Lydia Chatziiakovou co-curated the first edition of MMCA's new initiative, the young artists' festival "Inspire", which focuses on "the production and promotion of contemporary art through original, participatory, educational and exhibitional practices." The festival is based on the annual invitation of internationally acclaimed artists, who lead a workshop for young artists, resulting in an exhibition of the resulting works. In 2012, the invited artists are Lionel Estève, a French artist based in Belgium, and Alexandros Tzannis, a Greek artist based in Athens and London.
"The workshop process, similarly to that of any experiment, has an inherent aspect of continuous ‘twists’ of course and (necessary) refedinition of one’s intentions and goals, themes and interactions. Even if themes and conceptual trends had been defined as early as the planning phase, so that participants could receive inspiration and a ‘survival manual’, such twists of course arose truly early as a result of the interaction between participants, ‘central’ artists and curators, as well as due to the interaction between all the above with the Museum and what was dictated and imposed by practical circumstances. There is, therefore, no need to try and identify or describe common features, courses or themes in the works that emerged, so as to classify or organize them. Besides, we avoided doing this when installing the exhibition, which was completed step-by-step, before we even had all final works at hand, but were still anticipating them. Similarly, visitors to the exhibition and readers of the catalogue are invited to let themselves free to improvise and play so that balances may be tipped and idols deposited."
Lydia Chatziiakovou & Maria Kenanidou Curators Excerpt from the catalogue text. |
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art
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