ACTION FIELD KODRA 2007
Annual Visual Arts Festival
[festival] [exhibitions] [publication] [residency]
About Action Field Kodra
Action Field Kodra is an annual visual arts festival that takes place in a former military camp in the area of Kalamaria in Thessaloniki. Between 2004-2008 Christos Savvidis undertook the festival's Artistic Direction and ArtBOX was in charge of the General Coordination. During those years, the festival underwent major transformation and became one of the most important and vibrant visual arts events of international acclaim in Greece, having as main focus the communication between the local and the international arts scene. more

Introduction


2007 is a year packed with significant exhibitions, internationally, as well as in Greece, with the establishment of two new biennales –in Thessaloniki and Athens– and the restart of the international art fair of Athens. Within such a dynamic environment, Action Field Kodra claims its space for the seventh running year, offering opportunities to young artists, creating the circumstances for new collaborations, and phrasing its own proposal. The festival enjoys a successful upward course that increasingly wins over fans, beyond the city’s arts loving public. There are many indications for this success. First, a great interest for collaborations from Greece and abroad (a powerful tool through which Action Field Kodra reaches its goals is networking). Action Field Kodra is included in the programme of parallel events of the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art and it collaborates with institutions such as the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, the Contemporary Arts Centre of Thessaloniki, the Forum European Cultural Exchanges, the Margaris Foundation, the French Institute of Thessaloniki, the Stella Art Foundation (Moscow), Santral Istanbul, the J.F. Costopoulos Foundation and the Culture 2000 programme of the European Union. Also, the work by Christodoulos Panayiotou that was created in Kodra 2006, in the framework of F.A.R. –the Forum Artists-in-Residence programme, curated by Efi Strousa, was featured in “Contemporary” arts magazine’s 89th issue dedicated to Performance. 

Main Programme
RoomsToLet still forms the basis of the festival’s programme. This is perhaps the most animated project that offers young artists –mainly students or recent graduates of Fine Arts Schools from around Greece– to exhibit their work (many of them for the first time) under professional circumstances. A great part of the success and upgrade of the project is owed to the visual artist Effie Halivopoulou who curates the exhibition for the third consecutive year. Also this year, art historian Thalea Stefanidou supports the project theoretically, reinforcing its dynamics. 

ProΤaseis, curated by art historian Christopher Marinos, is another basic Action of Action Field Kodra. The exhibition, under the title “Meatspace”, presents works by young artists who have embarked on their course and are in the “next phase” of their career.                                             

Art historian Maria Kenanidou presents dynamic artists of the local arts scene, in the attic of the old Dormitories building. The exhibition is titled Attic with a View.

By concentrating on the concept of mobility and exchanges in art, Transit invites foreign curators to present projects and artists bringing the works of the exhibition in their luggage. This year, the Russian architect and curator Yuri Avvakumov presents works of the Moscow Paper Architects, in an exhibition titled Paper Architecture - Sketch Book.

Artist and curator Artemis Potamianou invites Greek and foreign artists to create a work on an A4 piece of paper, in the project-in-progress A4. The works are sent by the artists and compose a constantly developing exhibition, since new works keep adding to the existing ones. The project’s starting point was the work by Joseph Kosuth, that was presented in Action Field Kodra 2005.  

In the park area of the former military barracks, an outdoors cinema theater is set up this year, where we will project videos selected by: Platforma – Urban Culture Co (“Digital Voices”, a selection of the recent programming of the international video festival Platforma Video), Marina Athanassiadou & Margarita Kataga (“People”), and Syrago Tsiara, Director of the Contemporary Arts Centre of Thessaloniki (“Public Screen”, a selection of the works that will be shown in public spaces of the city in September). 

In the framework of the promotion of both local artists and current trends that stretch the boundaries between different art forms, Action Field Kodra 2007 presents the second project of the recently established theatrical group Manifactura, Tell Tale Heart, a performance based on the short story by Edgar Alan Poe. The performance uses theater language to convey a non-theatrical text, in a non-theatrical space.

In collaboration with the Margaris Foundation (Thessaloniki – Amfilochia), we present Misplaced?, the third edition of the project Fresco & Salty, curated by Areti Leopoulou (art historian, curator at the Contemporary Arts Centre of Thessaloniki, State Museum of Contemporary Arts of Thessaloniki). The periodical exhibition Fresco & Salty is realised since 2003 at the Margaris Gallery in Amfilochia, as well as in various spaces in Thessaloniki. This year Action Field Kodra hosts the exhibition, aiming to promote alternative, peripheral attempts, through the support of a nomadic project.                   

Finally, Action Field Kodra presents the collaboration between Third Studio (Non-Profit Theatre Organisation) and Studio Panic Eye, that working closely through the use of two different means, put together a show where photography and theatre, image and action, become one and offer a special artistic result.

Parallel Programme 
An important part of Action Field Kodra for 3 years now, F.A.R. - the Forum Artists-in-Residency programme is realised in collaboration with the Forum European Cultural Exchanges, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, the French Institute of Thessaloniki and the 9th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, while it is supported by Culture 2000 programme of the European Union, in the framework of the Artventure network. The Artistic Director of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Denys Zacharopoulos, curates this year’s residency programme, that will present Greek and foreign artists. The autonomous exhibition that will result from the Kodra residence will be enriched with works by artists who participated in the workshop organised by the Macedonian Museum in the Eptapyrgion, in the framework of the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (July 2007). This year’s residency deals once more with the exploration of the issue of boundaries, as the two previous Artists-in-Residency programmes. MORE

Also included in the parallel programme of Action Field Kodra 2007, is an open to the public discussion on the subject of Public Arts. This is an international project under the support of Culture 2000 of the European Union, and with the general title “Public Arts for new cultural practices and trans-European dialogue”, an initiative of Santral Istanbul, in collaboration with ArtBOX.gr, the University of Art & Design of  Helsinki and Maison des Metallos, Paris. In Greece the project is realised in collaboration with the Contemporary Arts Centre of Thessaloniki in the context of Action Field Kodra 2007. The project includes events open to the public held in Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Paris, Helsinki; all of the above are intended to explore the concept and role of public arts. In Thessaloniki, there will be an open discussion on the 1st of September, prior to the opening of Action Field Kodra. In the context of the discussion there will be a presentation of the process of Leda Papaconstandinou’s project “In the Name of”, a production of CACT (curator: Syrago Tsiara –art historian, Director of CACT). Leda Papaconstandinou is the guest artist in the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, organised by the State Museum of Contemporary Art, under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Former Military Camp Kodra
2-16 September 2007
Thessaloniki, Greece

Production:
Cultural Organization
of the Municipality of Kalamaria (COMK)

Artistic Director:
Christos Savvidis (ArtBOX)

General coordination:
Lydia Chatziiakovou (ArtBOX)

Coordination Assistant:
Chara Karayiannidou (ArtBOX)

Catalogue Editor & Coordination:
Lydia Chatziiakovou

Collaborating Institutions:
Forum European Cultural Exchanges
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art
French Institute Thessaloniki
Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki
Margaris Foundation
The J.F. Costopoulos Foundation
Platforma – Urban Culture Co
Third Studio
Santral Istanbul
Stella Art Foundation

Action Field Kodra 07 is included in the parallel programme of events of the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art

Press in Greek:
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RoomsToLet
[exhibition] [young artists]

RoomsToLet… made in Kodra
WHAT IS ART? … The important thing and the difficult, too, is the combination of materials… Do not reject anything in art, for at some point you may resort to it… All materials represent ideas, feelings, reflections… All is an attempt to record this vast feeling, without limits or motion limits of “memory materials” that are almost instantly produced… The language and the comment on the image form a visible aspect of reflections, a part of an idea that allows for its reading… What matters is where you wish to go. How you are going to experience it… Everyone has their own obsessions… The selection of materials is performed regardless of limitations and rules… The technique converses with the idea to produce the work… Experimentation is a way to invent the material of thought and feelings… Experimentation is a free and unconstrained process… There should not be a scale of evaluation to determine what to use in art or what not to use…The bizarre in art serves as a reality, it is the product of de-composing and re-structuring of accumulated experiences, information and emotions, it is a way to find peace and detach oneself from autism…

A new generation of artists, a fresh group of “lodgers” at the premises of the former military camp Kodra. At the age of first introductions, first creative shakes. Still at the beginning of a route of pursuit for creative effort. Seeking ways to express artistic comments on reality, inventing ways to combine old and new materials. The continuing artistic adventure, endless conversations with the past and the present of art and its challenges. Doors opened up to the future. As serious and easy-going as a game, as significant as experience itself and the anxiety over endurance. Dots of contemporary creative language that add to the artistic hypertext by commenting on it, producing annotations, reversing it, perhaps. Residents of particles of an emotional need who have come to stay and state their intention by using every possible artistic sign. Decided defenders of their art, i.e. their individual truth. 
Painting, sketches, engraving, graphic art, sculpture, performances and ephemeral actions or image production with the use of contemporary technologies as well as by transcending music and literature, all these are processes employed to inseminate materials and produce versatile artistic explosions, fuelling the look and the mind, taking them to a different horizon. Thus they respond to the expectation for fresh artistic language through reprints of its past signifiers and signified. To-the-point, image-making realities, exits into the sphere of the imaginary, claiming their ambivalence and complexity of their hermeneutical versions, advocates of the individual perception of the world and its wonders.

Thalea Stefanidou
Art Historian & Critic

P.S. Through its actions, Action Field Kodra has been a major structure for the support of experimentations concerning artistic expression at an alternative venue of special charm. It has facilitated productive exchanges among members of the art community –not only the Greek community– and has offered many young artists the opportunity to stand beside accredited peers. As for the general public, Action Field Kodra has familiarised them with a unique experience of representation, far beyond the stereotypes governing exhibition venues and the promotion of art. By the diversity of its quality versions Action Field Kodra has managed to attribute a global vision of instant and on-the-spot business to contemporary art, in and out of the locale, and has posed a challenge for the attitude of collectors of contemporary artworks. 


Highlights from a discussion between the artists and curator of the exhibition Effie Halivopoulou

Effie Halivopoulou: One of the few things I remember from the years I spent on studies is a professor's remark while discussing a student’s work. He asked: Are you fully aware of what you choose to deal with through your work? All themes in art are reasonable and probable. Even those I regarded as outlandish are potentially substantial. Two decades ago, this suggestion served as a prediction about what was going to happen in art, that is to say, its permeation into the entire spectrum of every person’s life and reality. Nevertheless, while in the School of Fine Arts, I sensed that –in some magical way, and regardless of the professor’s intention– norms and, occasionally, unchallengeable rules were always the case so much so that they defined, in various ways, what was or was not “allowed” for the creative process. To what extent do you ponder on such considerations and how do you come up with the substance of thought, senses and techniques to produce a work of art?

George Chloros: I experiment and jump from subject to subject and from material to material. The important thing as well as the difficulty is in the combinations of materials. By combinations I do not only mean visual combination, but rather the combination of other aspects, non visual ones.
Christina Karaoglani: My materials are not contemporary -for me, though, it is extremely important that I use useless “industrial” materials– nor do I employ a specific technique. What I try to do is to produce an impression and make my own statement.
Emilia Serdaki: In my work I try to expose a certain inner condition of an X person, that is, illusion. For me, a person’s inner world constitutes a “phase” between the humorous and the serious, a “phase” between illusion and reality, where the actual-original interweaves with the imaginary. My intention is not to separate the imaginary from the actual, I simply attempt to see how my own identity can build on such an antithesis and how and if it will eventually manage to “survive”.
Eleni Karakioulach: Painting has no rules, we apply the rules. Our individual viewpoint is firm and irrevocable, in terms of our work. All materials/substances correspond to thoughts, feelings and reflections; it is up to the artist to hark at their qualities and decide on what material they will work with.
Eleni Riga: The material for every artist’s work is the very dynamics each person has within. My involvement in art is an individual way to classify thoughts, experiences and memories. I organize them by integrating them in my works, thus they become specified in terms of time from the beginning. They are confined in new dates, the dates of the production of the work they are included in.
Sofia Bebeza: The technique converses with the idea for the production of a work. The visual medium is for me subordinate to the idea, while the idea has to be realized, expressed through some material. I consider this material -in this case, the digital photograph and written language- a choice faithfully corresponding to the call of the idea regarding the fulfillment of the work. Photography, as a medium to record reality, is translated in subjective terms into my intention to preserve the image offered to me as a visual stimulus. The language and the comment on the image form a visual element of my reflections, a part of the idea that allows for its reading.
Ianthe Agelioglou:  It is that theme, that way or those materials that urge you to express something personal and substantial that may as well appeal to others. The outer milieu, however, demands that you know, you have decided beforehand exactly what you wish to express and for what purpose you wish to do so. And while all materials are allowed, spontaneity is out of the question. Thus, the essential “come-what-may” motto is forsaken, since it is construed as anti-conventional and unpredictable, yet as revitalizing as art with essence.
Theophanis Nouskas and Vasilis Chatzopoulos: There is a decisive point for the transfer from the conception of the idea to its manifestation. This is the challenge as well as the barrier. The zealous adherent, the procreator of the concept, ruthless and noncompliant decides on the making.
Theologos Lioulios: I use different materials on different occasions, depending on the requirements of each idea. I first try to find out which materials will bring my work closer to what I imagine and then I conclude as to the selection of these or similar materials.
Jenny Kodonidou: For me there is no right or wrong, instead there can be different beliefs about reality. A reality that can become ever more irrational than the irrational itself, the unfamiliar, or the unknown. Through chaos and disorder of thoughts, feelings and experiences results a need to record all this. I guess it is a conflict between the rational and irrational both of which ultimately turn out to be the same. When I want to record what is happening, I originally wouldn’t care less whether I am going to use a pencil or a brush.
Gregory Marcatos: Through the process of a performance, I fuse the idea, the process and the result into one singular act. Consequently, the primary material I use to create works of art is my own self during the performance of an act. Because the human is the material I process, I believe that each material element of reality can form or contribute to the production of a work. I do not believe that there has to be an assessment code to define what to use or not use in art.
Anastasia Melekou: You live in a society, see, learn, become concerned, affected… You initially work on the basis of such facts and it is according to them that you produce. Then you see what you have created, you understand what it was, you depend on it and evolve, you take it one step further. Today, I feel that everything is possible, there are no restrictions, you can do what you want.
Maro Vasiliadou: In my works I try to capture this impression of immeasurable, unrestricted and limitless motion, not in a concrete manifestation, but rather through the representation of developing images. The general process is dynamic and very direct: a constant flow of self-made choices governed by inner terms and rules, prescribing the selection of materials, forms and the use of colours: earth-produced materials, simple and fragile, such as paper and ink black and red.
Joanna Stratoglou: I believe that it is decades since every thought or every material has been released of all charges in art. Where there are norms, they serve as the necessary makeweight or a challenge to the artist.
The main materials I use for my work are “substances of memory” which are retrieved almost instantly while initially I am not fully aware of the reason I opted for them, I simply either accept them and work with them trying to understand the reason in the course of this process, or reject them.
Filippos Gountzos: I feel we are at a point where the bizarre in art serves as a reality, even a superficial one, since it does include such aspects that facilitate us to understand it as an existence, even as an impression. Therefore, there is no bizarre anymore, only reality, be it superficial or not. Thus, everything we employ as a material or thought in a work of ours is defined according to what we perceive to be the reality.
Joanna Fragouli: Visual stimuli, a book, a film, a photograph, a dream, a discussion can be the material to awake undercurrent feelings and thoughts. This period, I have felt the need to develop my work, to make it more experiential. I turn to the past and there is a from-within aspect in my effort to express such feelings and be as sincere as possible.
Zoe Giabouldaki: The contemporary version of the human who struggles amidst the understanding of places within and outside of them, in the form of unknown territories governed by their own rules. The video as a medium to record events, phenomena and imaginary situations is in a process of constantly sliding from the actual into the fictional, from the real into the unreal.
Katerina Katsioura: The substance for my themes is drawn from everyday images which are distorted through a certain perspective, the result of the motion process. I have been tempted by the fact that reality seen through this perspective is absolutely transformed and so a new, unrealistic world is born.
Martin Donef: My works are directly associated with my experiences. They result from occasions I have experienced, feelings known or unknown to me which become mastered in the meantime, knowledge and ideas about issues I am concerned with, as well as the work itself that forms the substance for its further development.
Constantinos Patsios: Personally, I look into the logical-paralogical qualities of a work, intending to notionally and aesthetically expand the image in favour of an image that is shown but not articulated. My technique includes the alternation of impulsiveness and conscious process of things that embrace and surround me.
George Nikopoulos: I decide what material I shall be using in the works I produce in the same way I decide how to tackle a drug addict who approaches me to ask for money, or how to deal with a small child who will try to attract my attention in a group of people, or even how to deal with an assistant at the supermarket. The way I behave on different occasions is not given.
Beforelight: Today the norm is to violate the norm. What more soothing than to rebel as an artist against everything you choose to confine yourself? It is through self-limitations that the substance of our mind is produced.
Aphrodite Psara: It is not a coincidence that the demand “Art for the Society” was the motto in communist societies, nor is it a coincidence the fact that all things regarded as outrageous in art have been produced in the framework of a capitalist world. I personally, being a Westerner of 25 years of age, an eternal lover of art and science, child to communist parents in a capitalist society, a child of the era of globalization, a child of the city, at its tender age in the 80s and a teenager in the 90s, a child that grew up to the sound of punk music, in groups of friends with either good or bad relationships, music, worries and humour. Bearing all this in mind, sometimes consciously, some other times unconsciously, I try at the time of the creation of a work of art to stay focused and be isolated from the rest of the world, retaining only the information I need.
Yanna Kali: The material is simply the medium to express one’s mind and feeling. For someone to produce a work of art, the mind and the material have to become one, so that the material does not describe the mind but rather transforms the image into a feeling, and activates not only the aesthetic-visual part of the work but also the emotional part.
Savvina Patrikiou: I have been collecting junk since elementary school (damn you, Samaras!), because I love to work with ordinary materials, paint little circles, cut up pieces of paper and sew for hours on end without a specific purpose. It is a way into peace and out of autism. Tinker, tack, and screw like there is no tomorrow, just as long as all this has to do with handiwork. This was pretty much the way painting stopped being a medium while other, more tangible and radical mediums have gained my attention, and so I take advantage of any material of interesting texture and potential comes along. The work is the entire process of its making, not only the end result of it.
Adrianos Agelopoulos: The artist’s will, persistence and flexibility can bring about unforeseeable results. What matters is to know where you want to go… how you are going to live it.
Theodore Spanos: Each individual’s reality is the main factor for the selection of materials. From the process of the mind, to its fulfillment and production the work has undergone sweeping changes. There is always some sort of style in terms of where we are heading for and what visual question we wish to pose for the viewer. The aesthetic and technical issues become adapted as the work is developing depending on what we are seeking, what we can and what we want to concentrate on.

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
2-16 September 2007

Curated by:
Effie Halivopoulou

Selection Committee:
Foteini Kariotaki (artist, Fine Arts School of Florina, Greece), Maria Kenanidou (art historian, curator of the action “Attic” 2007), Christoforos Marinos (art historian, curator of the action ProTaseis 2007), Thalea Stefanidou (art historian, curator, co-curator of the action RoomsToLet 2007), Sirago Tsiara (art historian, curator, Artistic Director of the Contemporary Arts Centre of Thessaloniki), Effie Halivopoulou (artist, curator of the action RoomsToLet 2005, 2006, 2007)

Artists:
BEFORELIGHT, Sofia BEMPEZA, Aude CAPONY, Elodie PETIT, Ianthi AGELIOGLOU, Adrien ANGELOPOULOS, Giorgos CHLOROS, Efthimia CHRISTOPOULOU, Martin DONEF, Zoe GIABOULNTAKI, Filippos GOUNTZOS, Ioanna GRAGKOULI, Ioanna KALI, Eleni KARAKIOULACH, Christina KARAOGLANI, Andreas KARAOULANIS & Giorgos KARTALOS, Katerina KATSIOURA, Evgenia KODONIDOU, Theologos LIOULIOS, Grigoris MARKATOS, Anastasia MELEKOU, Kalliopi NIKOLOU, Giorgos NIKOPOULOS, Theofanis NOUSKAS & Vassilis CHATZOPOULOS, Savina PATRIKIOU, Konstantinos PATSIOS, Anny PAVLIDOU, Eleni RIGA, Aimilia SERDAKI, Theodoros SPANOS, Ioanna STRATOGLOU, Afroditi PSARRA, Maria VARELA, Maro VASILIADOU, Simos VEIS

Protaseis - “Meatspace”
[group exhibition] [mid-career artists]

Art historian Christopher Marinos undertakes the curatorship of this year’s exhibition-proposal of the Action Field Kodra through which significant curators and artists have emerged.

In 1943, during a lecture on the educational value of art, Ernst Cassirer stated that the artist’s place is in the realm of pure aesthetic forms – according to Cassirer, it is precisely this place that denotes an artist and makes them special, not the “reality of the empirical world or empirical intentions”, not to mention the “realm of their inner individual life, with their emotions and passions, fantasies and dreams.
The projects of the artists who participate in Meatspace are based on the negation of this idea, reversing the bipolar relationship on which such an aesthetic argument depends: artists in the globalization era can but move between the realm of real and personal, claiming new spaces of subjectivity, paving their own paths of expression – “hitchhiking in galaxies”, like Douglas Adams wrote.
The term “Meatspace” was used by science fiction writers –in particular, cyberpunk writers– to denote actual life as opposed to the world of virtual reality.[1] Through their ambivalent images, Meatspace artists look into our shared reality, while contemplating as much on diachronic issues, such as memory, History, collective unconsciousness (or rather, the moment when it becomes consciousness), as on the production process of the “work of art” itself. In this kind of self-referring reportage, the leading roles are held by parasites of urban spaces in which artists themselves live, work and visit as tourists. In the context of such mobility, a journey, as defined by Bruce Chatwin in his Songlines, is apparently the only alternative available. Equally appealing is the British writer’s view about History – “as incessant cultural dialectics between culture and ‘alternative options’: a nomad and yet permanently settled, a city and the wild nature, society and racial group” – or music, for that matter – “as a memory bank for you to find your way through people”. Speaking of such issues, the exhibition attempts to hark at the position of the Greek artist today and serves as a cardiogram that delineates the emotional vibrations of a group of people in times of incurable crisis.” 

Christopher Marinos
Art historian, Curator

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
2-16 September 2007

Curated by:
Christopher Marinos

Artists:
Eleni ATHANASOPOULOU, Mandy ALBANI, Margarita BOFILIOU, Maria CHATZINIKOLAOU, Kostas CHRISTOPOULOS, Ioannis GREGORIADIS, Manolis HELIAKIS, Tina KOTSI, Esther LEMI, Leonidas LIAMBEIS, Lilian LYKIARDOPOULOU, Nikos MANTZIOS, OMIO, Rallou PANAGIOTOU, Kostan POLYCHRONOU, Despoina STOKOU, Michalis ZACHARIAS


<<[1] However, the term retains some sort of ambiguity, as it is often used in a negative way to express equivalence with the real. 

Attic With a View
[exhibition]

Exhibition  of artists from Thessaloniki, aiming to highlight the local artistic production.

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
2-16 September 2007

Curated by:
Maria Kenanidou

Artists:
Ageliki Avgitidou, George Divaris, Ekaterini Gegisian, Sotiris Panousakis, Lambros Psirakis

Transit “PAPER ARCHITECTURE. Sketch Book”    
[exhibition]

By concentrating on the concept of mobility and exchanges in art, this action invites foreign curators to present projects and artists bringing the works of the exhibition in their luggage. This year, Russian architect and curator Yuri Avvakumov presents works of the Moscow Paper Architects.

Architectural graphics collected in this portfolio represent part of the archive of the so-called Paper Architecture, a conceptual art movement which made its appearance in the USSR in 1980s. 25 years ago, with the Soviet Union still resembling a military camp encircled by an impenetrable barrier, young architects found a way of uncensored communication with the international architectural community: they started sending their projects to international contests of architectural ideas. The projects, drawn on А1 sheets, were packed into cardboard tubes and sent to Japan or England by regular mail. It was the only possible way of moving the ideas in space. It wasn't long before some of them received the first awards, and the world found out that Russia, too, had its own architecture. In late 1980s, many of the award-winning projects were used to form an exhibition entitled Paper Architecture, which subsequently toured half the world. 


To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the first Paper Architecture exhibition, the project sketches, rather than the projects themselves, were brought into a single portfolio and printed with the silk-screening technique. And, since the projects which were not intended for direct implementation should, probably, be called Projected Projects, then this portfolio should be titled Sketches of Projected Projects. Most of the 29 architects represented here are currently the core of the "building team" of the Moscow architectural community, with their lives immersed in normal building activity. And yet, their ideas have taken on a life of their own.

Yuri Avvakumov
Curator

PAPER ARCHITECTURE (hereinafter "PA")

1. The term is used by Soviet art critics to denote fantasies/designs which certainly influenced the development of architecture. PA derives its traditions from 18th century designs originating in Italy and France, and from avant-garde projects produced in Soviet Russia in the 1920—1930s. (The latter were officially denounced in their time and day because they were seen as detached from reality, practice and ideology, therefore, being unable to promote the building of socialism.)                  

2. PA is a genre of visionary architecture practiced by an informal association of young architects, most of whom graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in the 1980s. The association comprises more than 10 groups and 50 architects. PA is a modification of conceptualism in architecture, intended mainly for specialized journals, exhibits and competitions of concepts. It is also a product of non-conformist reflection, in the process of which the language systems and images of diverse architectural styles are used to create intricate compositions which, as their authors claim, are Utopian in nature. PA projects do wield constructive ideas which can benefit environment planning and architecture. PA is characterized by the synthesis of expressive means employed by visual art, architecture, literature and theater. PA is an accomplished artistic phenomenon in Soviet culture of the 1980s. PA designs won more than 50 awards at international competitions, mainly in Japan. PA Exhibitions were held at: Paris (La Villette), Milan (Triennale di Milano, XVII), London (Architectural Association), Frankfurt (DAM), Antwerp De Singel), Cologne (Gallery Linssen), Berlin (AEDES Gallery), Brussels (Architecture Foundation), Zurich (Architectural Forum), Ljubljana (SKUC Gallery), Cambridge (MIT), Austin (Huntington Gallery), New Orleans (Modern Art Center), etc.

Yuri Avvakumov is an architect, artist and curator. He was born in 1957. He studied at the Moscow Institute of Architecture and has worked with AGITARCH studio since 1988. From 1984 to 2000 he was the curator of and participated in a number of exhibitions on PAPER ARCHITECTURE (a genre of notional architecture in USSR), in Moscow, Ljubljana, Paris, London, Milan, Frankfurt, Köln, Brussels, Zurich, Cambridge, New Orleans, Austin etc. He took part in the Venice Biennale in 1996 (Sensing the Future. Architect as Seismograph) and in 2003 (Utopia Station). Between 2000 and 2003 he was the curator of 36 exhibitions of urban / architectural photography, in the State Museum of Architecture and the Moscow Center of Photography.

Some of his works presented belong to the following collections: Russian State Museum, Saint Petersburg / Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow / State Museum of Architecture, Moscow / Frankfurt Museum of Architecture / Victoria & Albert Museum, London / ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe / Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana etc.

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
2-16 September 2007

Curated by:
Yuri Avvakumov

Artists:
Yuri Avvakumov, Sergey Barkhin, Michael Belov, Alexander Brodski, Nadya Bronzova, Dmitri Bush, Andrey Cheltsov, Sergey Chuklov, Michael Fillipov, Andrey Ivanov, Nikolay Kaverin, Olga Kaverina, Michael Khazanov, Alexander Khomyakov, Vladislav Kirpichov, Igor Korbut, Totan Kuzembaev, Yuri Kuzin, Michael Labazov, Stanislav Morozov, Vyacheslav Petrenko, Igor Pishchukevich, Andrey Savin, Ivan Shalmin, Dmitri Shelest, Vladimir Tyurin, Ilya Utkin, Dmitri Velichkin, Alexander Zosimov

In collaboration with:
Stella Art Foundation (Moscow)

Fresco & Salty 3: Misplaced?
[group exhibition]

Postcard from Amfilochia
Amfilochia, 14-15 June 2007

Dear XXX,

I'm writing to you from Amfilochia. It is afternoon and the breeze is cool.
It's the first time I'm here. The arrival is difficult, but the landscape and the serenity of the town are rewarding, to use this commonplace yet accurate expression.
Last weekend was the central two-day period for the opening of the exhibition and the discussion on “Misplaced?” held at the Margaris Foundation. This is the reason I'm here. As a participant, a visitor, an observer and correspondent.
From what I saw, the aims of Margaris Foundation are at first sight romantic. At second sight, one easily understands it is far more than that: it is an initiative to establish in the small town a medium that will offer what is not readily accessible to those living here in the rest of the year. And from what I saw, the Foundation’s future seems very optimistic, precisely because this initiative is sincere, true and it follows small, yet steady and matter-of-fact steps.
The exhibition at the Foundation is marked by impressive cohesion. The participating artists are: Rania Emmanouilidou, Marianna Ignataki, John Bicknell, Alkis Boutlis, Lia Psoma, Dimitris Frangos, Elli Chrysidou, Ioanna Fotiadou and Olga Chatziiakovou. Their works are indeed different, yet all of them appear to be firmly, tightly intertwined. Drawings and photos, installations and videos. They move on the threshold of the real-realistic and the metaphysical-oneiric continuums. Despite the fact that each one of these artists is following a very personal line, you have the impression you have moved back into the time when artists declared their manifesto and shared extraordinary ideological and stylistic resemblance.
This genuine cohesion, I have gradually come to understand where it springs from; it stems from the equivalent relationship developing among these people. This is a first and a reasonable explanation. The particular exhibition, combined with the discussion held, was intended precisely for this: to be organized by those who have supported, in their own way, the Foundation, in both good and bad moments, these past years.
In effect, this year Margaris Foundation has completed its first cycle, aiming at having a new one started, one that will be more rigorous and will attract more artists and more supporters. The exhibition has accomplished its goal. So has the discussion, in the course of which serious facts and optimistic as well as pessimistic suggestions were expressed. It was a discussion that was heard out loud –at full blast!- to the mediums that can be of potential help.
I am leaving today. I keep thinking of all the things I saw, heard and realized. On my way back and while in the KTEL bus I will be thinking of this weekend’s conclusion (what else can I do in so many hours?).
And I shall be looking forward to the two of us going to Kodra Action Field in September, where some of the works will be presented along with a short retrospection in images and experiences of the Foundation. You are coming with me, aren't you? It is not so far this time!
I’m sending you my kisses in a fresco & salty mood, now that I am still standing by the sea.

Areti Leopoulou 
Art historian, Curator of the Center of Contemporary Art 
of the State Museum of Contemporary Art of Thessaloniki

The Margaris Foundation
The Margaris Foundation & Arts Centre was founded in 2001, aiming to convey the developments of contemporary art to the public of Greece, mainly of Amfilochia and Thessaloniki, and to promote the communication and collaborations between Greek and foreign artists, offering circumstances beyond the established institutions and standard institutional frames, in a town of the Greek periphery. Based in Thessaloniki, the Foundation functions as a nomadic platform for contemporary art, traveling according to the needs and goals of each project, but always having as a meeting point and point of reference the city of Amfilochia (Is located in the area of western Sterea, on the gulf of Amvrakikos).

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
2-16 Sept 2007

Organised by:
The Margaris Foundation

Curated by:
Areti Leopoulou

Artists:
John Bicknell, Alkis Boutlis, Olga Chatziiakovou, Elli Chrysidou, Rania Emmanouilidou, Joanna Fotiadou, Dimitris Frangos, Marianna Ignataki, Lia Psoma, Apostolos Vettas

A4 Project II
[project-in-progress]

Project-in-progress curated by Artemis Potamianou, launched in Action Field Kodra 2005 with an original work by Joseph Kosuth, especially created for this project.

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
1-16 September 2007

Curated by:
Artemis Potamianou

Acrtist:
Erika Baglyas, Wolfgang Berkowski, Seamus Farrell, Guerrilla Girls, Katerina Kana, Pietro Sanguineti, Andreas Sitorengo, Peter Suchin

Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Alan Poe
[performance] [installation]

"TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been, and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Harken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story." (Edgar Alan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart, based on the translation by Marina Diafa, Zetros Publications, Thessaloniki 2004.)

A person who has committed an extreme act gives their own version of the facts. Their account reveals the logic governing an apparently irrational act and the consistency required for its execution. In a masterly way there opens up a window to the dark side of human existence that though it is usually controlled and hidden, in no way can it be thought to be unreal and, when it evades, it almost always proves both hideous and fascinating.

The theatrical group Manifactura was established in May 2007 by Xenia Aidonopoulou and Olga Chatziiakovou. Their first performance was Waiting Rooms. The group’s objective is to design and perform theatrical projects based on any form of text (not exclusively theatrical) that can also be performed in unconventional theater venues, while it takes into account the particular aspects and the atmosphere of each place. The Tell-Tale Heart is the group’s second performance.

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
Performance:
1 September 2007
Installation:
 2-16 September 2007

Concept:
Xenia Aidonopoulou
Olga Chatziiakovou
Director:
Xenia Aidonopoulou
Set-costumes:
Olga Chatziiakovou
Performed by:
Erato Pissi

Open Air Cinema
[video art]

In the former military camp’s park, an open-air cinema is set, where video art works by greek and foreign artists are presented, selected by Maria Anestopoulou (of the Platforma Video Festival), Marina Athanasiadou & Margarita Kataga and Syrago Tsiara of the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki.

“Digital Voices”
Selection from the latest International Cinema Festival Platforma Video 
Curator: Maria Anestopoulou

The project “Digital Voices” was developed as a series of events with screenings in various cities of Greece, in the context of the promotion of the annual festival Platforma Video. The presentation of the project in Action Field Kodra 2007 includes films on imaginary stories and cartoons. The experimentation of the artists with digital means, although it does not necessarily result in a visual video, nontheless, it manifests the current independent production of digital films and the evolution of audiovisual production in the digital era.

“People”
Selection of video films produced by young Greek artists. The theme of the works addresses human relationships and lays particular emphasis on both interpersonal contact and the relationship of man with his own self.
Curators: Marina Athanasiadou (art historian, museologist), Margarita Kataga (art historian)
Artists: Alexandros Avranas, Kostas Basanos, Vasilis Bouzas, Georgia Damopoulou, Apostolos Karakatsanis, Vasiliki Lefkaditi, Joanna Mirka, Harris Pallas, Tereza Papamichali, Lia Petrou, Antonis Pittas, Lina Theodorou, Andreas Sitorego, Vassiliea Stylianidou, Mary Zygouri, Aiketerini Yeyisian

The project was first presented in Art Athina 2007.

“Public Screen”
In collaboration with the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki a selection of the works (video and photographs) which will be exhibited in public places in the context of the 1st Biennale of Contemporary Art of Thessaloniki is included in this project.
Curator: Syrago Tsiara (art historian, Director, Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki)

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
1-16 September 2007

Curators:
Maria Anestopoulou, Marina Athanasiadou, Margarita Kataga, Syrago Tsiara

Partners:
Platforma Video Festival, Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki

Fireworks
[reaction to the fire]

The idea of a space open to everybody, came from Erwan Maheo, one of the Forum artists-in- residence (F.A.R.). Eight artists supporting the “Fireworks” concept present their ideas and invite more artists and visitors to give their sense of present in this space of references.

Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
1-16 September 2007

Artists:
Manolis Anastasakos, Christina Calbari, Luke Hughes, Erwan Maheo, George Papakarmezis, George Sourmelis, George Vasilopoulos, Nick Varitimiadis

On Public Arts - SANTRAL Istanbul
[panel discussion]

Our aim through this panel discussion was to make a kind of introduction in the theme of public arts. Τhe subject is huge and can be seen through various angles. Realising this and the impossibility to fully cover the issue, we decided to hold this introductory ‘public art 101’ discussion. We invited curators and artists to talk about their experiences, to present projects and give their views on the matter, aspiring to touch upon a variety of issues concerning public art on a theoretical and practical level.

Parallel event: performance by Anastasia AX. 

In the framework of Forum European Cultural Exchanges 2007, in collaboration with Santral Istanbul.

For more information follow the link on the right.

Forum Artists-in-Residence (F.A.R.) 2007
[residency programme]

F.A.R. was initiated in 2005 in collaboration with Forum European Cultural Exchanges and run every year until 2008. This is one of the few serious attempts to establish a permanent residency program in Greece. F.A.R. collaborated with established Greek and international curators and with interesting emerging artists from Greece and abroad. In 2006, F.A.R. was presented by the Periphery of Alsace (France) as a model for cultural development. 
For more information follow the link on the right. 

Action Field Kodra Catalogue #4
[publication] [exhibition catalogue]

Design
Katerina Stafylidou
Coordination - Supervision:
Lydia Chatziiakovou
Translations:
Eleftheria Tsitsa, Eleanna Panagou

Colour, Greek & English, 24x7 cm, 200 pages