Onassis AiR Open Day #12

On Friday, June 21, 2024 we organize the last public event of this season, the 12th edition of our Open Days series. During the evening, you will have the opportunity to meet the Onassis AiR Fellows and find out more about the works they have been developing in the past weeks.

The event includes live events, performances, talks, multimedia installations, and soundscapes by Patricia Apergi, Larissa Araz, Mario Banushi, Ozhopé Collective, Pierre Christophe Gam, Irini Kalaitzidi, Mazen Kerbaj, Despina Krey & Orestis Mavroudis, George Koutlis, Lykourgos Porfyris, and Fotini Stamatelopoulou.

For this edition, we have also invited the Onassis AiR Chefs-in-Residence, Christina Kotsilelou and Stavros Chrysafidis to prepare some special delicacies for the night.

The Open Day #12 marks another successful collaboration of Onassis AiR with STEGI.RADIO as during the evening we will host the third iteration of Electric Cafe by STEGI.RADIO.

18:00–23:30 [presenting throughout the event]:

-Larissa Araz | The Lost Reference List – Photo Installation

-Pierre-Christophe Gam | The Global Mapping of Dreams – Installation / Lab

-Ozhopé Collective | The Planetary Ozhopé Fish M.art. – Installation

-Despina Krey & Orestis Mavroudis | Who Pays for the Marble? Research on the Socioeconomic Conditions of Visual Arts Professionals in Greece – Survey

18:00–19:00 | Mario Banushi | Mam, I remember everything – Performance + Installation (19:00–23:30)

18:00–21:00 | Lykourgos Porfyris | Blind Wise Man – Sound & Light Installation

19:00–19:30 | Patricia Apergi | House of Trouble – Presentation

19:30–20:00 | Mazen Kerbaj | Resident: Sea – Presentation

20:00 - 23:00 | Electric Cafe | Music DJ set by Chris OD, resident producer of STEGI.RADIO

21:00–21:30 | Irini Kalaitzidi | Feeding Birds – Performance

21:30–22:00 | Fotini Stamatelopoulou | NEAR MISSES – Performance

22:30–23:30 | George Koutlis | Oxygen – DJ Set / Video Projection

Patricia Apergi | House of Trouble

As part of this Open Day, Patricia Apergi will share reflections and impressions from the research that led to the creation of the performance “The House of Trouble.” She will discuss her experiences in New York and Paris, where she traveled to explore the kinetic vocabulary and traditions of street art through contemporary expressions such as ‘krump’ and ‘voguing.’

Larissa Araz | The Lost Reference List

Larissa Araz is researching three Rum (Greek Christian minorities living in Asia Minor and the Near East) women artists from Turkey, who lived between the end of the Ottoman Empire and the early years of the Turkish Republic: Eleni İliadis (1895–1975), İvi Stangali (1922–1999), and Eleonora Arhelaou (1937–2021). These women were either forced to exile or left İstanbul, Turkey, to their exile in Athens, Greece. Araz is trying to trace their existence in the archives and create a bridge between her reality and theirs.

Mario Banushi | Mam, I remember everything

As a glimpse of his research on the traditions of love and dreams, Mario Banushi will present a long durational performance about the relationship between a son and his mother. Traces of the performance will remain in the space after the performance ends as an installation for the audience to observe.

Ozhope Collective (Massa Lemu & Tavwana Chirwa) | The Planetary Ozhopé Fish M.art

Ozhopé presents an installation that takes the form of a fish market as a space for reflecting on the social, political, and ecological interconnection of Lake Malawi and the Mediterranean Sea. The installation comprises a video projection, collages, and a collection of images and objects from the fishing communities of the two water bodies.

Pierre-Christophe Gam | The Global Mapping of Dreams

Pierre-Christophe Gam will present a series of materials from “The Sanctuary of Dreams,” his ongoing investigation into the future of the African continent. Presented in the form of an artist’s studio, the installation will include drawings, sketches, mood boards, and notes. A section of the installation will elaborate on the larger project and its philosophy.
Pierre-Christophe Gam is an Onassis AiR and Onassis ONX Fellow within the framework of the European Digital Deal, a project co-funded by Creative Europe.

Irini Kalaitzidi | Feeding Birds

“Feeding Birds” is a research project exploring the fluidity and arbitrariness of movement in relation to the stiffness and absolutism of classification. For the Open Day, Irini and her team will present a performance where human dance watchers attempt to label movements similarly to what data annotators do to feed an AI movement classifier.

Mazen Kerbaj | Resident: Sea

After 40 days of isolation on a ship going around Africa, Mazen Kerbaj will talk about his experience and present excerpts of the texts and sound materials he’s been working on while on board.

Despina Krey & Orestis Mavroudis | Mapping the Socioeconomic Profile of Visual Arts Professionals in Greece

For this Open Day, Despina Krey and Orestis Mavroudis will conduct a pilot test of their survey on the socioeconomic conditions of visual artists and curators in Greece. The goal is to gather feedback and make necessary edits, improving the final questionnaire, which will be distributed in autumn.

George Koutlis | Oxygen

During the Open Day, Koutlis will grant the audience a first glimpse of the world of his upcoming project, “Oxygen.” Reign of Time – a techno DJ duo – will perform live at Onassis Stegi, giving the vibes of the project while the audience reads the titular text by Ivan Vyrypaev from a non-stop projection. Audiences can enjoy their drinks while they fill their ears with the techno sounds and their mind and souls with thoughts about love, death, religiosity, and existence.

Lykourgos Porfyris | Blind Wise Man

Lykourgos Porfyris will present the “Blind Wise Man,” a sound and light installation that will serve as a blueprint for a monologue musical staged performance. The work is a timeless and spaceless fictional story that questions stereotypes concerning people with impaired vision, and imagines alternative ways of “seeing” in the future.

Foteini Stamatelopoulou | NEAR MISSES

Foteini Stamatelopoulou, in collaboration with the sound artist Panos Alexiadis and the visual artist Dimitris Tampakis, will perform selected spoken words of the work-in-progress “NEAR MISSES,” on the impact of rage and the concepts of protection and resilience. A series of detachable metallic objects generate an armor as a personal sound and voice altar. The metallic wearables were crafted through research based on armor techniques, ex-votos symbols, and protective wear.

Electric Cafe is the meeting point for the creative scene of Athens, a hub for producers, artists and communities. An invitation to gather under the same roof and be present with each other, open to fresh ideas and yet-to-be-unearthed tastes and sonic combinations. An opportunity to solidify communal bonds while being immersed in music.

For its last iteration for this season, Electric Cafe presents Chris OD, a resident producer of Stegi.Radio. Chris OD is the selector-mode moniker of Christos Karras, a music aficionado from Athens who has been channeling his explorations into DIY publications and events, online radio shows, and DJ sets for over two decades. Expect a genre-bending venture, drawing from a vast array of eclectic approaches to rhythms and textures.

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.