Paparać kvietka
Katia She (legovich) Her
Paparać Kvietka is the name of a non-existing fern flower from Belarusian folklore, that embodies the essence of sudden miracles and mystical wisdom. According to Belarusian mythology, Paparać Kvietka blooms fleetingly on the eve of the summer solstice (Kupala night) emitting a powerful glow. For one to obtain its mystical powers, one “has to wander alone in the forest during that night. It is necessary to injure the palm, squeeze the flower in that palm and head home. The evil force will shout, roar, frighten, but there is no need to look back. Having received a fern-flower, a person will acquire the ability to see what is invisible to others, and will become wise.”
Katia She (legovich) Her, through the story of paparać kvietka, reflects on her homeland as a distant memory that after years of immigration comes to her mind elusively as a place of ancestral wisdom and mystical connotations. Having to face Belarusian authoritarian reality, Katia reimagines Belarus as a metaphorical wet forest where ancestral wisdom, feminine witch energy, memories and irregularities are intertwined. It is an ethereal woodland adorned with fern blossoms and a tumultuous lake at the heart of the forest which keeps everything alive, embodying the spirit of a resilient people.
Katia She (legovich) Her, through the story of paparać kvietka, reflects on her homeland as a distant memory that after years of immigration comes to her mind elusively as a place of ancestral wisdom and mystical connotations. Having to face Belarusian authoritarian reality, Katia reimagines Belarus as a metaphorical wet forest where ancestral wisdom, feminine witch energy, memories and irregularities are intertwined. It is an ethereal woodland adorned with fern blossoms and a tumultuous lake at the heart of the forest which keeps everything alive, embodying the spirit of a resilient people.
Curated by Esto Association
Ultrasonic Infracries
Group show
The present conceptual group art exhibition explores relations between the symptomatology of manic depression and cultural tactics in contemporary capitalism, from the point of the psyche of the subject in them. It is the diploma thesis of the curator, who studies in The School of Architecture of the Technical University of Crete, and it constitutes their attempt to connect the alienating experience of the disease with the social reality in order to be liberated from it through comprehension.
The experience of manic-depressive spectrum becomes the occasion for a curation that recognizes rampant inductive though loops, suicidal ideations, disputed self-confidence, addictive pleasures in dysphoria in artistic practices of creators who study the current. This is not an exhibition of the 'mentally ill' and argues for a visibility on the aesthetics of thought. The artist’s work here refers to how the subjects internally respond to the contemporary technocratic capitalist situation and negotiate with their identity.
The space of Esto Association and its individual elements, in dialogue with the artworks and their topology, incorporates the manifestation of the curatorial discourse.
Participating artists:
RUKI I SUPER GONORRHEA and NIKOS GIANNIOS I MILTOS DIGKAS I TØMI aka TOMSCODE I MITIKAFE I ONE SILENCED PUPPET I KHARES TOKATLI
Proving Grounds
Multimedia presentation
Critical Cartography Practices by Openfabric (NL/IT) + HRO (IT)
-What are the territories that we need to navigate today?
PROVING GROUNDS is a multimedia research-based presentation that elaborates on terms such as contemporary migration, ecology and politics through architecture and landscape urbanism.
Openfabric (NL/IT), an international landscape architecture and urbanism practice based in Milan and Rotterdam and Hyperscapes Research Office (IT), an interdisciplinary collective operating as a spatial research and design agency, present their work and approach to planetary urbanization.
‘Migrating Mediterranean’ is a cartographic project by Openfabric which concentrates on depicting resources, migrations and landscape migrations. The cartography delves into the Mediterranean “continent”, identifying the agents of instability to convey that the background which we assume to be fixed, it’s in fact not. The project has been presented at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR).
Hyperscapes Research Office through visual and interactive footage, explores the emergence of territory as a field of design and examines a set of sites through which architecture can be questioned not only as an object but also as a medium and a result of complex processes and planetary entanglements.
Participants:
Filippo Albertini, Francesco Garofalo, Giada Zuan, Konstantinos Venis
Curated and hosted by Esto Association, in collaboration with Openfabric Studio and Hyperscapes Research Office.
Photos by Danae Panagiotidi
Studio Stone age
Group show
Tristan Bera, Niki Danai Chania, Stéphane Charpentier, Florent Frizet, Hannes Livers Gutberlet, Resi Bender (Theresa Hoskins)Joshua Olsthoorn, Céline Pévrier, Matthieu Prat, Ioannis Savvaidis, Uli M Schueppel & Ella Villaumié.
“Technology is not mere tool making and tool use: it is the making of metaphors.”
―James Bridle, New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future.
"Die ich rief, die Geister, / Werd' ich nun nicht los""The spirits that I summoned / I now cannot rid myself of again" —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
Studio Stone Age is the spatialization of a film project by Joshua Olsthoorn. The not jet released experimental film ‘Stone Age’ could be seen as an attempt to reflect on the story of technology in our era where the notion of the anthropocene is forcing us to reconsider the concept of progress in relation to sustainability. The film construct itself with almost non-stories of characters in research of meaning in a confuse environment and time. This film is made in open collaboration and improvisation, with a group of individuals playing often the double role of actor/auteur. The exhibition is showcasing fragments of the film in relation with artworks from the participants, turning this into a collective exhibition format. Studio Stone Age is aiming to reopen the editing process of the film by reconfiguring the studio or cutting room where the visiter is asked to recompose its own cut.
On the closing date 21.10.2020 the composer and sound artist Ioannis Savvaidis, that was involved in the creation of the sound track from the film, did a live performance between the ancient stones in the court yard of the Epigraphic museum. The live performance was a 30’ improvisation on themes from the film and will be framed by a choreography from Florent Frizet performed by Christina Reinhardt reenacting a scene from the film.
Hosted by Esto Associaiton in coproduction with Typical Organization and the Epigraphic Museum of Athens
Photos by Dora Papanikita and Joshua Olsthoorn
Mohajer
Esto AssociationThe multimedia installation was composed of objects, graphics, recorded storytellings and the documentary about the ‘Bag Mohajer’ project directed in 2017 by Adrian Oeser. It operates as a storytelling device carrying memories and creating a narration about the ex-use of the space and the people that used to live in the neighborhood of Exarcheia.
The main pillars of our inspiration were the decorative elements that were used on the Mohajer bags by their makers -most of them symbols of freedom and movement (birds, boats etc) - and structural elements from Victoria train station -a landmark station for a lot of refugees who arrive, stay or leave -. These symbols were incorporated on the objects that constituted the exhibition and will be used after as our furniture pieces.
Another important element is that of water as a carrier of memories and bodies, the Mediterranean sea-topology as a political playground and the microarchitecture of an Athenian neighborhood that with its rawness and romanticism, can become friendly or hostile.
The installation was carried out in collaboration with ANKAA project, a former collaborator of the ‘Bag Mohajer’ project, and the Tajikistan designer Shafi Qias. Together we created parts of the installation and they also provided us with materials from the bags.
Curated by Esto Association and Lydia Markaki
Photos by Danae Panagiotidi
We care about your privacy
Alexandros KoxiasBased on Zuboff’s landmark book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”, the exhibition engaged with the concept of surveillance and how this is indissolubly connected with the new forms of power which are gradually being established in the last stage of capitalism.
The very techniques of concealment used by governments and big companies are deployed in the Installation in a reverse condition of surveillance: using Google maps app snapshots, areas of interest in the Greek territory were recorded. By recognizing digital data as “accumulated human experience” as distinct from the prevailing perception of it as immaterial and harmless, 16 visualized digital compositions were made and applied in a symbolic way in flags and scarfs aiming to “direct gazes where one is not allowed to look”.
Special thanks to Eli Brown and Lydia Markaki for their help during the process.
All photos courtesy of Danae Panagiotidi
Curated and hosted by Esto Association
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