Yellow Brick
Yellow Brick is an independent cultural institution of contemporary art that has been active in the district of Nea Ionia, in Attica, since 2016. It is an initiative of the artist Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki based on the promotion of interdisciplinary dialogue and cultural exchange undertaken through relational engagement of writers, curators, and members of the local community.
Yellow Brick focuses primarily on multimodal practices including art exhibitions, educational programs for children and adults, artists’ workshops for the production of artworks, art publications, common dinners and experimental activities, aiming at the interaction of research and cultural rethinking.
The artistic program, which lasts from September to December and from March to July each year, after an open call, hosts artists from Greece and abroad. Artists have the opportunity of an artistic residency in order to develop their practices, create synergies with the Yellow Brick project and present the results of their experience.
Those methodological approaches articulate a field of correlations and exchange, so that this dynamic ecosystem to integrate, converse and interact on a wider artistic map.
Yellow Brick’s ecosystem encompasses:
STEPs: Public manifestations of research in progress taking place at and with Yellow Brick.
FOOD for THOUGHT: Communal culinary events where locals and international guests come together to get to know each other, learn, listen, and exchange.
ACTIONS: Satellite activities/public moments with partner institutions.
YELLOW BOOKs: A capricious publishing house that seeks to further develop the production and distribution of artist books in the Greek context.
YELLOW PLAYGROUND: Crafting /making gatherings for children led by local and international agents.
WORK-HOUSE FACILITIES: A combined studio and exhibition space, a private sleeping area, private bathroom, shared kitchen, and a beautiful terrace.
Snehta Residency
Snehta Residency was founded in Kypseli in 2012, as the first Artists Residency of Athens, during a period of economic and social uncertainty. Founded in a neighbourhood with a strong element of intellectual and social potential. Snehta is the word “Athens” written in reverse (is the anagram of the word “Athens”), expressing how the participating artists, curators and other collaborators aim at creating novel narratives of the Athenian identity, observing the social move and cultural dynamic, through the residency program and the artistic initiatives of the organisation (exhibitions, research programs, library, workshops etc.) To this date, Snehta has accommodated more than 100 artists and organised more than 60 exhibitions and public events. It is an important repository of research and documentation of the city’s narratives through artistic practices in a changing landscape of social values.
The organisations main focus is its residency program. Based mostly in the cultivation of artistic practices that present elements of innovation and experimentation, it encourages artists to come in touch with the local community in which they live and work. Snehta Residency is a non-profit organisation which is supported by activities such as its shop, its educational programs, the library, while the last three (3) years its has received the valuable support of the international organisation Outset Greece and the Ministry of Culture and Sports in selected programs while its new residency program 2022 is under the auspices of the Municipality of Athens.
Eight / Το Οχτώ
Eight is a collective space activated in the centre of Athens that attempts to explore the possibilities of a critical intervention in an ever-changing precarious landscape. Bringing together forms of artistic, political and theoretical production, urban research and social action and building on radical experiments of recent years it seeks to investigate forms of continuity and instituting that challenge neoliberal demands of sustainability.
Eight years after the beginning of the economic crisis in Greece that produced a series of radical transformations in social/cultural frameworks and after a series of public mobilisations that included cultural and political experiments and occupations, activist/direct interventions, DIY contexts, spaces and public programmes we seek to reimagine anew forms, tools and practices for the current and upcoming paradigm shifts. Through forms of unconventional collective study, research, critical intervention and cultural action we aim to repeatedly produce instituent moments of response implicated in the here and now of our city that we also hope reflects global challenges at this moment in time.
EIGHT is an autonomous self-organised event that is realised without any funding or support from public or private resources.
