The Onassis Foundation supports the Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale – School of Waters
The Onassis Foundation supports the Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale – School of Waters, which takes place in San Marino for the second time after 1985, and particularly its screenings, performances, and public programs. At the same time, it supports the participations of the artists Theo Triantafyllidis and Noor Ahed.
Still from Anti-Gone by Theo Triantafyllidis
From May 15 till October 31, 2021, the works of 70 artists from 21 Mediterranean countries will be presented in San Marino for the first time. Mediterranea 19 – School of Waters is dedicated to young, emerging artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, and imagines a biennale as a temporary school inspired by radical and experimental pedagogies and the way they challenge artistic, curatorial, and research formats. The “School of Waters” acts as a collective tool to defamiliarize the stereotypes that manipulate our geographical imaginaries, and especially those linked to the eurocentric interpretation of the Mediterranean area.
Theo Triantafyllidis will present a new version of his work titled “Anti-Gone,” an Onassis Culture commission, which will be reconfigured and screened through live streaming in Titano theater, whereas Noor Abed, which participated in the School of infinite Rehearsals of Onassis Air 2020–21, works on a video installation which will be accompanied by live music. The subject matter of Abed’s performance is the representation of Palestinian myths, which he narrates through the use of music and video, and combining them with the current socio-political landscape.
Young Artists Biennale – MEDITERRANEA 19 School of Waters is coordinated in collaboration with the International Organization BJCEM – Biennale des jeunes créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (The Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean) and the Republic of San Marino (Secretary of State of Education and Culture of San Marino, Cultural Services and University of the Republic of San Marino).
Head Curators: Alessandro Castiglioni, Simone Frangi
Curatorial Team: Denise Araouzou, Giulia Colletti, Panos Giannikopoulos, Giulia Gregnanin, Theodoulos Polyviou, Angeliki Tzortzakaki, Nicolas Vamvouklis
From the work by Noor Abed
About the Artists
From the work by Noor Abed
Mediterranea 19 – School of Waters imagines a biennale as a temporary school inspired by radical and experimental pedagogies and the way they challenge artistic, curatorial, and research formats. From this standpoint, School of Waters acts as a collective tool to defamiliarise stereotypes that manipulate our geographical imaginaries, especially those linked to the eurocentric interpretation of the Mediterranean area.
Acknowledging that humans have the ability to gather, create a community, and exchange information through gossip, storytelling, and speaking about things that do not exist, Mediterranea 19 redirects its attention to arguments against human exceptionalism and aims to reconfigure the notion of learning through commoning knowledges present within non-human and human structures.
The “School of Waters” revolves around a critical rethinking of the material and symbolic agency of waters from a geopolitical and deep-ecology perspective. The desire to learn from waters reveals ways to un-train nationalisms and rediscover the watery syncretism that constituted the Mediterranean as a complex platform of life forms and knowing processes. The curatorial team develops Mediterranea 19 as an ecology of practices, trickling through various spaces, in resonance with the specificity of a small state such as the Republic of San Marino.
This curatorial concept operates on a metaphorical and on a structural level. As Lisa Robertson suggests, “biting hair, writing in water, naming god, shaking cloth – the gesture is erased at the instant of its inscription, erased by the livid autonomy of its elemental support.” In fact, the impossible act of writing in water is the core of an imagined school where water as a sentient entity is both amenable and resistant to cognitive taming.
Oceans, seas, ice caps, glaciers, lakes, rivers, aquifers, ponds, snow, rain are fluid, they melt, condense, evaporate, and are able to traverse and appear in different states. These water formations suggest the possibility of reshaping the understanding of static identities and sense of belonging in the Mediterranean, starting not from the lands but from its waters.
Still from Anti-Gone by Theo Triantafyllidis
