Video Art Miden at TWIXT lab, Athens (ENG)

PRESS RELEASE

Video Art Miden screenings at TWIXTlab, Athens (Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 / 5 / 2017, 20.30) Video Art Miden collaborates with TWIXTlab to present a selection of videoart programs in a 2-day event in Athens, on May 6-7, 2017.

The selected showcases of videoart, that will be screened during the event, are related to the general concept of TWIXTlab: “Art, Anthropology & the everyday”, having as their main theme different states of the “human condition” and highlighting contemporary anthropological issues, such as the phenomenon of “exoticizing”, the -globally currentrefugee problem, as well as personal human stories (narrative or abstract) that brings us closer and connect us all.

For this presentation, we also invited Wilfried Agricola De Cologne, founder of the German mobile festival CologneOFF, to present a selection from the project "Refugee Film Collection".

Program: Saturday, May 6 (20.30) - Exoticizing/Exoticised (curated by Sofia Grigoriadou) - No return (curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne, from The Refugee Film Collection W:OW Project - We Are One World) Sunday, May 7 (20.30) - Home Sweet Home (curated by Martha Zoupa) - The story of... (curated by Margarita Stavraki) A presentation of the programs & discussion with curators Gioula Papadopoulou (founding member & art director of Video Art Miden), Sofia Grigoriadou (Miden curator & founding member of TWIXTlab) & Wilfried Agricola De Cologne (founder & art director of CologneOFF & Art Video Koeln) will take place on Saturday (prior and after the screenings).

Entrance free Address: Empedokleous 19, Pangrati (Varnava square)

More info and the complete program of the event may be found at the official website of Video Art Miden: www.festivalmiden.gr More info on TWIXTlab and its activities may be found here: https://twixtlab.wordpress.com/ More info on "The Refugee Film Collection": http://refugee.engad.org/ ___________________________________ PROGRAM / PARTICIPANT ARTISTS: Saturday, May 6 (20.30) Exoticising/Exoticised [58 min] Curated by Sofia Grigoriadou

In this particular set of videos, exoticism is approached through the gaze: the ways people look at others, the ways they are being looked at and also the ways they return the gaze. Can one stand the exoticized's look staring back at them? The set raises questions regarding our participation to the reproduction of such relations today, the ways we exoticise, the ways we are being exoticised and the boundaries between the two.

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Luca Ferri, Tottori, Italy/Japan 2015, 6.53 Hanna Ben-Haim Yulzari, “Walking Woman”, Israel 2009, 6.21 Tabita Rezaire, Bulletgaze.prproj, South Africa 2014, 2.34 Kristina Paustian, Positions, Germany, 2016, 9.32 Sylvia Winkler & Stephan Koeperl, Staring at the stranger for a long time, P.R.China 2007, 1.30 Hanna Ben-Haim Yulzari, “Through Blink of an Eye”, Israel 2010, 1.03 Dimitra Kondylatou, Interpretations: the question, Greece 2016, 6.12 Mauricio Saenz, Of islands and unicorns, Mexico 2015, 7.00 David Ortiz Juan, The Vertical bodies, Greece/Palestine 2015,15.58

No return [60 min] Curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne

A selection from the international project "The Refugee Film Collection - W:OW Project - We Are One World", by the German festival CologneOFF. 1. Luca Nanini (Italy) – A Hope – a Perpetuum Mobile, 2012, 2:00 2. Simone Stoll (Germany) – FAREWELL – ABSCHIED, 2016, 06:08 3. Theodoris Trampas (Greece) – Scorched Earth, 2015, 14:53 4. Isabel Pérez del Pulgar pain – nea Imaginaria , 2016 , 06 39 5. Mo’ Mohamed Benhadj (Algeria) – GOD WILL KNOW HIS OWNS, 2014, 08:32 6. Fenia Kotsopoulou (Greece) – Borderline, 2015, 3:06 7. Florentia Ikonomidou (Greece) – Heart Attack, 2016, 02:44 8. Daniel Wechsler (Israel) – Exi(s)t, 2016, 01:45 9. Panagiotis Kalos (Greece) – Gasping for Air, 2015, 1:36 10. Anni Kaltsidou (Greece) – The Refugees, 2015, 2:48 11. Monika Zywer (Poland) – Golden Life Jacket, 2016, 01:00 12. George Symeonidis, Artemis Stathakou (Greece) – “Refugee”, 2015, 04 08 13. David Gutema Gamatchis (Hungary) – Traffickers, 2015, 4:18 14. Lucija Konda Labas (Croatia) – We are the dogs – Wir sind Hunde, 2016, 1:11 15. Max Hattler (Germany) - Stop The Show, 2013; 1:00

Sunday, May 7 (20.30) Home Sweet Home? [55 min] Curated by Martha Zoupa

Wars, economical and ecological disasters, forced population transfers. Is "home" a place of pleasant memories or a place full of wounds?

1. Lisi Prada, [meine heimat], Spain 2012, 3.14 2. Andrew Ellis Johnson & Susanne Slavick, QUENCH, USA 2014, 9.14 3. Marjorie Lemay, A Wet Moon Walk, Canada 2015, 4.55 4. Christina Dimakogianni, The journey, Greece 2016, 3.07 5. Mauricio Saenz, Insular, Mexico 2015, 3.00 6. Anni Kaltsidou, Fields, Greece 2011, 3.22 7. Lenia Georgiou, My place, Cyprus 2014, 2.24 8. Tiffany Fung, H_CNY: Happy Chinese New Year! , USA 2016, 1.56 9. RC Campos, Throwtogetherness, Brazil 2014-15, 4.06 10. Przemek Wegrzyn, Security Measures, Poland 2014, 5.55 11. Janek Ambros, Red Blue and Purple, USA 2015 4.11 12. Isabella Gresser, Oracle of a found shoe, Germany 2016, 4.35 13. Hara Kostopoulou, Favole, Italy 2013, 5.17

The story of‌ [64 min] Curated by Margarita Stavraki

The story of time-space continuum, a life resempling a product of the supermarket, a common wall which separates, a relocation capable to move an iceberg, an inhuman bureaucratic process, the story of the life cycle, a hidden contract, a tunnel, a life in speed, an immense love and a brutal loss and, finally, the story of an emotional cleansing.

1. Bon Bon (Brigita Kazlauskaite), The Dimension. A clockwork humankind, Lithuania 2016, 2.30 2. Igor Simic, The Thinker in the Supermarket, Serbia 2013, 7.00 3. Bram LattrĂŠ & Annelies Droesbeke, Il muro cattivo, Belgium 2014, 6.32 4. Mauricio Saenz, Casa iceberg, Mexico 2015, 3.10 5. Daphna Mero, Migration, Israel 2015, 13.00 6. Milan Zulic, The Circle of life, Serbia 2015, 3.30 7. Marcia Beatriz Granero, Phantom, Brazil 2014, 5.45 8. Siegmund Skalar, Der Tunnel, Austria/UK 2015, 10.10 9. Richter/Meyer/Marx (Berlin), 9991/24 (DYNAMIC BIOGRAPHY), Germany 2013, 5.45 10. Paula du Gelly, The Story of the Little Girl Who Loved Butterflies, USA 2015, 4.00 11. Larissa Bone, Abolishment of Pain, UK 2014, 1.53 ___________________________________

Video Art Miden Miden* is an independent organization for the exploration and promotion of video art.

Founded by an independent group of Greek artists in 2005, it has been one of the earliest specialized video-art festivals in Greece and has built an international festival identity, presenting an annual video art festival for a decade. Since 2015, Miden continues its work changing its form to a more flexible and broadened event programming, setting as basic aims to stimulate the creation of original video art, to help spread it and develop relevant research.

Through collaborations and exchanges with major international festivals and organizations, it has been recognized as one of the most successful and interesting video art platforms internationally and as an important cultural exchange point for Greek and international video art. It also provides an alternative meeting point for emerging and established artists and a communication hub between artists, organizations, festivals and art spaces around the world.

Miden screening programs have traveled in many cities of Greece and all over the world, and they are hosted by significant festivals, museums and institutions globally.

*Miden means “zero” in Greek Art direction: Gioula Papadopoulou & Margarita Stavraki Info: www.festivalmiden.gr || www.facebook.com/festivalmiden

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TWIXTlab: art, anthropology & the everyday * twixt: shortened version of betwixt, which means in between, neither the one not the other. The social anthropologist Victor Turner used the phrase betwixt and between in order to characterize the intermediate out of three stages of the rite of passage as ultimate transitional, subversive and creative moment of societies’ lifetime.

TWIXTlab is situated between and betwixt contemporary art, anthropology and social reality. ΤWIXTLab was founded in 2014 and adopts the form of a laboratory in order to propose or to support interventions in everyday life. ΤWIXTLab proposes art and research projects, seminars, workshops, screenings, presentations, discussions etc.. TWIXTlab’s activities address anyone wishing to participate without any prerequisites on background knowledge of contemporary art and/or anthropology.

Info: twixtlab.wordpress.com _____________________

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