Loukia Alavanou

Loukia Alavanou is a visual artist. After a long engagement with artist’s film, participating in exhibitions and receiving numerous awards and distinctions internationally, in 2018 she turned to the field of VR film production, having founded the first VR production company in Greece: VRS/Virtual Raw Synergy. The company has just completed its first production “On The Way To Colonus”. Powered by Onassis Culture and supported by PCAI, it brings together leading specialists from the field of VR in Greece.

Hybrid in nature, its ‘narrative’ makes use of the particularities and possibilities of VR technology, incorporating marginalized communities that mostly live in the post-industrialist areas of West Attica, giving them an active role. ‘’On The Way To Colonus” is a collaboration with the Roma community of Nea Zoi, Aspropyrgos, essentially a modern-day ghetto. Care was given not to turn the community into “an object under observation” as is often the case in conventional VR documentaries. Instead, its members were given active and creative roles. This cutting-edge project has the form of an artistic and social experiment. It is the starting point of a series of VR productions that will be realized in collaboration with “marginalized” Balkan communities.

Her work has appeared in Greece and abroad in such places as: Palais de Bozar (Brussels), DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art (Athens), SMFA (Boston), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Moscow Biennale, State Museum of Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki), and Museum of Cycladic Art (Athens), among others. Her work is part of important international collections, including the collections of Gucci, Dakis Ioannou, The Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, ZKM, PCAI/ Polyeco Contemporary Art Initiative, Onassis Culture, and Fiorucci Art Trust.