FORUM #8 
European Cultural Exchanges 2007

[conferences] [exhibitions] [publications] [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).

In 2007, Forum joins two European funded projects: Artventure - Visual Art Network (2006-2009) and The Public Turn in Contemporary Art (2006-2007). In the context of Artventure, we organise F.A.R. - the Forum Artists-in-Resdidence program and we contribute to the various network activities organised by the other partners. In the context of The Public Turn in Contemporary Art, we organise and contribute to a series of conferences, discussions and events dedicated to public arts. 

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

ARTVENTURE Visual Art Network (2006-2009)

About
[EU program] [network] [residency] [exhibitions] [workshops]

Artventure – Visual Art Network, supported by the Culture 2000 programme of the European Commission, aims towards the discovery and presentation of the most original forms of European artistic expression in the field of visual arts. Artventure is conducted by five partners: apollonia, european art exchanges (France), la Châtaignerie – the Walloon Contemporary Art Center (Belgium), the National Museum of Szczecin (Poland), Multum in Parvo Ldt (Cyprus), and ArtBOX.gr | arts management (Greece).

ARTVENTURE Visual Art Network
2006-2009

Project leader:
apollonia, european art exchanges (France)

Partners:
la Châtaignerie – the Walloon Contemporary Art Center (Belgium), National Museum of Szczecin (Poland), Multum in Parvo Ldt (Cyprus), ArtBOX.gr | arts management (Greece)

With the support of:
Culture 2000 programme of the European Union



Forum Artists-in-Residence - F.A.R. 
[residency programme] [exhibition]

F.A.R. was one of the few serious attempts to establish a permanent residency program in Greece. It was initiated in 2005 by Forum European Cultural Exchanges in collaboration with Action Field Kodra - annual visual arts festival and run every year until 2008. 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 links on the right. 

Transrobota - 7th Baltic Biennial of Contemporary Art
[artventure] [network] [biennale]

Within the framework of the Artventure network, we selected art historian & curator Faye Tzanetoulakou to represent Forum in the selection committee of the 7th Baltic Biennial of Contemporary Art.

transRobota has the character of an international site-specific art project, featuring contemporary art works especially conceived and designed for the partly derelict industrial area on Lasztownia, which is currently undergoing huge transformation. According to the organisers, the exhibition derives its title from an artificial word composed of ‘trans’ (meaning ‘beyond’) and ‘robota’ (meaning ‘labour’ or ‘drudgery’). As such, it is a project reacting in times of apparent global transformation to the social, economic and physical space of Szczecin’s harbor. It aims to deal with the complex questions of labor in its entire ideological spectrum; from a route toward self-actualization to a source of exploitation and punishment, as well as the cause of major physical changes in the Lasztownia area during and after the industrial revolution.

The artists involved need to ponder the philosophical, social and economic implications of labor and its visual traces on the particular area, on the buildings erected, refurbished or demolished according to production requirements and cost efficiency. And, more importantly, to take into account the ambience created by the people who have worked there. In this respect, Szczecin’s harbor can be seen as a microcosm of labor with all the historical complexity of the ‘machine’ era, comprising the globalization of the shipping industry, the high unemployment in certain areas along the Polish/German border, the effects of accelerating privatization and capitalism after the collapse of socialism, and those of Poland’s recently won European Union membership.

In this instance, art in a public space will be seen as an immediate confrontation between the world of art and the world of labor. Thus, it will be very interesting to pinpoint the contradictions and the convergences in creativity and imagination within the spheres of both art and finance. In some cases it will be difficult to decide what is more surprising, artistic strategies or those resulting from economic requirements? In any case, ideas of evolution and change constitute the core of both artistic and commercial processes.

[…]

The standard of the works proposed for transRobota is high, although some ideas do seem to encounter certain obstacles to their realization. The artistic explorations of Lasztownia chosen by the committee offered the broadest range of re-evaluation of a site that while moribund possesses considerable potential. The treatments force consideration of new ideas and points of view and reveal the power that underlies the trend to site-specific practice in contemporary art. As such, the works selected for the 7th Baltic Biennial enable Szczecin’s harbor to come alive again through art and culture. 

Faye Tzanetoulakou
Art historian, curator
Member of the 7th Baltic Biennial of Contemporary Art Selection Committee as a representative of Forum European Cultural Exchanges

Excerpt from the catalogue essay

7th Baltic Biennial of Contemporary Art
National Museum of Art
Szczecin, Poland
3 August - 9 September 2007

Coordination of the Greek participations:
Forum European Cultural Exchanges
ArtBOX

In the framework of the project Artventure

In search of a Space of Criticality
(R)Evolving Art Practices and the Possibility of the Text
[conference] [artventure] 

Participants: Germain Roesz (FR), Kestutis Kuizinas (LT), Tom Morton (UK), Borut Vogelnik (SLO) and Pavlina Paraskevaidou (Nicosia)

ARTos Foundation
Nicosia, Cyprus
29 April 2007

Organised by:
Multum in Parvo

In the framework of the project Artventure

Gazet'art #4 
[publication]

The fourth issue of Forum's parasitic, nomadic magazine within CBIEG magazine.

Hosting magazine:
Obieg, Poland, p. 52 (Polish/English)
November 2007

Editorial chief:
Dimitri Konstantinidis

Monitoring of the editorial committee:
Louisa Avgita, Paul Ardenne

General coordinator:
Milana Christitch

Texts:
Paul Ardenne, Louisa Avgita, Axelle Blanc, Irene Gerogianni, Marina Grzinic, Iro Katsaridou, Dimitri Konstantinidis, Suzana Milevska, Gerald Raunig

With the contribution of:
Boris Groys, Mounir Fatmi, Evelyne Jouanno, Laurent Malone

Thanks to the kind collaboration of Adam Mazur

Projected Visions Armenia, Cyprus 
[video art exhibition] [artventure]

Municipal Tobacco Warehouse
Kavala, Greece
7-8 December 2007

Projected Visions Cyprus curated by:
apollonia, european art exchanges

Projected Visions Armenia curated by:
Ruben Arevshatyan

Presentation in Greece organised by:
Forum European Cultural Exchanges

In collaboration with:
Municipality of Kavala

Coordination:
ArtBOX

In the framework of the project Artventure

The Public Turn in Contemporary Art

[EU program] [network] [public arts] [workshops] [exhibitions]
Picture
Santral Istanbul

Introduction

When Santral Istanbul invited us to be involved in the project as partners and to organise the events in Greece, our immediate reaction was to involve as many local partners as possible, once more putting into practice the axiom that communication plays a key role in creating networks that nurture cultural mobility and exchange. Forum European Cultural Exchanges (dedicated by nature on the philosophy of networking) offered valuable theoretical advice in planning the project, the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki gave us access to the work of Leda Papaconstantinou that we presented through the project, and the Cultural Organisation of the Municipality of Kalamaria co-funded a panel discussion that was hosted in Action Field Kodra 2007 – annual visual arts festival, Kalamaria, Thessaloniki.
Whether undertaking the artistic direction of a visual arts festival organised by local authorities, or of an art fair, ArtBOX’s main objective is to ‘serve’ artists, and at the same time to make art accessible, encouraging the active engagement of the public. From this point of view, public art is central in our practice. Public art as art taking place in the public sphere (from the square to the internet), but also art for which the communication with the viewer, the audience, ‘the public’ is integral to its practice. Art’s role is to leave space for the dialogue between the art work and the public to take place. This space between the work and the public is practically where the essence of public art is materialised, as Rosalyn Deutsche suggested in her talk in Santral Istanbul last October. And our vision is to create the circumstances for this space to exist.
The general title “On public arts” functioned as an umbrella that gathered a number of activities, towards a first approach to the subject of public art: a panel discussion realised within the 7th annual visual arts festival Action Field Kodra (former military camp Kodra, Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, 01/09/2007); a short documentary film on the latest work by artist Leda Papaconstantinou, “In the Name of…”; Anastasia AX, greek artist based in Sweden, realised the third version of her “Ink Performance” (former military camp Kodra, Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, 02/09/2007). 
“On public arts” was merely an introduction in tackling the multifaceted subject of public art that in no case can by covered in just a few events or articles. The theoretical and practical aspects are complex and interweaving –as the talks in Santral Istanbul also reveal– so these events will function as a starting point for a systematic approach that we plan to continue pursuing. Towards this end, all the events were documented.     
We would like to thank those who participated in the activities, artist Leda Papaconstantinou, curator Syrago Tsiara and the project partners in Greece for their valuable collaboration and support. Also, we would like to thank Santral Istanbul, especially Asu Aksoy and her colleagues, for inviting us to be involved, the curator of the events in Santral Istanbul, Pelin Tan, for her hard work, as well as the project partners, Markku Hakuri and the University of Art and Design of Helsinki, and Jean Christophe Barbaud and Maison des Metallos Paris, for the always intriguing and challenging exchanges. We certainly hope to nourish and expand our collaboration in the future.

Lydia Chatziiakovou, Christos Savvidis
ArtBOX

The Public Turn in Contemporary Art
2006-2007

Project Leader:
Santral Istanbul

Partners:
ArtBOX (Thessaloniki), University of Art & Design (Helsinki), Maison des Metallos (Paris)

ACTIONS IN GREECE
Organised by:
ArtBOX
in collaboration with:
Forum European Cultural Exchanges
Partners in Greece:
Action Field Kodra 2007
Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki

Artists:
Leda Papaconstantinou
Anastasia AX

General Coordination:
Lydia Chatziiakovou

With the support of:
Culture 2000 programme of the European Union

Kick-off meeting, Istanbul, December 2006

Conference, Istanbul, June 2007

Lectures series, Istanbul, September 2007

On Public Arts
[panel discussion] [public arts]

Τhe subject of public art 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.
 
For Denys Zacharopoulos[1] the public sphere is a space that induces individual experiences to surface. People with little or no common experiences interact in the public space that gradually becomes a space of isolation in oneself, due to this lack of common experiences. At the same time though, through the recounting of different experiences one can discover traces, like bread-cramps left behind to find one’s path in the fairytale, in order to remake a puzzle that is not unique, leading to interaction, communication, ultimately to the establishment of an interpersonal relation. Artists help us see the experiences in their multiplicity, in the sense that Art is a construction of experiences. The multicultural dimension can be perceived as a Multilanguage that exists in the language itself. The multiplicity of this language is its historicity, its sociality, its possibility to be poetic, scientific, smart, stupid, plastic, artistic, giving the possibility to people to understand each other, to ask for explanations, to have different accents.
 
Efi Strousa focused on the dramatic picture of the Peloponnesian landscape devastated by fire simultaneously to the panel discussion “on public art”.  Pointing to this tragic incident as the result of a global economic policy which violates all forms of equilibrium between man and nature, she commented on the urging need to re-define public space in the present era.  Throughout the world, the dominant modes of communication and the operating rules of economy create uniform social and institutional structures which impose similar patterns of behaviour thus bringing about similar catastrophes beyond the limits of the traditionally defined urban space. This global tendency sets for the artist another question which has to do with the changeable conditions of public life, thus driving him/her to consider the whole planet as a common public space.  According to her view, some of the most interesting works are those which touch upon the numerous and various wounds which have been inflicted upon the planet and humanity by the mismanagement of nature’s resources and humankind’s freedom of choice. Against this tendency, she proposed to transform the devastated regions to places of creative work by artists and intellectuals, thus portraying the will to work within the core of contemporary cultural reality without losing from sight art’s tendency to envisage another side of the world.
 
The artist Erwan Mahéo [2] talked about his project “Fireworks” realised in Action Field Kodra 2007, in honour of the victims of the grave fires that destroyed a great part of Greece’s forestlands during summer 2007. The artist created a space where members of the public could express their own views and feelings that constituted in fact the deepest expression of public art, inviting the audience to active participation.
 
Artist Lars Siltberg [3] presented his work “Extras” (2005), a nine hours long permanent video installation in the Dramatiska Institute-University College of Film, Radio, Television & Theatre of Stockholm. The work was commisioned by Statens konstråd - The National Public Art Council Sweden. The video shows 198 persons lying down on a white surface, phyiscally connected to each other to form a long chain. Extras are asked to lie still while the never resting camera robot, slow and firm, sweeps over their bodies. The high resolution of the camera technique makes the scrutiny hyper realistic. Starting at 8.00am, ending and changing direction at 5.00pm to 9.00pm, the video has the ambition to comment on the working day within the institution it is placed. This can also be said for the number of extras engaged in the piece, which corresponds to the amount of people working and studying in the building.
 
Finally, artist Leda Papaconstantinou and curator Syrago Tsiara talked about the latest work of the artist “In the Name Of…” [4]. More information on this project is included in the relevant chapter of this publication.
 
In the framework of the discussion panel, Anastasia AX realised the performance “Ink Performance 3”. The artist mentions: “Through my high explosive acts I try to bestow a feeling of force, revolution and self. ‘Ink Performance’ can be told again and again on every wall in the world. My weapons are ink, brush and sound system.”

Lydia Chatziiakovou
ArtBOX
 

[1] Denys Zacharopoulos presented his latest project, an interdisciplinary workshop realised in Thessaloniki during summer 2007, organised by the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, in collaboration with local institutions, within the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art. Seven of the participating artists, Isabelle Arthuis, Christina Calbari, Guillaume Durand, Erwan Mahéo, Yiorgos Sourmelis, Robert Suermondtt and Xavier Noiret-Thomé, participated also in the Forum Artists-in-Residence Programme, realised in Action Field Kodra since 2005, in collaboration with Forum European Cultural Exchanges. The resulting exhibition was called “Dispersion”. More information: www.mmca.org.gr; www.artbox.gr
[2] http://rio.jb-ba.com
[3] www.siltberg.com
[4] Produced by the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki, within the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, organised by the State Museum of Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki, Greece)

The panel was documented on DVD: camera: Luke Hughes, editing: Phryne Konti, sound: Alexis Ghikas.

Action Field Kodra
Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
1 September 2007

Organised by:
Forum European Cultural Exchanges
Action Field Kodra

In collaboration with:
Santral Istanbul

Speakers:
Erwan Mahéo, Leda Papaconstantinou,
Lars Siltberg, Efi Strousa, Syrago Tsiara,
Denys Zacharopoulos

Moderator:
Christos Savvidis

In the framework of the project The Public Turn in Contemporary Art

Ink Performance 3
Anastasia AX
[performance] [public arts]

Anastasia Ax (1979, SE)
Trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Art, Copenhagen, the School of Photography at Gothenburg University, the Department of Fine Arts, Valand, Gothenburg, and Royal University of Fine Arts, Stockholm. Lives and works in Stockholm

Action Field Kodra
Former Military Camp Kodra
Thessaloniki, Greece
1 September 2007

Artist:
Anastasia AX

In the framework of the project The Public Turn in Contemporary Art

In the Name of…
Documentary on the latest work by Leda Papaconstantinou 
[performance] [documentary] [public arts]

Within the series of events “On Public Arts”, we commissioned a documentary on the latest work of artist Leda Papaconstantinou, “In the Name of…”. The short documentary film that was created to present the work functioned as a preview, since at the time of the shooting the work had not been shown yet. The film includes images of the work itself, as well as a preview performance of the artist, realised at the Port of Thessaloniki just a few days before the actual opening of the work there, while the artist gives an overview of the work, the concept and the creative process.
 
The work is composed by two parts: a total of four days of performances that were realised in spring 2007 in Athens and Thessaloniki, as well as a video installation consisting of five simultaneous projections, the end result of the performances edited documentation. The video installation was first shown at the Port of Thessaloniki, projected on the sea water behind the Contemporary Art Centre.
 
The work is a tribute to economic migrants and to “the city’s foreign dead”, as the artist herself puts it; it is an attempt to pay honour to anyone who is a foreigner, an ‘other’ as opposed to those who are natives, especially to those who die in a foreign land. The work’s first performance, a series of symbolic actions to honour economic migrants, was shot in central Athens, in the areas where economic migrants live and work. The remaining three performances focus on the foreign cemeteries of Thessaloniki, the Indian and the Commonwealth cemeteries –where soldiers from the 1st World War that died there are buried–, the Armenian, the Jewish, and the Protestant cemeteries. Those places, normally excluded from our every day lives, were visited by the artist during her performances, turning the spotlight of them, a tribute to the people who rest there.
 
Leda Papaconstantinou was the special guest artist honoured by the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007), that invited her to create a new piece. The work was produced by the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki and curated by the Centre’s Director, art historian Syrago Tsiara.
 
We chose to present this work because it was created by an established artist who has been repeatedly engaged in public art through her performances. Also because this is a new work, produced by the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki, for the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale. The work attempts to actively engage with the public in its creative process (performances realised in public spaces), but also through its end result, the video projections, installed in a public space.  

Lydia Chatziiakovou, Christos Savvidis
ArtBOX

DOCUMENTARY:
Camera:
Luke Hughes
Editing:
Phryne Konti
Sound:
Alexis Ghikas

In the framework of the project The Public Turn in Contemporary Art

IN THE NAME OF…
Artist:
Leda Papaconstantinou
Curator:
Syrago Tsiara (Director, Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki)
Production:
Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki for the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art

ENERGY ROOM - SANTRAL Istanbul
[exhibition] [presentations] [public arts]

Picture
The Energy Room is an archive space that covers and presents the works and projects by the artists who participated the series of panels, meetings, events organised within the scope of The Public Turn in Contemporary Art project. 
The exhibition functions as a space for research where the audience can explore the relations between public space and contemporary art, through a digital archive, a small library of publications and a series of talks. In the Energy Room you can read the books, choose and watch DVDs of works by participating artists, search the websites of the art projects and artists works, read the articles and copy them by using the copy machine, search issues concerning public space and contemporary art in the electronic databases.

Pelin Tan
Curator

Santral Istanbul
Istanbul, Turkey
5-31 October 2007

Organised by:
Santral Istanbul

Curator:
Pelin Tan

In the framework of the project The Public Turn in Contemporary Art