Pali-Room
A digital platform and podcast series by Onassis AiR
Pali-Room is a digital platform and podcast series that serves as a repository for the artistic research taking place at Οnassis AiR as well as an additional way of connecting the Onassis AiR community with a broader audience.
Its name is composed of two notions that are important in the understanding of its purpose: first, the notion of the “palimpsest”—a piece of writing or an interface that is being reused or altered while retaining the visible traces of its earlier forms. In the same way that a palimpsest isn’t linear, as it preserves fragments and echoes of the past that coexist with new elements from the present, each Fellow’s work builds on and interacts with multiple layers of influence. The podcast series, thus, explores these different layers, reflecting upon the hybrid, manifold, ever-expanding nature of artistic practice and research.
Secondly, the idea of the “room” indicates a virtual extension of a room inside the Onassis AiR spaces, where the Onassis AiR community meets, works, and shares collective moments of exchange. Set as a place you can always return to, like the residency’s physical spaces, the Pali-Room website is designed to stage conversations and recordings that become a lasting record of the interdisciplinary approaches that the program hosts.
Each conversation is available as an audio recording accompanied by its transcript and supplemented by a series of highlighted and hyperlinked materials that provide additional information on the practice, influences, writings or readings of each participant.
In its first iteration, between 2020 and 2022, the platform hosted a series of recorded conversations between curator, Onassis AiR Fellow, and program collaborator Myrto Katsimicha and residency participants from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. The thirty-two conversations that Myrto curated and recorded map the early years of the Onassis AiR residency and emphasize on some of the core themes of the program. Interviewees include: Orestis Athanasopoulos, Tristan Bera, Nuno Cassola, Marc Delalonde, Bryony Dunne, Cate Giordano, Samuel Hertz, Stella Ioannidou, Laure Jaffuel, Marta Keil, Saba Khan, Christina Kotsilelou, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Zoey Lubitz, Manolis Manousakis, Marcela Menezes, Vladimir Miller, Marina Milliou-Theocharaki, Paribartana Mohanty, Isra Muhammad, Inés Muñozcano, Asli Özdoyuran, Aris Papadopoulos, Georgios Papadopoulos, Margarita Pita, Paz Ponce, Theo Prodromidis, Lito Skopeliti, Felipe Steinberg, virgil b/g taylor, Amanda Vincelli, and Lydia Xynogala.
In 2024, the platform was reactivated with a new concept and contributors. The new sound-works include discussions between invited curators and members of the Onassis AiR community. The second iteration of the program is introduced by the curator and Onassis AiR Fellow Danai Giannoglou who is in conversation with five participants of the 2023-2024 program: Sofia Dona, Laura Jane Grace, Stefanos Levidis, Pink House press, and Paky Vlassopoulou.
Photo: Onassis AiR
Danai Giannoglou in conversation with Paky Vlassopoulou
Upon the invitation of Onassis AiR, this Pali-Room series responds and corresponds to a need for more space for writing, reading, and listening regarding the practices and research of the creative individuals that, in one way or another, make up the cultural ecology of Athens.
The selection of interlocutors is based on an amalgam of existing and new relationships. In some cases, I have used Pali-Room as a platform to expand on pre-existing, ongoing dialogues with artists I have collaborated with in the past. In other cases, I turned Pali-Room into a meeting point for new encounters and exchanges.
Although the five conversations took place over the course of a year and involved artists and researchers from the different branches of Onassis AiR, I believe that each remains crucially and critically topical and contributes to a wider understanding of the practices under discussion and the realities that surrounds them.
I would like to thank Paky Vlassopoulou, Pink House Press (Ersi Varveri & Gijs Waterschoot), Sofia Dona, Stefanos Levidis, and Laura Jane Grace for their generosity and for the throughs we shared and exchanged during this process. I am also grateful to the incredible Onassis AiR team – Nefeli Myrodia, Sotiria Smyrnaiou, and Ioanna Zouli – for their support, understanding, patience, and the frame they created around and within this series.
