Koumaria 2011 Residency

Since 2009, the Medea Electronique group has held its annual exploratory Koumaria improvisation workshop-residency in Sellasia, near Sparti in the Peloponnese. Inspired by the locale, artists from around the world create an improvised multicultural creative dialogue that feeds into a collective work they will ultimately produce and perform together.

An olive grove in the foothills of Mount Taygetus serves as an environmentally-friendly venue for creating contemporary art. A house equipped with an audiovisual studio has so far become a home from home for artists from Greece, Sweden, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Italy, Rumania, Spain, Portugal and the UK who work in spheres ranging from video art and photography to dance, programming, composition and improvisation.

Artists from different cultures and at different stages in their careers live and work together, influencing each other’s art, but impacting, too, on their experiences of life lived in close interaction with nature. The creative encounter seeks to engender experimentation, stimulating experiences and the exchange of ideas and views among people with different backgrounds and different takes on artistic creation.

Every year, the bringing together of artistic quests and their universalization through the multicultural contact and exchanges creates a discourse of singular artistic and academic interest. The process often forges long-lasting friendships between the participants, leading to further artistic cooperations.

This year, the participants in the Medea Electronique Koumaria 2011 Residency will transubstantiate the collective result of their residency into a production at the Onassis Stegi. The performance will be prefaced by Eric Lewis (Professor of Philosophy at McGill University, Montreal, Canada), who will talk about improvisational communities.

A number of new media workshops for young people and all the family will be held at the Onassis Stegi in parallel with the residency.