Fireflies – LENA
Series of Open Lectures and Discussions with Performative Character

PEIRAIOS 260

30 June & 14 July / HALL E
16 June, 8, 9, 26 & 27 July / HALL B
Fireflies

Curation Dimitris Papanikolaou

In collaboration with Isavella-Dimitra Karouti

This year’s series of talks at Athens Epidaurus Festival is introduced at Peiraios 260 with the title “Fireflies.” Drawing inspiration from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s well-known “Article of the Fireflies” as well as Georges Didi-Huberman’s book Survival of the Fireflies, fireflies are seen as a symbol of resilience and precarity, environmental ethics and eco-critical engagement. A symbol, also, of contact, mobility, and perspectival change.

“Fireflies” will be a cycle of open conversations, moving between lecture, performance, and collective inquiry. Speakers from different disciplines will use discourse as a performative and analytical opening; they will revisit issues that span today’s socio-political and artistic horizon. We will focus on political and artistic research, forensic investigation, the gendered aspect of expression, the memory of performance, incarceration, persistence and survival, citizenship and participation.

In this way, the “Fireflies” events will act as small hubs of reflection and exchange that seek to open up multiple readings of contemporary reality. In this flexible presentation format, theoretical argument, direct dialogue with the audience, and the performing arts, coexist and feed into one another.

By offering glimpses into the analytical and artistic practice of the invited participants, including their artistic work and/or research in progress, these encounters invite the audience to follow how an idea, an artwork, or a research question takes shape. They aim to transform the scene of presentation into a shared field of exploration.

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Peiraios 260 ( E )
14 July / 21.00
Lena Platonos
LENA
A Conversation with Lena Platonos

The music and songs of Lena Platonos constitute what one may call a heterotopia. Woven from memories and dreams, and shaped by a lyrical, often conversational voice, Platonos's work offers a kaleidoscopic refraction of experience, sustaining it as a way of being in the world. Deeply personal yet strikingly open, her body of work has resonated across generations, inviting new interpretations, remakes, covers and adaptations. In a unique conversation with Michail Marmarinos on the stage of Pireos 260, Lena Platonos once again invites us into her world: where the public and the private, the musical and the autobiographical, lived experience and dreams converge.