, quite at odds with more conventionally curated shows that assemble along a given line. If the biennial allows these artworks and practices to coexist in a single exhibition, it is unable to make them reflect a unified vision, always suggesting a plurality of conflicting voices and approaches that stem from often-incommensurate concerns and contextual realities. With this in mind, rather than try to isolate the works of the participating artists according to nationality, our first instinct was to embrace the biennale’s eclectic nature by assembling nearly all of the works together in a display that would emphasize the formal, symbolic and conceptual affinities and disparities that exist between them. The unconventional spaces that were fortuitously chosen to host the biennale provided the ideal context to develop such an installation. These weathered and rarely visited warehouses at the heart of Thessaloniki’s commercial port presented us with enormous open spaces that naturally suggest public gathering, albeit indoor. Against all pre-conceived expectations, we avoided any attempts at transforming and dividing up these warehouses into a series of proper white cube galleries. We chose instead to play on the sublime lure of the large weathered open spaces –at the risk of potential chaos– over the urge to compartmentalize, even out and isolate. Thus, we developed an open-plan installation using individually tailored supports to allow much of the works to become freestanding, or more accurately free-floating, in space. The desired effect is one of clusters of works coming into contact more or less willingly, like individuals wandering through a large open space and being drawn together in the absence of physical dividers by unexpected attractions and tensions. Or to borrow a metaphor inspired by symbiosis’ biological connotations: using an open structure to compel relationships through proximity that might perhaps inspire mutual growth, co-evolution, metabolism, the genesis of hybrid ideas, deep connections that inspire awe, and the creation of new forms as with symbiogenesis. In this way, we have tried to rely on the particular architectural features of the space and the temporary nature of the event to suggest the question at the heart of the biennale: symbiosis? Stephanie Bertrand, Effie Halivopoulou, Christos Savvidis Curators |
Visual Arts |
Applied ArtsWarehouse 7; a building, an old one, scheduled being; a warehouse, for stock materials was used for the port once upon a time. The wooden roof, elegantly crafted captures the gaze which doesn’t stop on the wall that is flaking off… The idea -sudden flash- needs company, silent even… mannequins -dual sense- introduce the new to the old, to everyone of us… The ideas of the young who philosophise, who provoke, who subvert, who mock, who ridicule themselves, who plan, however, who propose; fashion, design, architecture; roads-bridges of communication; strings of re-connection; humanitarian relations… this is the World of the Young who live together! in art…
Maria Triantaphyllidou Curator |
Applied Arts |
GastronomyThe world of gastronomy is magical and enchanting. As magical as the world of music, poetry, the arts. As enchanting as the experience of meeting and getting to know new people.
Acknowledging the fact that a set table may function as a lesson in economy, geography, aesthetics, history, as well as tradition, gastronomy is included in the Biennale’s field of activities. And what a wonderful opportunity this is! Gastronomy, as a creative expression of the young, in a great feast of young people that is going to be realized in Thessaloniki with “Symbiosis?” as its main theme. In the city that for two and a half millenia has been a landmark for people and cultures and that was inhabited by foreigners of different nationalities, religions, habits, manners and customs. Their cohabitation (symbiosis?) ended up in the adoption of new ideas in their everyday lives. The famous nation-wide gastronomy of Thessaloniki serves as an excellent example. A cultural creation, beyond doubt, mirroring the beliefs concerning life and enjoyment, human relations and communication. Thessaloniki’s restaurants, tavernas and ouzeri combine the local cooking tradition with the refugees’ inventiveness, the exoticism of the East with the manners of the West. In the context of the XV Biennale de la Mediterranée, nine young people have taken a “futuristic” look at the national dishes of their countries (Lebanon, Italy, Spain, Palestine, Kosovo, Republic of San Marino). Cooking workshops, demos and open discussions will give Gastronomy – Symbiosis? its form. And most importantly: Gastronomy - Symbiosis? is opening the Thessaloniki Food Festival. A new insitution of the city, which is determined to win its place on the contemporary universal culinary map. Maria Netsika Curator of the presentation in Thessaloniki |
Gastronomy |
PARALLEL PROGRAM
Many curators and artists responded to our call by bringing in interesting ideas for exhibitions and projects that provide a variety of answers and viewpoints to the theme of Symbiosis? Institutions brought in their proposals of planned exhibitions and activities that could be incorporated into the program. We tried to accept all proposals and to satisfy all demands, through a process of discussions and negotiations on various levels. In collaboration and with the approval of the Organizing Committee, we built a rich, intriguing parallel program that is a valuable addition to the Biennale and to the cultural life of the city. I would like to thank all the artists, curators and other practitioners from the creative fields, as well as all the institutions, who embraced the initiative and contributed their ideas and resources.
During the first working sessions that were organized, a large number of art professionals participated. I would like to mention them here, in alphabetical order, as a generic method of listing names of people whose personality and contribution are equally admired and valued. They are: Sotirios Bahtsetzis (Curator), Stephanie Bertrand (Curator), Christina Biermann (Goethe-Institut, Thessaloniki), Eli Chrysidou (representing the Municipality of Thessaloniki and the Municipality of Stavroupolis), Yiannis Epaminondas (from the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation – Thessaloniki Centre), Fotis Gaitanis (stundent), Antonis Galanopoulos (student), Apostolos Kalfopoulos (architect, curator, Dynamo Project Space), Maria Kenanidou (Curator), Areti Leopoulou (Curator, Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki), Theodore Markoglou (Curator, State Museum of Contemporary Art of Thessaloniki), Andreas Mavrodis (student), Thouli Misirloglou (Curator, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art), Peter Panes (Director, Goethe-Institut of Thessaloniki), Xenis Sachinis (President, School of Visual and Applied Arts of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Maria Triantaphyllidou (architect, museologist, Administrative Director, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art), Maria Tsantsanoglou (Director, State Museum of Contemporary Art of Thessaloniki), Syrago Tsiara (Director, Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki), Nikos Tsinikas (President, School of Film Studies, Faculty of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Apostolos Vettas (President, School of Drama, Faculty of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). Of course, the representatives of all the organizing bodies have also contributed immensely to the shaping of the Biennale’s program, concept and scope.
I would also like to thank the members of the committees who selected the Greek participations and the visual communication.
Finally, all the artists participating in the main and parallel program, the curators and the great team of architects and technicians that worked to install the exhibitions.
Christos Savvidis
Director, ArtBOX.gr
Artistic Director, XV Biennale de la Méditerranée in Thessaloniki
Graduates’ Exhibition
|
Graduates’ Exhibition |
Diploma Thesis Projects’ Exhibition 2010-2011
|
Diploma Thesis Projects 2010-2011 |
Symbiosis?: Hotel Ariston
|
Symbiosis?: Hotel Ariston |
Teenage Angst
|
Teenage Angst 
|
Still Life… is still alive
|
Still Life… is still alive |
Exhibition: Photography Workshop Diavlos
|
Exhibition: Photography Workshop Diavlos |
Disconnect
|
Disconnect |
Duet
|
Duet |
Action Field Kodra's Stalking Horses
|
Stalking Horses |
Walking 4 ARTAmong the plethora of visual information, artists offer to the public the stimulus to re-discover the city they live in, through artistic sensitivity, spotting various locations and forming different links between the everyday and the historic environment. As art’s extension and re-introduction in public space constitutes common artistic demand and desire, our city could be considered as a natural reception space of contemporary art.
Art in public space, as an ephemeral site-specific event, consists a dynamic local intervention, that is constantly re-defined, swinging between the site-specific and the community-specific. Public art, through languages and activities that enable it to penetrate the social fabric of the city, balancing between the everyday and the aesthetic experience, is capable -through its permanent or ephemeral presence- to provide an alternative conception of space and offer the impetus for a friendly relationship with the natural environment. The attempt is a reminder of how contemporary public opinion manipulation stems from mental rigidity and proposes ways to cover knowledge gaps due to the lack of audiences’ cultural education. It is an expression of disapproval, a comment and a reaction against the cultural environmental failure of our city and an attempt to constitute a “social vacuum” aiming to artistically implement a new communication utopia. Maria Kenanidou Curator |
Walking 4 Art |
W13
|
Warehouse 13 
|
|
|
|
