AfterLives

Due to the circumstances of the so-called Greek crisis, people have been encouraged to become politically and artistically active in new ways, as well as more self-reliant and self-managing, which seems to suggest a shift in the social dimensions and implications of art making. The artistic collective Mkultra launches a collaborative project involving artists, architects, researchers, and civilians, its goal being to suggest a critical re-evaluation of Athens in the form of a series of alternating and ever-evolving social and cultural practices. AfterLives considers the ways in which the social imaginary shapes our vague relationship to the urban landscape and explores the potential for new critical practices. Combining theory and practice, this workshop in progress will include site-specific performances in the centre of Athens and lectures by artists and architects on the uses of urban space. The project will also include an open debate on artistic interventions in the public space.  All activities will be closely linked together.
This performance is predicated on a paradoxical premise. The city is haunted by all its unexplored potentialities. When night falls, a new imaginary will emerge in its clandestine and forgotten parts. Starting from the Broadway Arcade and going through stories unfolding in Ameriki Square, spectators will participate in a walking tour which resembles a half-finished film. Walking through surprising little alleys, inside yards beneath star-studded skies, children play with the future, by turns making and dissolving stories – they take charge of the city.

Lectures:
Following the performance, there will be time for lectures and interventions. Artists, architects, and theorists will engage in a public debate on the uses of urban space and the types of geography generated by these uses. An open call for a common quest through memories, experiences, and fresh narratives about Athens.

[26-28/6, BROADWAY ARCADE (starting point), 20:00, performance / walking tour & lectures/debate]

One-Day Conference: "Art Practices in Public Space in Greece and beyond"

28 June 2017
12:30-18:30
21st Primary School "Lela Karagianni" (Kyprou & Patision)

This conference examines artistic practices in public space that took place in Greece during the last decades across performance, visual art and architecture. Bringing together diverse methodologies the conference seeks to trace genealogies of current practices and further examine mutations, exchanges and evolutions of strategies and practices in relation to the urban, socio-political and cultural landscape.

12:30 Opening

13:00
Anna Tzakou/ Geopoetics
Despina Panagiotopoulou-Athina Karatzogianni: "Caminata Nocturna: Death as a Symbolic Exchange and the Nanu Tribe in Mexico"
Eleni Tzirtzilaki: "Through Our Exposed Bodies We Can Exist in the City"

14:30 Break

15:00
Vassilis Noulas-Kostas Tzimoulis
Mary Zygouri
UrbanDig Project/ Nadia Siokou & Matina Mangou: "Excavating Ghosts in the Contemporary City"

16:30 Break

17:00
Harikleia Hari: "Participatory Territorial Narrative Mechanisms"
Sofia Dona: "Spatial Stories, Spatial Practices"
Eva Fotiadi

18:30 Closing discussion

This conference is part of the AfterLives performance of the Athens Festival