2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture, in collaboration with Delta Pi Productions and the institutions Yellow Brick, Snehta Residency and Eight/Το Οχτώ organises Mystery 19_Initiation as Methodology in the context of the art residency program Visual Arts (V.A.) Initiator. The main perspective is the non-linear approach of the “initiation” methodology, since for the three institutions the relationship of the initiator and the initiated works in a bidirectional and creative way, in an open dialogue with the local community and the history of Elefsina. The program concludes in a walking presentation of these six new artworks in public space of the participating artists: Pagona Zali (GR), Timothy Laskaratos (GR), Aimilia Liontou (AT), Maria Nikiforaki (GR), Eleni Mylona (CH), and Kamila Szejnoch (PL), an invitation that in turn invites visitors to a participatory initiation practice.
YELLOW BRICK
Through its collaborations and history, Yellow Brick activates its varied methodological practices aiming to an open process in which the identity of the initiated (the guest artist) and the initiator (Yellow Brick) are being interchanged, complement each other, and re-filled with meaning. This multiple function is taking place while being in an antithesis with the strict hierarchy that is often found in traditionally-defined initiation practices. Within the context of “Visual Artists Initiator” (Artists Residency), Yellow Bricks’ team attempts to create new conditions of collaboration and synergy, desiring an extension of the limits of hospitality, as notion and praxis.
In an attempt to reclaim the city’s memories of its multifaceted history, Aimilia Liontou (AT) renovates a part of the old IRIS club’s floor, a landmark for the city of Eleusina until the beginning of this millennium, next to the seashore.
Defining a romantic meeting point at the beach of Eleusina as his starting-point, Timothy Laskaratos (GR) along with the youth group Culttera, co-write and interpret a possible love script.
SNEHTA RESIDENCY
The methodology that Snehta Residency follows for VA Initiator is constituted by transpositions from the familiar space of the city to its uncanny boundaries. Through extensive field research, we devised experiential observation routes that shift the attention of participating artists from the urban fabric to the city’s limits – where the public merges with the private and the illegal, where the natural element is confronted with solid industrial structures. The emerging contrasts that are reflected in the material temporalities, in the coexistence of modern ruins with ancient monuments, in the imprints of the violent rift between the region’s deep past and its environmental destruction – in defiance of life, were highlighted to encourage non-stereotypical readings of Elefsina as a topos and signifier.
Kamila Szejnoch (PL) draws from her artistic research to intervene in the urban landscape through an installation in public space. She transforms a neglected open-air fitting room at the beach of Elefsina into a temporary “temple”, a space for meditation, prayer and contemplation. Through this gesture she renegotiates the notion of faith, incorporating in the work reference points that stand outside of Greek and Christian culture.
Maria Nikiforaki (GR) is inspired by the intense contradictions of the city, by its dystopian landscape horizon but also by the moving persistence of life within its limits. She conceives a choreography that stands suspended between the ground and the sky. “Skywaver” constitutes a performative coexistence of human and technological bodies that deconstructs traditional rituals, redefining her artistic practice as politics of dance in public space.
EIGHT/ ΤΟ ΟΧΤΩ
Thinking through initiation we see it as entanglement, as implication into a process that is always shared and realised together. A process that questions the power of knowing and existing tools as it seeks to place new questions about artistic strategies today and rethink the relation of context and content. An ongoing, non-linear hybrid process that can take different forms such as artistic practice, theoretical discourse, social action, informal moments of collective study and urban research. A study that devises its own methodology.
Pegy Zali (GR) begins her research with a feminist fanzine of the city Elefsina and she interprets in with two gestures.
Eleni Mylona (CH) forms a sound performance, the outcome deriving during her residency and creative communication with the city of Elefsina, its atmosphere and its locals.
Map of the Walking Tour
Artists Short Curriculum Vitae
Curators Short Curriculum Vitae
Press Release
