Μαρ 20 - Ιουλ 01 2023
In an effort to investigate different aspects and politics of water, the Office of Hydrocommons invites artists, scientists, athletes, and activists to co-develop a weekly program of public events – including performances, screenings, discussions, walks, and workshops.
June Program
Thursday, 01.06.2023 & Friday, 30.06.2023 // 19:00–21:00
Language: Greek & English / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP for 01.06 & 30.06
A visit to the Wet Heart exhibition and a meeting with the artist Eleni Mylonas, creator of the audiovisual work SeaMonster II and the photographic works Woman Rising, Head Gear, White and Green Net.
Friday, 02.06.2023 // 18:00–20:00
Language: in Greek at 18:00 – in English at 19:00 / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Special guided tour by Despina Charitonidi, participating artist in the exhibition Wet Heart, to her audiovisual work To Fall with Grace and her sculptures Eruption Tears.
Thursday, 08.06.2023 // 18:00–20:00
Language: English / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Special guided tour by Maria Nikiforaki, participating artist in the exhibition Wet Heart, and the freedivers performing in the video Hydrodance: Elephant Cave Anna Iliadou, Anastasia Kutkovska, and Fayrouz El Mehdawi on the creative process of the choreography and the embodied experience of diving at the Elephant Cave in Crete.
Friday, 09.06.2023 // 21:00–23:00
Language: English / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
The evening will start with the input of Margarita Tsomou, professor of contemporary theater, curator at Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) in Berlin, and founder of the pop feminist magazine Missy Magazine on “planetary feminism.” Tsomou focuses on the intersections of gender, ecology, and colonial extractivism, actualizing eco-feminist positions for planetary politics. Currently, she is working on articulating “planetary feminisms”: along with Iranian, Kurdish, and Latin American feminists, she writes, advocates, and curates around feminist positions that frame the feminist project “beyond equality” as a method for structural political change and decolonization. Her next upcoming curatorial work is the transnational feminist summit Beyond Equality: Feminisms Reclaiming Life. An Internationalist Gathering.
Followed by a screening of the excerpts from the film Transindigenous Assembly by the indigenous Mari artist and founder of Avtonomi Akadimia, Joulia Strauss. This punk documentary is about the frontline water struggles of queer aboriginal and indigenous artists and their inventions of the “good life,” a life worth living at the receiving end of the empire’s wealth. The protagonists of the film are teachers at the Avtonomi Akadimia – where their knowledges of overcoming solastalgia, inventions of environmental grief, or practices of grounding, are esteemed above all knowledges – and therefore weave transindigenous epistemologies together with the Athenian ecofeminism. Joulia Strauss plays a reconstruction of an ancient Greek lyre, as she trains to earn her fourth stripe in Việt Võ Đạo Kung Fu, and gets involved in the plans to let loose Kifissos – the subterranean river that flows under the lush cypresses and olive trees of the Akadimia Platonos jungle.
The evening will round up with a discussion between Margarita Tsomou, Joulia Strauss, and Eleni Riga on their respective practices and the interdependent issues of women, gay, queer, and indigenous people in the broader context of ecofeminism, which is the focus of the overall curatorial program of The Office of Hydrocommons.
The event will take place in the framework of Athens Pride.
Thursday, 15.06.2023 // 18:00–21:00
Language: in English with whisper translation in Greek / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Creating the Nomadic Constitution. Open Assembly on Citizenship, Political Rights and Migration.
In the framework of the artistic residency of Kasia Wojcik at ATOPOS cvc, and in collaboration with Avtonomi Akadimia, Eleni Tsamadia, Amazigh Labidi and George Anagnosotopoulos, the artist will lead a public assembly on issues of citizenship, immigration, nationality, political subjectivity, and the commons.
At first glance, the idea of a nomadic constitution seems to be a contradiction in terms. Constitutions are commonly referred to as a privileged object of nation-states. Nothing is thus more alien to traditional constitutionalism than the idea of a normative instrument that integrates and recognizes the political aspirations of undocumented groups of people.
The event is aimed at all interested parties, but especially migrant activists who want to share their experiences.
Friday, 16.06.2023 // 18:30–21:00
Language: The presentation will be held in English and the meeting with the artists in English / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Presentation of The Office of Hydrocommons from the perspective of ecofeminism by the curator Eleni Riga: How the legacy of ecofeminism can help us cope with the growing environmental and social challenges we face today and how it (co-)shapes artistic practices?
Followed by a meeting with the artists of the exhibition Wet Heart, Ileana Arnaoutou and Ismene King who conceived the site-specific sculpture A Conservation of Water-Writings.
Thursday, 22.06.2023 & Friday, 23.06.2023 // 17:00–21:00
The project #unmapping by Hariklia Hari (Microgeographies) designs two walks in the wider area of Metaxourgio having the well of ATOPOS cvc as its starting point:
Language: Greek / Free admission / Reservation is required
Thursday, 22.06.2023 // 17:00 – 21:00 / Sign up at ARTSVP
A walk devoted to the element of nature in the city. Starting from ATOPOS cvc, the participants will follow the underground stream of Cyclovoros to the stream of Prophet Daniel. En route, we will examine the immersion of liquid forms in the urban landscape through the action Nowness by Angeliki Svoronou and Rafaella Constantinou, which they staged at the artificial lake behind the premises of the Athens School of Fine Arts (A.S.F.A.), as well as the places of encounter between the man and the animal through the works Beast of Burden by Giannis Nikolaou, Kravsidonas – Contact Zone by Giorgis Noukakis, and La gazza landra by Panos Charalambous.
Friday, 23.06.2023 // 17:00–21:00 / Sign up at ARTSVP
A walk devoted to symbiosis. Starting from the well of ATOPOS cvc, we will talk about water as a common good. The participants will symbolically inhabit the yard, walk in the broader area of Dimosio Sima and Kerameikos, and share their experience about the wet element in the city. Our companions in this narrative palimpsest that connects places of water with the human experience are: James Lane, who will trace the ancient and present state of geosites inside and outside Greece through his project Emersion, starting with the spring, river and lake at the site of Lerni Argolis; Rika Krithara, who will explore the concepts of community, and invisible lines of march and borders, historical routes, and waterways through her work Passing Lines; and Larry Cool, Maria Theodorou, Eleni Tzirtzilaki, who will introduce us in a fluid state and into a physical and imaginary world of water expression, through her work Fleas: Witches in the Water.
May Program
Saturday, 13.05.2023 // 18:00–20:00
Language: Greek / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
In the framework of the artistic residency of Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri, a presentation of the edible native plants installed in the yard of ATOPOS cvc by her scientific collaborator Manos Bazanis will take place. The presentation will be followed by an open discussion on foraging, new edible crops, plant adaptations in absence of water, shifting climate patterns, and land-use changes in the Mediterranean, with input from two guests: Martha Vounatsi, biologist and member of Agroecology Europe; and Eleni Kaskarika, aromatherapist and forager.
Thursday, 18.05.2023 // 18:00–20:00
Language: Greek / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
The artist-in-residence Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri and her scientific collaborator Manos Bazanis are organizing a tasting of the edible plants that grow where water is scarce, as well as a hands-on introduction to gathering and saving seeds to start your own seed library.
April Program
Saturday, 08.04.2023 // 17:00–21:00
Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Durational performance To Fall With Grace by Despina Charitonidi, with the synchronized swimming team Naiads. The performance will take place in the exhibition space. Visitors can visit the exhibition with the same reservation.
Friday, 21.04.2023 // 19:00–20:30
Language: English / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Public discussion between the artist-in-residence Maëlle Gross and the curator Eleni Riga on themes of motherhood, mythology, and ecology, in the context of Gross’s artistic research around the caves in the Greek landscape.
The discussion will be held in English
Thursday, 27.04.2023 // 20:00–22:00
Language: English-Greek / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Themed evening: Water as an Agent of Social Justice in Mythology and the Folk Tradition
20:00–21:00
Screening of the film Lakes: Myths, Stories and Meanings (18′) by Olga Evangelidou, Nefeli Papaioannou, and Irene Ragusini. The film will be followed by a discussion between the creators and the curator Eleni Riga.
The film will be screened with English subtitles. The discussion will be held in Greek.
21:00–22:00
Performance lecture by Catriona Gallagher, with the artist sharing excerpts of her latest work Daphne was a Torso Ending in Leaves (in-progress). Gallagher will present the method of phytography and use of eco-developed 16mm film, in conversation with curator Eleni Riga.
The event will be held in English.
March Program
Friday, 24.03.2023 // 17:00–18:30
Language: Greek / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Transplanting and establishing native edible plants in the yard of ATOPOS cvc under the guidance of the scientific advisor Manos Bazanis, as part of the artist fellow Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri’s research project.
Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri – an American-Spanish artist and designer of Greek, Italian, and Mexican descent – collaborates with the Greek botanist, agronomist, and food technologist Manos Bazanis in a research into native edible plants such as Crithmum maritimum (crimson), Hymenonema graecum (andralida), Elytrigia sartorii (Aegean sand couch grass), Origanum microphyllum (antonaida), and Brassica nigra (wild cabbage), which grow in water-deficient environments, and are affected by salinity. Saporta Tagiuri and Bazanis will combine this research with foraging, and present a series of public events with guests from different fields, during which the public will be invited to taste these plants and learn to identify them.
Friday, 31.03.2023 // 13:00–15:00
Language: Greek / Free admission / Reservation is required. Sign up at ARTSVP
Meeting around the ATOPOS cvc well and walking in the wider area of Kerameikos with the archaeologist George Alexopoulos and the visual artist Rika Krithara, as part of the #unmapping project, curated by Hariklia Hari (Microgeographies).
There will be a visit to the archaeological site of Kerameikos. The ticket is not provided.
The #unmapping project is a process of “unmapping” the water element of the wider area of Metaxourgeio in Athens, with the cooperation of the local community. It is a work of participative territorial narrative with the participation of George Alexopoulos, Rika Krithara, James Lane, Giorgis Noukakis, as well as activists, researchers, professionals, and local residents, with the aim of strengthening the experience of co-existence and the sharing of our water stories. Microgeographies curate a series of walks and conversations throughout the program.