Tracing gravity
(2019)
author(s): Geir Harald Samuelsen
connected to: Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
The goal of this exposition is to investigate the particular qualities of painting and mountain climbing. Do they have their own aesthetics, their own processes and patterns of movement, their own environmental structures and psychology – and do they share some of these characteristics? The texts and pictures in this exposition, four essays all together, deal with the potential of mountain climbing and painting to map out space, quietude, euphoria, fear, skill, autonomy, instrumentality and movement in an expanded field.
Debris (Enlightenment Panel no 2)
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Zoe Panagiota (aka Betty) Nigianni
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
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 2020, 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.
Notably, Roberto Fiore, Forza Nuova's leader, inherited briefly Alessandra Mussolini's post in the EU parliament.
Drawing on the philosophical notion of impossible objects, the works attempted an indirect postcolonial critique; a suggestion for alternative, autonomous lifestyles; and a performative metaphor for global refugees.