Onassis AiR Open Day #11

On Friday, April 26, 2024, we open our doors once again to immerse the public in the exciting work of our artistic community. During the evening, you will have the chance to discover what the Onassis AiR Fellows have been working on these last weeks through a series of performances, live sound sessions, audiovisual installations, and artworks by Yota Argyropoulou, Dante Buu, Agape Harmani, Aristotelis Maragkos, Alyssa Moxley, evi nakou, Janis Rafa, and Phoenix Rousiamanis. For this Open Day, we have invited the Onassis AiR Fellow and curator, Eva Vaslamatzi, to contribute with a written reflection that proposes to the audience an alternative navigation of the event through her lens.

19:00-22:00 [presenting throughout the event]:

• Dante Buu | Oh Honey, you are not a Terrorist (924 hours), 2024 - Embroidery Graffiti
• Agape Harmani | Rizes/Roots/Hundee, 2024 - Video collage (10min in loop)
• Janis Rafa | Love me. Lick me. Forgive Me. - Series of Sculptural works
• Aristotelis Maragkos | T[he] last D[ays] of my Fat[her] - Installation
• evi nakou | endless distances inside me, highways of quiet - A sketch in the form of an installation

19:30-20:20 | Yota Argyropoulou | IRЯINA α memory rehearsal - Performance

21:00-21:30 | Alyssa Moxley | All this is real, but only I have heard it. - Live Sound Performance

21:30-22:00 | Phoenix Rousiamanis | Patchwork Girls - Hybrid electroacoustic songs

Yota Argyropoulou | IRЯINA α memory rehearsal

Inspired by the scientific technique of «memory rehearsal» and applying it to the performing act, Yota Argyropoulou explores mechanisms of memory and how they register and form (im)materially in the body and self of a contemporary performer (Antigone Fryda). Preparing herself to embody an iconic character, Irina - the youngest of the three sisters of Chekhov-, these three women (the maker, the performer, and the fictional persona) become a common vehicle through time and space, reconsidering female identity, while using the performative process as a profound act of remembrance.

Dante Buu | oh Honey, you are not a Terrorist (924 hours), 2024

Buu presents an embroidery graffiti created over the course of 77 days in Athens, during the holy month of Ramadan and while the winter transformed into spring.

Agape Harmani | Rizes/Roots/Hundee, 2024

For this Open Day, Agape Harmani continues her study on identity and presents a series of archival and verbal encounters with Harmanis’ family’s stories around rooting and migrating, and vice versa.

Aristotelis Maragkos | T[he] last D[ays] of my Fat[her]

In collaboration with the Cavafy Archive in Athens, Maragkos presents a series of imagined dialogues between father and son, based on Cavafy’s handwritten notes from the period when he could not speak due to the tracheostomy he underwent months before his death. A series of moving B&W paper collages interpret a selection of these notes, bringing together elements from the Cavafy Archive – diaries, photographs, and notes – and memories of Maragkos’ childhood, recorded in VHS in the early 90s. The collages construct a memory of the conversation, completing the artist’s part in it.

Alyssa Moxley | All this is real, but only I have heard it.

“The Imagined Trajectory” considers how personal mythologies, shared folklores, and intergenerational perceptions of place can be experienced through listening and compositional works. This research develops out of a collaborative project with Athens-based artist and anthropologist Evdokia Noula documenting oral histories of “neraides”, female nature spirits, still held in the living memory of older generations in villages surrounding the Evinos River. Research in progress is presented during the Open Day as a live 4-channel sound performance. Arrangements of field recordings and sound respond to fragments of oral histories and a visual score with images by Evdokia Noula and Stéphane Charpentier.

evi nakou | endless distances inside me, highways of quiet

A sketch in the form of an installation, a non-linear polyphonic composition of fragmented voice messages, visual and textual documents, materials of a research on the affect and sociability of gossip; a conglutinative re-enactment of gossip as a situated practice through sound and moving image.

concept/research/composition: evi nakou
video: Anastasia Melia Eleftheriou

The title of the piece is borrowed from the poem “Unlove” by Franny Choi.

Janis Rafa | Love me. Lick me. Forgive Me.

As part of her research on the horse’s mouth and body, Rafa presents a small selection of her ongoing series of sculptural works that focus on the notion of care, love, and protection. By reappropriating pre-existing objects and artefacts that have been used by/for horses, she attempts to speak about human-animal relationships as a format based on deception, non-consensual behavior, and human limerence.

Phoenix Rousiamanis | Patchwork Girls

The project 'Patchwork Girls' reclaims the trans-feminine voice as a source of pleasure and euphoria. It's a selection of hybrid electroacoustic songs that explore stories of marginalisation, intimacy, humor, and horror present in the Greek queer experience.

On Friday, April 26, Onassis AiR is excited to host the first welcome event that kickstarts the Onassis ONX Immersive Proof-of-Concept, an international program for Greek digital artists and creative teams focused on the creation of immersive works between April and December 2024.

Following a successful open call with over 120 proposals, the Onassis ONX Immersive Proof-of-Concept 17 shortlisted teams and artists to a Welcome Day filled with insights, innovative ideas and opportunities to connect with the immersive and world building ecosystem.
During this event, each team will have 3’ to pitch their proposals. This will be followed by a dynamic "speed-dating" session, giving the participants the unique opportunity to engage one-on-one with leaders and innovators across various creative fields, including digital art, photography, game development, and more.

A series of events that take place throughout the year, open to the general public. Open Days by Onassis AiR is an opportunity to meet the creators and Onassis AiR Fellows and learn more about their artistic research through short talks, presentations, performances, or screenings that opt to shed light on their projects’ courses. The various Open Days events are formulated according to the artistic practice of the fellows participating every time, making each Open Day utterly unique. At the Onassis AiR Open Days events for the 2023-24 season, artists from all over the world participating in the program will present their work to the public.