Research Catalogue

Sketchbook of 53 A3 drawings with coloured markers, including 4 A3 collages with newspaper cutouts and printed photos. Sketchbook cover with red nail polish. 22 A4 drawings with ballpoint pen. Preparatory work, 2023-2024. I adopted the visual vocabulary of the graphic novel, which I partly studied and read a lot about looking at different graphic artists' work, when I was attending classes at the University of Malmo, Sweden, in 2012. I mixed this with stylistic elements of the architectural sketch, using heavily the black marker and stick figures. This visual approach gives a slightly comical note to the otherwise dark subject matter. "Pop and Politics" (Pop Og Politikk) Where does the boundary run between art and popular culture? Pop art embraces the iconography of mass culture. Themes are taken from advertising comics, cinema and TV. The slick, impersonal style is a deliberate provocation. In Norway, pop art is part of a broader left-wing protest movement. Everything from capitalism and imperialism to environmental and gender politics is subjected to critical scrutiny. The exclusive, unique artwork is replaced by mass-produced prints and posters, well suited to spreading a political message." From the National Museum, Oslo, Norway. See exposition in connection with "The (Origins of) The Game".

Happening, 2016. Participant's empirical research, including improvised full recorded interview with first generation Albanian immigrants to Greece, images, and thematic text. The research was conducted for the workshop, "Logics of Worlds", inspired by Alain Badiou's work and organised by architect Filippos Oraiopoulos, at Athens School of Fine Art (ASFA), Master of Visual Arts (Marios Spiliopoulos, Giorgios Xiropaides), December 2016. Adopting the political approach of Badiou's "L' Organisation Politique" to apply direct intervention for societal problems, including immigration and labour, I used play as a method to facilitate improvised discussions. People share and respond more freely when participating in structured, but playful interactions, such as those a game involves. Albanians speak three languages, Albanian, Italian and, a few of them, Greek, so I wasn't able to translate parts of the conversation. Avlona is an English now obsolete name for Vlore, an Albanian seaport and former ancient Greek colony Aulon. Albanians came as non-EU refugees in Greece initially in the 1990s, after the fall of communism in their home country. Religion was banned in communist countries. The democratisation of Albania began in 1994, when Albanians protested for political pluralism in their country. At the beginnig ofbthe transition period after communism, Vlore became a port through which smuggling, mainly from Italy, was carried out. Notably, the men I spoke to didn't want to be visualised. Hence, the exposition aims to juxtapose the experimental and the conceptual in the fine arts; and to make the 'invisible' visible. Badiou is also known for his philosophy of metaphysics of the four "truth procedures": Politics, Science, Love and Art. The workshop was slightly interrupted by a performance art student, who brought a live hen to slaughter in the studio. This can be taken as a metaphor for scapegoating (by symbolically re-assigning the gender of male) Albanian non-EU refugees. For this exposition, I include an essay by Pantelis Boukalas, in Kyriakos Katzourakis, O "Dromos Pros Ti Dysi" (The Way to the West), 2001, as well as Kyriakos Katzourakis' introduction in English. I don't have any personal or other familial connections with Albania - or North Macedonia or Kosovo, all the nationalities, including Albanian, used on the fake non-EU passports used illegally in the UK since 2013 and 2014: I had never even visited those countries before 2024. This was a project to research and document in an artistic manner the refugee and immigration crisis, as I experienced it in my native Greece and to voice my opinions on this topic from my perspective as a native Greek. I spoke to non-EU economic refugees. Non-EU economic refugees must not be confused with political asylum seekers, who encounter persecution for political reasons from the countries of origin or citizenship. Albania -North Macedonia and Kosovo, all the nationalities on the fake non-EU passports, including Albanian, used in the UK, successively since 2013 and 2014- is a non-EU country; Greece, my native (and my parents' and grandparents' native), has been in the EU since 1981. I have also been a UK national, by naturalisation, since 2011. Paradoxically - or not so paradoxically, since I have been also investigating this case - the political outcome, and since 2020, of this project was that fictitious "daughter" of mine had been on the Met police's databases, as 22 Italian/Albanian female. Supposedly, I must had been given birth to a daughter in Albania in 2002! (!! the "prostitute"; that's believable!! Or two "schizophrenic" sons, Panagiotis Nigiannis, both, Albanians!; born in 2003 and 2004! Golden Dawn's, the BNP's (the XRW component in the UK), and others' cultural "imagination" with regards to Albanians): factually speaking, in 2002, I was living in Athens, Greece, engaged to be married to my former husband, a Greek national, working at MOB (Mauve) Architects, as an architect designer, with an international cohort of colleagues. I got married in 2003. I lived in Athens until 2004, working also at RCTech architects. The records with the fake IDs have been corrected in September 2024. Including records of falsely alleged children of mine born 2002-2004, when I lived and worked in my native Greece. From 1998 until 2002, I was living in the UK, working as an architect; there are no children. I gained my first practical experience working as an architect in the UK, working in private architectural practice from 1999 until 2002. In 2007, I was living in London, since 2005, working as an EU/Greek university lecturer. In 2009, when the G20 summit demonstrations took place in London, with the known case of the death of Ian Tomlison by a police officer, I had been living in the UK since 2005, working as an EU lecturer at the University of East London; I was also known as Betty Nigianni by my students and colleagues. I never participated in any public demonstrations in the UK, but I have attended demonstrations in my native Greece and in 2019 in the Netherlands. There are no children in my medical records, during the whole time I have lived in the UK, which is a total of seventeen years, plus, twelve of those being a British citizen. Greek children take their father's surname and Greeks don't have many children; they're suffering from a shrinking population, although they are in the EU since 1981. My concerns about serious international organised criminal activity (not even honouring children's basic rights) were reported and confirmed by the Greek, Scandinavian and Albanian authorities. The British authorities have been lagging behind for a long time, intentionally, with their impossible unverified "stories", bashing the left and the liberals - or whatever is left of them - and whoever is decent - whatever has been left of that, too. The Greek police confirmed in 2024 all claims about children, also between 2002 and 2004, have been dismissed. The Greek Golden Dawn - with their "Big Idea" (Megali Idea) of conquering foreign countries, like North Macedonia, and their chronic attacks on immigrants and refugees in Greece - was convicted as a criminal organisation in October 2020. They invented the 'concept' of the 'Real Greek', dependent on any Greek's political orientation. Now they're losing their sixty seven (67) appeals - and early releases. The conversation took place during the period Golden Dawn was prosecuted in the Greek High Courts of Justice (Areios Pagos), 2015-2020. Many non-EU immigrants to Greece provided testimonies in the courts, despite the fact they were frightened. Manolis Glezos was the only Greek politician, who went to visit Magda Fyssa, Pavlos' mother, in the Greek courts. For Pavlos Fyssas, aka Killah P; assassinated at age 34. For Alain Badiou, a communist-Maoist political philosopher, and the OP. For the missing Albanian and of Albanian ethnicity immigrants. For Michalis Katsouris; assassinated at age 29. For the "Other Greek Left". Thanks to the Albanian embassy in London, the Tirane and Durres police, as well as the Durres prosecutor. Thanks to Edi Rama.and his Socialist Party, a coalition of left-wing parties, government. Thanks to the Norwegian Labour Party government. Thanks also to Skopje police and Prishtine police. Thanks to the Italian police at Bari. Last but not least: thanks to the Greek police chief, Marinos Stagakis, and the Greek police organised crime division, specifically Ioannis Papakostas, who spoke to me on the phone in the summer of 2022. Thanks to the US London embassy that came in late, in the summer of 2024. Thanks to the very few Met police officers, who eventually figured it out, as well as those British and others working behind the scenes for the last three years or so and more recently. It would not have been possible without them. It has been a long process with many obstacles along the way, seemingly insurmountable, but as proven not. For peace and for safeguarding democracy and everything that comes with it. Ongoing investigatory research, with legal and political activism, surrounded by artworks, 2016-2024. References: Fred C. Abrahams, "Modern Albania: From Dictatorship to Democracy in Europe", New York: New York University Press, 2015. Counterextremism Project, "Violent, Right-wing Extremism and Terrorism - Transnational Connectivity, Definitions, Incidents, Structures and Countermeasures", November 2020, available online. See all expositions under Art and Activism.

Sculpted and painted wood, combined with treated rusty objects. Duct tape with boat paint models for metal sheet sculptures, 2020. Digital drawings, 2021, 2023. Dutch steel sailing boat part-restoration and renovation, Amsterdam (with Sean A. Hladkyj), 2019-20. Relief and improvised sculptures made with industrial paints, as well as found objects, were exposed to weather conditions, including heavy rain and wind, over a few months on a floating timber raft. Working with the changes the weather was causing to the ad hoc studio, I made changes until the painting was finished, photographed, then dumped. The relief was collected. I applied the colours from those available in a symbolic manner, abstracting the view of a ghetto in a large city. The objects stand for the landmarks. The pieces would comprise of the scenography for a theatre performance, informed by my conversations with a theatre lighting technician. The event would also include a donation event of the art objects. See external link for the theatre play, based on the tradition of the philosophical dialogue and employing the idea of performing philosophy to make it accessible to a wider audience. Political asylum has been traditionally offered to people who flee from their countries of origin and citizenship, because of violations of their dignity, which is a human right, for their political beliefs and related activities. Currently, seven human rights of mine, five basic, have been infringed in the United Kingdom, where I have been a citizen since 2011; the origin is my native Greece. Political asylum is only offered to people, who are non-citizens of the country where asylum is sought from. At the same time, political asylum has become harder to offer, due to the global nature of persecution of whoever is perceived as a dissident. Since 2013, Forza Nuova, the Italian affiliate of the Greek Golden Dawn, has participated in the organised international criminal case, of which I have been the target, originating from my native Greece, "accelerating" in the Netherlands and the UK in 2020, Covid-19. This happened with the theft of my personal details, specifically my Greek driver's license number, by Italians, in Amsterdam in the winter of 2020. My number was used for three fake Italian driver's licenses for criminal activity in the UK. Notably, Roberto Fiore, Forza Nuova's leader, inherited briefly Alessandra Mussolini's post in the EU parliament. Nevertheless, the Italian government settled in the summer of 2024 one remaining fake Italian passport for a fictitious Albanian citizen, probably in connection with Forza Nuova, after mediation with the Albanian government. Drawing on the philosophical notion of impossible objects, the works attempted an indirect postcolonial critique; a suggestion for alternative, autonomous and communitarian lifestyles; and a performative metaphor for global refugees. At the time, in autumn 2019, I had attended an environmental protest in Amsterdam that was generally peaceful. Investigatory research with artworks, some of it carried out in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where I was a philosophy student, from 2017 until late 2019, and remained until autumn 2020. I did not have student insurance, as it was obligatory, because I was covered by the NHS through EHIC (European Community coverage, when the UK was still in the EU), since the UK was still in the EU. I didn't have travel insurance either. Presentation of work in progress. See exposition in connection with "The (Origins of) The Game".

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This exposition explores how the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen, with the artistic research project, BETTY DEVELOPS, works with spreading a collaborative practice to the infrastructure of an entire institutional theatre and how this renegotiates the notion of artistic genius and the star. The exposition offers a meta-reflection on the author’s artistic research activities at the theatre. These reflections shed light on what happens when collaborative methods of working and producing are implemented in an institutional theatre and discuss the extent to which artistic research can develop methods for collaborative co-creation as well as resistance to the neoliberal individualised performance culture. Could such methods prevent you from falling back on a modernist understanding of the artist as the original creator of an individual expression and instead support a collaborative art and knowledge practice? As opposed to defining artistic creation as something that springs from and comes from an individual (the artistic genius or star), the author argues that artistic creation is a relational act, and that art is something that comes to be between people. This exposition is a collage of empirical material, text, images, and video gathered and produced over the last five years while facilitating, documenting, researching, and sharing the development of fourteen BETTY DEVELOPS productions. Download Accessible PDF

Environmental science has shown that the global use of concrete has led to significant challenges today and will seriously trouble future generations. Nevertheless, international building industries advertise concrete as a natural, regional, sustainable, and hence green material. In 2020, global human-made mass exceeded all living biomass, with concrete accounting for nearly half of it, making it a signal of the Capitalocene. A radical transformation of industrial building culture is asked for, otherwise anthropogenic mass will be three times biomass by 2040. The growth of the technosphere is amplifying multiple negative currents in the pluriverse — air pollution, lithospheric extraction, and hydrosphere depletion — all with catastrophic effects on biodiversity. This exposition displays the steps in and findings of the artistic research project Greenwashed Concrete. Setting out to widen understanding of the multi-layered material concrete, this project applied a methodology of juxtaposing two sculptural practices in order to collaboratively design experimental settings to engage scholars from heterogeneous fields. Download Accessible PDF