Angelos Varvarousis

Angelos Varvarousis (b. 1983) lives and works in Athens and Barcelona. He is a researcher and curator with a background in urban studies, human geography, and urban political ecology. He holds a PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where he also teaches the MA course “Commons and Social Movements.” He is a visiting lecturer at the “Performing Public Space” MA program of the Fontys School of Fine and Performing Arts; at the University of Bayreuth where he collaborates with the “Plural Economics” research group; and at the National Technical University of Athens where he teaches at the course “Mutations of Urban Concepts.” His work has been presented in many international conferences across Europe and the Americas. He has worked for international institutions, such as the British Council, the European Commission, and the Oslo Architecture Triennale. He collaborates with the Onassis Foundation since 2016 on various artistic, performative and research projects.

His view on the commons is rather unconventional, since he focuses more on temporary experiences of commoning, investigating their liberating and transformative potential. In order to explain such moments of transgression and change, he is developing the framework of “liminal commons,” in which he draws parallels between the archaic rituals of transition and the collective practices that develop in contemporary crisis-driven societies.