[un]known destinations chapter ΙΙΙ: reconnection –– a second chance | curator: Dr Kostas Prapoglou

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The third edition of [un]known destinations: reconnection –– a second chance returns to the former Zarifi residence in Kypseli, Athens, where the series of these exhibitions began in 2017. This time, the show will negotiate the concept of reconnection.

Receiving its inspiration from the terminology of energy healing in holistic medicine –also known as Reconnection or Reconnective Healing– whose aim is to re-establish the fulfillment of being through an esoteric and outer equilibrium and harmony in corporeal, emotional and spiritual levels, the show will investigate those parameters that embrace aspects of our own existence and its ability to activate self-healing mechanisms.

The Kypseli district is characterised by an immense building stock of a certain architectural caliber that became the victim of the socio-economic and cultural crisis that hit Greece during the past decades. This includes, amongst others, outstanding examples of urban architecture that were once associated with individuals and events of significant historical and social status. Part of these buildings continues to disintegrate throughout the merciless ruinous passage of time, following their abandonment not only by their financially strapped owners but also by the state itself.

At the same time, the invasion of foreign investors ravenously acquiring anything that is up for sale in the name of the Greek Golden Visa Scheme or of airbnb, resulted to a rapid re-transformation of the indigenous social fabric that had already undergone a phase of radical restructuring back in the 1990s. The current alteration occurs with the influx of a new population of owners and short-stay tenants on one hand, and the displacement of the existing population that is forced to move out on the other. The fast renovations with the utilisation of inexpensive materials lead to the downgrading of interior design aesthetics and, consequently, to the gradual negation of the area’s original character and attractiveness, the corrosion of memory and identity but also the surfacing of a new unprecedented standardisation and crudeness.

The 1924 building of the former Zarifi residence still resists against those external hostile forces. It is a starting point of a process of reconnection between the past and the present, between those people who once lived here with those who live now so the latter can learn what preceded them, between the inactive building structures and the immediate urban environment and their counterparts, between the current present with the next episode of Kypseli about to commence.

The 20 artists of the former Zarifi residence whose multi-disciplinary practice involves, amongst others, the mediums of textile and fiber in a both literal and metaphorical sense are invited to present with their visual vocabulary site-specific and context-responsive works aligned with the concept of this exhibition. The viewer will be confronted with a conflicting condition of a contemporary dystopia while, simultaneously, will become part and partaker of a reconnection trajectory and will leave the show with a vision of self-healing and restoration.

For the first time, curator dr Kostas Prapoglou attempts the parallel expansion of the Zarifi exhibition towards the general area of Kypseli, engaging other locations within the immediate neighbourhood. Four additional satellite venues will generate a noetic thread, interlinking all together and re-introducing them all back on today’s map as fragments of a bygone era. An empty former grocery store on Trias 13 St. plays host to an intervention by Horror Vacui incorporating the site-specific works by seven artists. Film director Menelaos Karamaghiolis and his team Documatism present Afro Greeks (2019), a documentary film which will be featured on specific dates at the new premises of We Need Books non-governmental organisation at a former furniture shop on Evias 7 St. and at The Catholic Church of St Therese on Eptanisou 32 accompanied by the congregation choir. Finally, a vacant basement flat on Fedriadon 14 has been converted into a photography darkroom by artist James M. Lane inviting guests to an on-going participatory performative project that will gradually develop into a new future work of art.

__  participating artists:

|| former Zarifi residence  /  Eptanisou 9 and Androu, 112 57, Kypseli, Athens

Ianthi Aggelioglou, Eozen Agopian, Artemis Alcalay, Lydia Andrioti, Panagiota Apostolopoulou, Evangelos Chatzis, Thalia Chioti, Penny Gkeka, Irini Gonou, Stavroula Kaziale, Renee Magnanti, Despina Meimaroglou, Noemi Niederhauser, Vana Ntatsouli, Kriton Papadopoulos, Vivi Perysinaki, Rania Schoretsanitι, Yannis Theodoropoulos, Marios Voutsinas, Betty Zerva

|| Horror Vacui   /  Trias 13, 113 62, Kypseli, Athens

Annita Argyroiliopoulou, Antigoni Kavvatha, Andreas Lymberatos, Eusevia Michailidou, Varvara Spirouli, Martha Tsiara, Andreas Voussouras

|| Menelaos Karamaghiolis    /  We Need Books, Evias 7,  113 62, Kypseli, Athens

Afro-Greeks (2019)   /  Catholic church of St Therese, Eptanisou 32, 113 61, Kypseli, Athens

|| James M. Lane: Rem-amber (2019)    /  Fedriadon  14, 113 64, Kypseli, Athens