FORUM #2
European Cultural Exchanges 2001

[conference] [exhibitions] [publications] [festival] [networking] [ongoing 2000-2010]

About FORUM European Cultural Exchanges

Ongoing platform for the development and promotion of European cultural exchanges –with emphasis on Southeastern Europe– aiming towards the support and diffusion of contemporary artistic creation. Founded in 2000 in Thessaloniki by Apollonia european art exchanges (Strasbourg) and ArtBOX, and coordinated by ArtBOX, Forum includes annual events, conferences, meetings, exhibitions and networking activities, as well as the Forum Artists-in-Residence program (F.A.R., 2005-2008).

2000 - 2010
Organized by:
ArtBOX, Thessaloniki, Greece
Apollonia, Strasbourg, France
Founding Directors:
Dimitris Konstantinidis (Apollonia)
Christos Savvidis (ArtBOX)
Coordination: ArtBOX
Advisory Committee:
Efie Strousa, Denys Zacharopoulos, Nikos Xydakis

Artistic Mobility
[conference]

For the second year in succession the State Museum of Contemporary Art, the Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Centre, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, the independent cultural agency Apollonia european artistic Exchanges, based in Strasbourg, and ArtBOX Creative Arts Management, based in Thessaloniki, collaborate, in pursuit of an initiative originally launched by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, in a project to establish a regular annual institution whose objective is to activate mechanisms for cultural exchanges among the states of South-Eastern Europe and to pave the way for long-term collaborations and joint ventures.

FORUM 2001 focuses on Artistic Mobility. More specifically, on the difficulties encountered by artists seeking to travel in the region and take an active part in the programmes arranged in other European countries, as well as on ways of promoting all the various aspects and forms of contemporary activity in the arts.

During the presentations and debates among the members of FORUM's organising and advisory committees discussions focused on various issues, among which: the need to establish FORUM with a permanent base in Thessaloniki and to plan annual conferences at least as far ahead as the year 2004; the establishment of a permanent agency providing coordination and secretarial support for FORUM in Thessaloniki, the agency to operate on a year-round basis monitoring the networking of the Centres, Museums and various agencies involved in the contemporary arts in the Balkans and Southeastern Europe; the exchange and dissemination of information, and, finally, the creation of a centre for the documentation of contemporary art from Southeastern Europe, in association with the Documentation Centre of the Skopje Centre for Contemporary Art and the French Institute of Thessaloniki.

Port of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, Greece
6-9 October 2001

Organization:
FORUM European Cultural Exchanges
Hellenic Ministry of Culture

Coordination:
ArtBOX.gr

Partners:
Council of Europe, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Cultural Foundation, French Ministry of Culture

Venues:
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, State Museum of Contemporary Art, MYLOS, Alatza Imaret, Port of Thessaloniki

Exhibitions / Parallel Projects

La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast)
[traveling exhibition] 

Taking as their starting point the contemporary, archetypal myth of Beauty and the Beast, the participating artists employ their own personal idioms in attempting to formulate in visual terms the many different facets of the concept of beauty. In the name of this beauty, the artists map out their own subjective perceptions and explore the question of how far ‘the concept of beauty –and ugliness– is indispensable to the understanding and self-knowledge of humanity’, creating in the process works of art which ‘must be loved before they can become worthy of love’.
Exhibited for the first time, the works of art were created for this specific exhibition. 
Before Thessaloniki, the exhibition was presented in Nicosia and Corsica.

Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece
8 December 2001 – 8 January 2002

Production:
Apolonia, France
Organization:
FORUM European Cultural Exchanges
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art

Coordination:
ArtBOX.gr

Curator:
Dimitris Konstantinidis

Artists:
Katerina Kana, Melita Kouta, Orthodoxia Konstantinou, Panayiotis Mihail, Andreas Savva, Cyril Barrand, Caroline Belardy

Catalogue:
Greek / French / English, colour, 120 p.

Street
Milko Manchevski
[photography exhibition]    

Best known for his film "After the Rain", which was awarded the Golden Lion at Venice in 1994, the distinguished artist presents the fruit of his decision to ‘betray’ for a short time the language of cinema and turn instead to the art of still photography. In his studies of urban landscape, particularly scenes of city streets, he succeeds in discovering aesthetic qualities in the everyday and the insignificant. Through the skill and immediacy with which he frames the day-to-day scenes of life on the street, the varied activities of ordinary people and the transient features of their everyday lives, he reconstructs the physiognomy of his country, juxtaposing it with that of other places. His penetrating eye is complemented by a personal style which is well-known from his films and characterised by emphatic perspectives, a primeval light and broad fields of colour, transmuting his compositions into reflections which force their way into our memory.    

State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece
6 December 2001 – 6 January 2002

Production:
Apolonia, France

Organization:
FORUM European Cultural Exchanges
SMCA

Coordination:
ArtBOX.gr

Curators:
Miroslav Popovic, Julijana Kralevska

Artist:
Milko Manchevski

Catalogue:
Greek / French / English, colour, 120 p.

Tappeto Volante (Flying Carpet)
Stalker
[installation]   

The flying carpet, a reconstruction in rope and bronze of the wooden ceiling of a church in Palermo –accompanied by sounds of Iranian origin– makes its way to Thessaloniki, enriched by the wealth of stories it has acquired along the way.

Tappeto Volante, the new work by acclaimed Stalker, a group of Italian artists and architects, set up in 1995, is traveling from Biennale to Biennale (Venice, Manifesta, Sarajevo, Tirana) and is presented at the Alatza Imaret in the context of FORUM 2001.

The purpose of the work is to offer a sanctuary of peace, a hyper-location in which we can gather to imagine and perhaps create for ourselves a ‘virtual Mediterranean’ – one which is formed of shared testimonies and cultural identities.

Crafted by hand in a multi-cultural workshop at Ararat, the installation functions like an ‘ear’, a migrant, dedicated to listening to the fragmentary accounts of the ‘wounded’ peoples of this specific area. The idea is that by the end of its journey, it will have become an umbrella over the Mediterranean, embracing all those for whom art, sensitivity and culture are the media through which we understand the ‘other’ – however different and inaccessible that other may seem.

At Alatza Imaret, Tappeto Volante wants to reclaim the venue's role as a meeting place, a forum for the exchange of ideas and experience, functioning as a platform for the healing of those bonds destroyed by ignorance and intransigence.

The Stalker Group has created projects in various public spaces, and has also taken part in many important international exhibitions, among them the Venice Biennale and Manifesta at the Georges Pompidou Centre.

Alatza Imaret
Thessaloniki, Greece
8 December 2001 – 8 January 2002

Organized by:
FORUM European Cultural Exchanges

Coordination:
ArtBOX

Curated by:
Marina Fokidis

Artists:
Stalker Group

Video Art Festival: Projected Visions
[video art festival]

The main incentive behind the organisation of this festival was the need to establish a channel of communication with all those wishing to engage in dialogue with the kind of contemporary perspective offered by video art. The artists involved –whose contributions are representative of the most important work currently produced in Bulgaria, Greece, Moldavia, Serbia, Slovenia and FYROM– hope that their work will encourage the public to come to know –and understand more clearly– the independent production of this art form in the region, as well as allow new collaborations to be forged which will help video art to develop further.

MYLOS Gallery
Thessaloniki, Greece
7 December 2001-7 January 2002

Organization:
Forum European Cultural Exchanges

Coordination:
ArtBOX

Curated by:
Boris Kostadinov (Bulgaria), Dodo Santorinaiou (Greece), Lilia Dragneva (Moldavia), Zoran Eric (Serbia), Marina Grzinic (Slovenia), Zoran Petrovski (FYROM)

Mobile Coffee Table
Sia Kyriakakos
[performance]

Time, space – both physical and digital, past and future, diversity – all colliding and merging at a time when digital technology is bringing the world together into one whole, setting out from a western model which is challenged by cultures regarded as marginalised, and by the microcosms which they contain and which are on the edge of extinction. My parents were migrants who left just such a place, abandoning their native land, their mother tongue and their fellow countrymen in quest of stability and security for their children. Their own migration led to a need for constant movement in my own life. A need to delve into the past for forgotten or dying traditions. A need for communication through action, the intimate gesture, the exchange, a need deeply rooted in the two cultures which have left their mark on me. Unseen cultural features which define models of communication which I borrow, or steal. And which I then return, give back. Creating situations which fall outside the established norms, but remain within the everyday human life which is experienced through exchange, sharing, existence itself.’ 

Sia Kyriakakos
Artist

Public spaces
Thessaloniki, Greece
6-9 December 2001

Organization:
FORUM European Cultural Exchanges
Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Center

Coordination:
ArtBOX

Curated by:
Sania Papa

Artist:
Sia Kyriakakos

Conference of Art Journals
[conference] 

The editors of art and culture journals published in the Balkan countries meet to exchange ideas and views in order to find ways of providing fuller information to the public in issues of contemporary art. By organising and promoting the circulation of information, they seek to strengthen the image of contemporary reality of the arts scene in their countries, offering reliable and comprehensive coverage.

Irina Chios: editor-in-chief of ART Telie journal; Director of Bucharest Centre of Contemporary Art (formerly the Soros Centre), Romania.
Judit Angel: art historian, critic and curator; chief curator of the Art Museum of Arad, Romania (1990-98); commissionaire of the Romanian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 1999; curator of the Mucsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest (since 1998); director of art journal Balcon, Romania.
Sonia Abadjieva: editor-in-chief of journal Golemoto Stalco, FYROM
Dimitris Zaharatos: Highlights, Greece
Natali Sakkoula: Ta Nea tis Technis, Greece
Ioannis Tsingas: PeriOdiko tis Polis, Greece
Giorgos Skampardonis: Journal Panselinos, Greece (Macedonia newspaper)
Orestes Doumanis: Dance and Arts issues, Greece

Port of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, Greece
6–9 October 2001

Participants:
Judit Angel, Sonia Abadjieva, Irina Chios, Orestes Doumanis, Natali Sakkoula, Giorgos Skampardonis, Ioannis Tsingas, Dimitris Zaharatos

Vangelis Rasias
[project] [commission] [photography]

Photographer Vangelis Rassias was commissioned to create the portraits of the FORUM 2001 participants. The result is exhibited in the venue, on the last day of the conference.

Port of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, Greece
7-9 Decebmer 2001

Organization:
Forum European Cultural Exchanges
Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki

Artist:
Vangelis Rassias