Last May, the first part of the 3rd edition of Mystery 19 Visual Arts Initiator III – But Don’t Tell Anyone artist-in-residence programme in Elefsina was completed. The five artists selected to attend the programme together with five guest artists participated in visits to the archaeological site, presentations, workshops and one-to-one creative meetings, came into a first contact with the city, its past and present by the curator Joanna Warsza and the team of 2023 Eleusis, got to know each other, exchanged ideas.
A few more words about the residents artists:
Vlad Brăteanu
Vlad Brăteanu, born in Bacău, Romania in 1986, currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Brăteanu holds a M.A. in Photography and Moving Image and a B.A. in Graphics from the National University of Arts in Bucharest. In 2016 he studied Philosophy in the Context of Contemporary Art at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. His background in graphics forms the base for theoretical and conceptual considerations in which photography functions as a primary medium. Sound/hypnotic inductions, found objects, and public interventions that use playful semiotics of imagery are found in his current practice. Navigating the boundaries between public and private spaces, and finding signifiers for (in)visibility are translated into works that raise questions on precarity, fragility and stability in neoliberal societies. Research into the concept of plasticity and the effects of language are central in his artistic practice. Vlad is the co-founder of Template, an artist initiative and exhibition project that started in Bucharest in 2018 and is an alumnus of WHW Akademija in Zagreb in 2020.
Alexander Wolframm
Living and working in Germany, Alexander Wolframm has been studying art and sound at HfBK Dresden since 2021. He has participated in the following exhibitions. Pfotenhauer Straße 81, Weißenberger in Dresden, ifthoughts are space, if space is real (solo); p-room, in Dresden, (2021) Hundstage, Of Bieber; Frankfurt in Main, Bist du informiert? Feldbauer Atelier, Radio International at HfBK Dresden; Brühlsche Galerie Annual Exhibition HfBK Dresden; at HfBK Dresden Senatsaal He has received the following awards and scholarships: – Kleinprojektförderung (2022) for the city of Dresden and the dronevision.net project and EU4ART Budapest Residency (2022) for sculpture and conceptual art.
Athina Koumparouli
Athina Koubarouli is a graduate of the Department of Restoration and Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art, University of West Attica, and holds an MSc in Post-industrial Design from the University of Thessaly. In 2019, she exhibited her work at the art organization BioArt Laboratories in Eindhoven with the support of an Erasmus+ scholarship. Since 2013, she has been active in an artist-run studio in central Athens focusing on the production of visual and utilitarian objects, custom works and theater props. Moreover, in recent years she has also been working in excavation projects and collaborating with museums and cultural spaces as a conservator of antiquities and works of art. Her artistic practice is fueled by her professional activities as well as her involvement with beekeeping, both of which bring her into direct contact with the natural environment and with material culture. Through multidimensional research on the fields of conservation, archaeological research and methodology, biology, philosophy, post-industrial and speculative design, she attempts to produce artistic depictions of natural processes and of the complex network of mutual dependencies connecting these processes to humans. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2022).
Flavia Stagi
Born in 1994 in Italy, Interdisciplinary artist living and working in Athens and Berlin. Her artistic practice is driven by the interest for social as well as purely formal structures. In her current work she is re-embarking and researching about the techniques of frottage and imprint and its meaning as an action. By initializing processes of touch and impression , structures of existing objects & surfaces are imprinted into supports to draw attention to new CORPOrealities. Using mostly ceramic and fabric as medium, her sitespecific installations aim to become a potential space to practice autonomy from a (only) dictomic vision of ourselve(s) and our sourrounding.She exhibited at the Biennale Mulhouse 021 in France, IPSO FACTO exhibition in Berlin, and had further exhibitions and collaborations internationally. She holds a degree in fine arts from KH-Berlin and was tutor for prof. F.Feldmann for several years at the same institute. As core member of cultural associations il Melograno (IT) and Associate of Communitism (GR) she initiated collaborations, facilitated workshops to question, redefine our understanding of community and belonging: merging artistic motivations with socio-political being/awareness.
Esmeralda Momferratou
Esmeralda Momferratou (b. 1991, Athens, Greece) is a multidisciplinary visual artist and filmmaker based in Athens. Her work is concerned with the presence of absence and loss through the material and immaterial traces of time, and is predominantly oriented around sculptural installations which often include tiny video projections. The constant dialogue between the visual arts and filmmaking informs and shapes her practice.She holds an MA in Fine Arts and a BA in Performance Design and Practice, both from Central Saint Martins, London, and completed her Erasmus at NYU’s Tisch. Selected exhibitions/festivals include No Land & A Letter to Esmée Crux gallery; Athens (duo show), A Letter to Esmée etc. etc. in situ installation; Athens, (solo show), Tactus Athens Digital Arts Festival (winner of Video Art 3 rd prize), Athens; Forthcoming III, Space42; Athens, Acropolis Remix, The Wrong Biennale 5; Online, ROOMS2021, Kappatos Gallery, Athens; Prospect, RAUM Gallery, UK; TSA_PDF x SVA, Tiger Strikes Asteroid NYC; Video Art Miden Festival, Greece; Mykonos Biennale, Greece; Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Greece; Drama Film Festival, Greece; Secret Cinema, UK; as well as Dance Umbrella Festival, UK. From 2016-2019 she was the Manager of the Sundance Mediterranean Screenwriters Lab / Oxbelly Screenwriters & Directors Lab.
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