Dear Eastern Europe, | Photobook Exhibition
Athens Photo Festival 2024 Satellite Program
Through a series of coincidental - and not so coincidental - meetings, we began to correspond, create, and establish relationships with artists, independent publishing projects, and artist-run spaces from Eastern Europe. Somehow, an unseen and diverse photobook scene unfolded before us. In this exhibition, we share a collection of some of the discoveries that came into our hands, with the desire to disclose and expand this correspondence to even more recipients.
Participants: Abi Shehu, Agata Ciastoń, Agata Grzybowska, Agata Kalinowska, Alla Mirovskaya, Andrian Wykrota, Beata Bartecka, David Molina Gadea, Hubert Humka, Igor Pisuk, Kacper Kowalski, Katerina Kouzmitcheva, Łukasz Rusznica, Matej Sitar, Matija Brumen, Michał Sita, Monika Orpik, Nikola Mihov, Nina Weymann, Olga Vorobyova, Olson Lamaj, Yuanyuan Yang
Curator: Alexandra Saliba, Yorgos Yatromanolakis
Assistant curator: Orane Grunenwald
The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Hellenic Centre of Photography Library.
Opening 19 June at 18:00
Duration: 19 June – 29 June 2024
Opening hours: Wednesday to Saturday 18:00 – 21:00
Zoetrope / Kimolou 17, 11362, Kypseli, Athens
A glimpse of // Photobook Exhibition
Photometria International Photography Festival
Through a curated selection of photobooks and zines from Zoetrope Athens’s Library, the exhibition 'A glimpse of' aims to offer a temporary snapshot of today’s Greek independent and self-publishing scene.
The showcased books are recent editions, reflecting the diverse approaches, methods, and practices of their creators who have embraced the photobook as their primary artistic medium.
Founded in 2019, Zoetrope Athens’s library is open to the public and houses a collection of self-published photobooks and independent publishing initiatives from both Greece and abroad. Continuously growing, the library serves as a dynamic platform and a stable point of reference for Zoetrope’s program.
Participants: Kostis Argyriadis, Alexis Vasilikos, Ania Vouloudi, Anna Georgiou, Evangelos Daskalakis,Yannis Karpouzis, Nikos Kachrimanis, Yorgos Kapsalakis, Foteini Korre, Maria Kosmidi, Charalampos Kydonakis, Persephone Michou, Dimitris Mytas, Katerina Moschou, Margarita Yoko Nikitaki, Georgia, Ponirakou, Georges Salameh, Danai Simou, Alexei Siozov, Maria Siorba, Markos Tetradis, Yiannis Hadjiaslanis
Curated by Zoetrope Athens (Yorgos Yatromanolakis, Alexandra Saliba)
Photometria Photography Center (PPC)
Duration: 23.9 – 22.10
Thu – Sun: 17:00 – 21:00
Mystery 37 Voices of Elefsina
Open Call for Participation to the community radio of Elefsina
An online radio station, from which the residents of Elefsina will be able to broadcast live their own audio content, will start operating at the Old Railway Station of the city. People aged 5 to 105 years old, collectives, initiatives, associations and groups of all kinds from Elefsina and all those interested are welcome to attend, with free participation, a series of educational workshops (radio production, audio documentary, podcast etc.), which will give them tools, knowledge and inspiration to experiment with the world of sound and create their own broadcasts in the station.The sounds, voices and narratives that will be produced for the station will be transmitted outside in the public space, through a radio installation that will spread in Elefsina, thus creating an original radio adventure for visitors and residents. The Voices of Elefsina, however, will travel beyond the city’s borders, making their mark stronger through broadcasts on FM radio stations and online stations in Greece and abroad.
Our voices are heard:
The Mystery 37 Voices of Elefsina is a community-based project that focuses on broadcasting. Its aim is to create an experimental radio station that will be owned, powered and operated by the local community of Elefsina. Through a series of participatory artistic activities, experiential and interdisciplinary workshops, Voices of Elefsina encourages the development of an open space where the city’s residents can make their voices heard. The bottom-up production of radio content will illuminate and highlight different aspects of the city’s history, identity, collective memory and cultural heritage, strengthening the sense of belonging and contributing to its transition to a new era. Although local, Voices of Elefsina will travel beyond the city’s borders through collaborations – and live broadcasts – with other radio stations and networks in Greece, Europe and the world.
Blurring The Raster | Photobooks In Riso
Exhibition and Talks
Riso printing has become a popular choice for independent publishers, artists, and designers around the world. The technique is characterised by its imperfections, imprecision, and unpredictability, that is linked to the origin and the idiosyncratic function of the machine. Each riso print is thus unique, with shifts, smudges or odditie. Unlike traditional printing techniques, risography doesn't reproduce an image exactly but rather transcribes it differently. By using slightly or totally different colors, it creates alternative versions of the image, opening up immense possibilities to rethink the purpose of the printed image and its context.
Risography originated in Japan in the 1940s. It is a direct tone printing system that uses a stencil printer to create images with bright, fluorescent colors and textured rendering. The technique is eco-friendly, using vegetable oil-based inks that dry slowly by absorption into uncoated paper. Each ink uses its own drum, which is fed in and out of the machine as required, making it a low-cost method of producing large quantities of work using a limited number of colors.
The exhibition ‘Blurring The Raster | Photobooks In Riso’ presents 44 photobooks and zines from Greece and abroad, framed by a series of parallel talks, offering a glimpse into the diverse and creative possibilities and particularities of risograph printing while questioning the conventional notion and experience of the printed image.
Initiated by Zoetrope Athens in collaboration with Alice Laurichesse, Keda*Press, Dolce, Athens Zine Bibliotheque, Sleep On It Press, RNVP and Quintal Atelier from Paris, the library Herbarium Riso in Berlin and the nomadic collection of Zines of the Zone.
30.03.23 at 18:00 : Exhibition Opening
31.03.23 at 18:00 : Parallel talks, a discussion around Risography in Photobooks by Alice Laurichesse, Keda*Press, Dolce and Zines of the Zone.
Books: Augure I - Rodrigue de Ferluc, La dernière visite - Eliot Nasrallah, TAKO - Laia Bonastre, Dallol - Jeff Le Cardiet, The Girl You Lost To Cocaïne (2) - Maxime Muller, Arpenter - Alice Laurichesse, Greek dog days - Ilja Niederkirchner, Kuebiko - Evangelos Daskalakis, Island - Andrew O'Carroll, Blurry Territory - Georgios Plastok & Alfred Fabricius, Gestures of lover - Ellie English, Sometimes I take pictures of strangers too, but it's more difficult - Karina Golisová, Ten African shops - Rubén Montesinos, Routine - Alloprosalos nous / A*, Annie - Annie Tsevdomaria, The cemetery is a forest - Olga Vereli & Katerina Markoulaki, Metaphors - Dimitra Dede, Something I see through doors - Kati Akraio, The Rose - Nikos Nikolaidis, You are Mine now - Ioannis Karmaniolos, Strays- Folded City, Harry - Céline Guillerm & Alice Laurichesse, Domus Locked 2 - ΗΓΗ & Keda*Press, In Situ - Bertus Gressen, O tempo se fabrica - Bia Bittencourt, Kenned - Steven Dreux, Evan Lunven & Clément Le Page, Land of the setting sun - Miyuki Okuyama, Tatu Tita #1 - Jone Taberna, Miguel Orcal & Lorena Otero,Friture, Anarchie, Vandalisme - Anonymes, Plutati u Vremenu na zemljiI - Sergej Vutuc, 2 Niice - Gabe Gonzales, Around The Corner - Andrea Reza, OSOBb - Alina Gutkina, Tokyo Beach - Robert Blair, Place And - Suzanna Zak, Aún te Espero - Anaí Tirado, I wanna be sedated - Matt Plezier, Design Studies + Projections - Anne & Eugene Timerman, Semra For Life - Gloria Glitzer, Frumai - Yuri Manabe, Many dimensions of a soul people - Justin Samson, The basis of zero-point energy inventions - Benjamin Phelan, Untitled - Joseph Akel, Distribute with love - Dah Yee Noh
30-31/03/2023, 18:00-22:30
Zoetrope Kimolou 17, 11362, Kypseli, Athens
Verso of Perception
Photobook Exhibition
The terms "verso" and "recto" have traditionally been used within the context of book publishing to refer to the two sides of a sheet of paper. The recto side is typically considered the front side of a sheet of paper, as it is usually the side that is printed or written on first. In contrast, the verso side is the backside of a sheet of paper, typically the side that is printed or written on second οr even left blank.
The exhibition "Verso of Perception" subverts this traditional understanding of the verso as secondary or less important, instead presenting it as a powerful site for alternative perspectives and counter-narratives. The exhibition features works by 21 Greek women artists, including rare photo books, photo-zines, and dummies, revealing and empowering neglected, overlooked, and oppressed points of view.
Mostly through the act of self-publishing, the participating artists attempt to reflect their own experiences and offer alternatives to the dominant cultural representations of gender, sexuality, and identity in Greece. By framing their work as a "verso" to the predominantly male-dominated and patriarchal "recto," the exhibition aims to create a temporary space of sharing and compassion that can inspire social empathy and understanding.
Participants: Eirini Angelidi, Aimilia Balaska, Klavdia Balampanidou, Evangelia Biza, Anna Georgiou, Loukia Goni, Galateia Iatraki, Foteini Korre, Tonia Koinaki, Maria Kosmidi, Alexandra Masmanidi, Persephone Michou, Katerina Moschou, Antigoni Papantoni, Ariadne Pediotaki, Antonia Petriti, Georgia Ponirakou, Alexandra Saliba, Maria Siorba, Eliza Tamo, Ania Vouloudi
Initiated by ZOETROPE ATHENS & Co-curated by Abigaël Coeffier and Alice Laurichesse within the framework of their internship program.
Friday 03.03.23 18:00 / 22:00
Saturday 04.03.23 17:00 / 21:00
Zoetrope, Kimolou 17, 11362, Athens
5th BCK Film Symposium
Decolonise | 19-26.11.2022
The 5th Balkan Can Kino Film Symposium (#5BCKFS) is coming back this November, in Athens!
This year's Symposium focuses the subject DECOLONISE, and it consists of 35 physical screenings, 41 video-installations, masterclasses, discussions, and Q&As.
What is colonisation today? Are we colonised? How do we decolonize? Why is decolonization important in social movement’s struggles? What is privilege? How does tourism affect local communities? What does it mean to live as a minority? How do we deconstruct gender? Do the cities, we live in, belong to us?
From 19 to 26 November 2022, through screenings of short and feature films, video installations, discussions and workshops, #BCKFS presents new and innovative audiovisual narratives that raise questions about our own identity and position to decolonization. The #5BCKFS takes place in different locations, spaces and galleries in Athens.
All symposium events are free of charge for the public.
Through the website of #5ΒCKFS, found in the above link, you can find further information about the daily physical and online screenings, as well as about the parallel events of the Film Symposium.
Stay tuned!
>>> #5BCKFS Programme <<<
Book Launch 'Kuebiko'
A photobook by Evangelos Daskalakis
Book launch of 'Kuebiko' by Evangelos Daskalakis, a photobook developed and published in collaboration with Zoetrope Athens.
In Japanese culture “Kuebiko” is the scarecrow. Just like scarecrows that stand still only to scare birds away, humans are at an impasse as well, passive observers of all that is happening around them – of what they have created. Meanwhile, they have become a threat not only to birds, but to their ecosystem as a whole: They have waged a war against it.
Evangelos Daskalakis’ Kuebiko takes the experience of the covid epidemic, where people and any sense of hope were quarantined indefinitely, and creates an apocalyptic memorial, a desperate travelogue of a no-man’s land in black and white, mostly in darkness. What has remained in the city’s streets are corpses in bags, amid police and the army, as they impose curfew and control over the Other’s body: officers in masks, and in oxygen masks, in full-blown uniforms, – faceless –, patrolling with big vehicles, pointing electronic thermometers, as if guns targeting the head.
Daskalakis takes his photographic documentation of a historical event and turns it into a cyberpunk graphic novel, a film noir about to be shot. The dystopia we are faced with seeps through the pores of this book; and those of the viewer.
Is this a true image of the only future we have created for ourselves?
Text: Pasqua Vorgia
Saturday 19th of November, 18:00 > 22:30
Zoetrope / Kimolou 17, Κypseli 11362 Athens
Polycopies Paris '22
We are all set and ready to float at the Seine river for Polycopiés '22. Join us and get to meet an eclectic selection of rare photobooks from the Greek independent scene, meet the artists behind the books,meet us and join our book signing program.
Created in 2014, Polycopies is an non-profit for the distribution and promotion of independent photographic publishing (books, multiples, paper objects and experimental publishing practices).
Every year, Polycopies organizes its festival during the week of Paris-Photo, and transforms the boat Concorde-Atlantique, moored at the quays of the Seine, into a large ephemeral bookstore fully dedicated to photography books.
In 2022, visitors will be welcomed by more than eighty french and international publishers and booksellers. Polycopies has become a meeting place for many amateurs, collectors, authors and publishers who like to share and confront their ideas on photography practices, understand the stakes of publishing, exchange their discoveries and favorite books, or submit dummies and see new projects being initiated.
Artist's: Katerina Moschou, Maria Siorba, Evangelos Daskalakis, Maria Kosmidi, Kostis Argyriadis, Michael Almiroudis, Yannis Karpouzis, Alexis Vasilikos, Yiannis Hadjiaslanis, Ioannis Karmaniolos, Georges Salameh, Charalampos Kydonakis, Yorgos Yatromanolakis
Bateau Concorde-Atlantique - Berges de Seine
Port de Solferino - 75007 Paris
Métro: Assemblée Nationale ou Concorde
More info: here
Kassel Dummy Award 2022
International Exhibition Tour
The Kassel Dummy Award, founded by Fotobookfestival Kassel, is an annual competition for the best unpublished photobook mock-up of the year.
In 12th edition of the Awards a total of 226 books from 32 countries were submitted and 52 books were selected for the shortlist by an international jury. The books are currently part of a traveling exhibition partnering with a number of international photography events and venues. Zoetrope is pleased to host the International Exhibition Tour of Kassel Dummy Award 2022 in Athens.
Artists: Alberto Moretti, Alessandro Cirillo, Angelo Bonetti, Anna Fritsche, Anna Strand, Barbara Debeuckelaere, Bebe Blanco Agterberg, Bente Tas, Caroline Heinecke, Chris Shaw, Corinna Mehl, Dillon Marsh, Doğa Deniz Gönüllü, Eliot Nasrallah, Florian Dürkopp, Franziska Rieder, Frederike Finster, Helena Manhartsberger, Ilkay Karakurt, Isabell Hoffmann, Jakob Ganslmeier, Jan Ladwig, Jana Mai, Jef Van den Bossche, Johann Süßebecker, Julia Autz Kanta Nomura, Kathleen Alisch, Leonie Lisette Göttling, Linda Zhengová, Lou-Lou van Staaveren, Mads Holm Marcello Coslovi, Martina Zaninelli, Melina Papageorgiou, Nick Somers, Nico Buurman, Nicolas Guiraud, Nikolaos Kachrimanis, Peter Pflügler, Polina Rukavichkina, Rahier Pierre, Stefan Weger, Steffi Drerup, Steven Natusch,Thu Hien Hoang, Tim Wagner, Tobias Eineder, Uta Genilke, Victor Morales García, Vitor Casemiro, Yura Kolomiets
Opening: Wednesday 20 of July at 19:00
Duration: 20.07.22 - 25.07.22, 19:00-22:00 & by appointment
Zoetrope, Kimolou 17, 11362, Athens
On Magnets, Circles and Attraction
An installation by Benni Ciappini
We are happy to present the installation 'On Magnets, Circles and Attraction' by Benni Ciappini within the framework of her internship at Zoetrope Athens.
Attraction: (meaning) the act, process or power of attracting/ the action or power of drawing forth a response/ a force acting mutually between particles of matter, tending to draw them together, and resisting their separation.
Attraction has a very big impact on inanimate and human existence. its influence goes from an atomic and microscopical level to a universal and metaphorical one.
Attraction is the base of magnetism, gravity, electricity, but also the cause of human emotions, relationships and societies. It unites the human and the non- human world, ruling both of them and putting them in conversation with each other.
As a magnet is drawn towards metal and our body is drawn to the centre of the earth, humans can be drawn towards each other or towards objects and materials, or feel repulsion for them. The laws and reasons that lay behind these motions are often blurry and difficult to identify.
Why are we attracted to certain materials? Why do I feel more fascination for circles over squares? Why does a magnet attract iron, but not wood? How can attraction and repulsion look like? It is possible to show them through the photographical medium? If so, where and how can I witness them around me?
In the last three months, the city has been my playground to experiment with the idea of attraction, and offered me the space and time to ask myself questions and look for some (rare) answers.
I photographed, I observed, I collected. My aim is to put all the material that I gathered together to give it back to the city of Athens by showing it, and to showcase the process of it as a starting point for a way broader research.
Wednesday 04 of May at 19:30
Zoetrope, Kimolou 17, 11362, Athens
‘Inanimate dialogues / Let the things speak’
An open day book selection by Benni Ciappini
Objects, materials, ruins, inanimate things have the power to communicate a story, both through their physical presence and characteristics, and their representation in art.
They might not be able to speak the way we do, but they hide a power of communication and influence within themselves. Not in a human way, but in their own way, with their own weight and intention. When the human voice meets the material voice, the one found in the streets, in our homes, in nature, a new kind of evocative dialogue starts, bringing us to unexpected results. To start to look at things is to start a new way of looking.
Within the framework of my internship, I had the opportunity to get to know and connect with the photobooks that inhabit ZOETROPE’S library. Books, which are also themselves inanimate things, have the great power of telling us a story, of making us feel something, both through the way they are
bound together and through the images and text they are adorned with.
Through this small selection of photobooks, I aim to research the power of inanimate, nonhuman figures, and how through the photographic medium they can bring to life stories and evoke emotions just as much as humans can. It is an invitation to appreciate and start noticing the inner beauty of matter and let it speak its stories.
Book selection: Government of Things by Konstantinos Doumpenidis, Genius Seculi by Michael Almiroudis, Sehnsucht by Alexei Siozov, Pendulum by Stefania Orfanidou, MUNDUS by Sophia Tolika, Texas by Dimitris Tsoumplekas, Blurry Territory by Georgios Plastok, Alfred Fabricius
Wednesday 16/3/22 at 12:00 - 20:00
Zoetrope, Kimolou 17, Kypseli, Athens
Perzines: zines as self-portraits
A selection by Andromache Kokkinou
“So much of zine-making is about reclaiming—reclaiming the freedom of expression, reclaiming space, reclaiming the past.”
Michelle Santiago Cortés
The digital archives of our lives on major platforms get censored or shadow-banned by the algorithm. There is a turn to self-publishing, in an attempt to reclaim how and what we share about our experiences.
Zines defy categorization; however, perzines (personal zines) are the largest genre. The confessional tone of perzines, their immediacy and physicality offer an alternative to social media, where self-expression is toned down, and directed to an audience as branded content. Perzines are, in fact, political, countering the dominant narrative, a space where we are making our own media without censorship.
Andromache Kokkinou presents a selection of perzines from her collection with this question in mind:How do we talk about ourselves in zines?
This Open Day at Zoetrope we are going to read zines recounting the creative process, identity, counter-narratives, zines sharing community-based knowledge, lockdown diaries, and more, expressed in different media, folded and stapled and ready to hold in your hands.
With works by: EA Douglas, Asparagus Plumosa, Raezorbeamdreams, Andromache, Echozines, Maranda Elizabeth, Resister collective, Main draw, Olga Vereli, Jacco Weener, Glitterwurst, Elisaszines, Morrigan Ivy
Andromache Kokkinou is active in the independent publishing scene as a writer, editor, and zinester, among other things. She runs a nomadic zine library, workshop series, and organizes zine swaps. Her practice includes elements of experimental writing, visual poetry, digital collage, 00s online fan cultures, magic realism, and the Gothic. She is based in Athens, Greece.
Wednesday 23/2/22 at 12:00 - 20:00
Zoetrope, Kimolou 17, Kypseli, Athens
Attempt to Discover by K.Theissen
A temporary and personal collection of photobooks
K.Theissen is an artist and photographer based in Berlin, who we had the great pleasure of having as an intern and collaborator.
On Wednesday the 2nd of February, Theissen is presenting ‘Attempt to discover’ a curated temporary and personal collection of photobooks, stemming from her experience and work at our library.
“I’ ve been working my way through the ZOETROPE’s library lately. Looking through it, I asked myself questions, noticed differences and discovered similarities in dramaturgy, in design and in dealing with content and symbolism.
‘Attempt to discover’ is a personal experiment to explore subjective sense and interest, to examine connections in those, to form chains of impulses and references and to bring them into connection with each other, to analyze elements and fragments of different works, to structure reflection and to try to find out how connections in the construct of memory and association arise.
It is simply a glimpse into my very subjective thoughts, a summary of my research and an attempt for me to put it into a form from which I can draw useful conclusions.”
Selected Books: Łukasz Rusznica - Subterranean River, Antonis Theodoridis - Newspaper from the American West, M.H. Frøslev - Unsettled City, Georges Salameh - Hear you Athens, Elena Kollatou & Leonidas Toumpanos - Avoid Area, Alexis Vasilikos - Variations of Presence & Daisies Zine - Issue 01
Wednesday 2/2/22 at 12:00 - 20:00
Zoetrope, Kimolou 17, Kypseli, Athens
Blind Spots
Photobook Exhibition
“The books went up in sparkling whirls
and blew away on a wind turned dark burning.”
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Book burning in public view is a typical practice for exercising power and censorship in authoritarian and fascists regimes. Today, censorship, propaganda and control of information are still being practiced even within the contemporary liberal democracies with the use of technologies and unseen methods.
The main characteristic of these methods is that they no longer focus on limiting or blocking information, but rather on dissolving everything in an absolutely chaotic avalanche of data, where anything unwanted gets lost, becomes fragmentary and thus dormant.
We live in a distracted world, in which reality considered partially deploys itself in its own general unity as a pseudo-world apart. One of the dominant elements of this reality are images. Images that we are bombarded with on a daily basis unable to respond but individually, instantly and affectively, ending – up into some kind of blindness and apraxia.
In this world a photobook seems to be able to act as a blind spot for the mechanisms of control and normalization of the intensity in the flux of information. This is because the book, as a medium and a narrative system, can construct solid and pluralized narratives, awakening concentration and inviting the reader to produce meaning. In this sense a photobook can build resistances while cultivating conditions of praxis and suggesting possible ways out.
In the exhibition “Blind Spots” we attempt to present a collection of such photobooks from Greece and the world. Books that preserve and shed light to different layers, point of views and temporalities of historicity, books that renegotiate and restore in the present repressed or traumatic events, books that deconstruct and fluidify dominant identities and ideologies and books that break imposed silences strengthening and giving credence to suppressed voices.
Alexandra Saliba – Yorgos Yatromanolakis
MedPhoto Festival
Contemporary Art Museum of Crete
Duration: 11 December 2021 - 06 March 2022
The Flyer Archive
Open Call
In The Flyer Archive we are pointing our finger to the flyer.
It is some kind of research about the nature of the flyer.
The flyer is destined for a short lifespan and ends up soon in the trash once it has fulfilled it message of 2 for 1 pizza, political awakening or propaganda, some party or concert, or any other message it wants to mediate.
The archive is a safe haven for the flyer, it wants to accumulate them let them meet and let them continue to have a purpose.
Bring your favorite existing flyer or create your own imagined flyer and slip 3 copies of them under Zoetrope’s door (17 Kimolou Street, Kypseli) from today and by the 7th of November 2021.
The archive will open for flyer exchanges and explorations from the 5th to the 7th of November, from 16:00 to 21:00, at Zoetrope.
Initiated by Print and Friends within the framework of HEAD2HEAD the archive will collect flyers from Athens – Reykjavik and beyond.
"Greek Dog Days" Book Launch, Exhibition and Signing
by Ilja Niederkirchner & Replika Publishing
Greek Dog Days is a shadowed meander through city streets and inter-city roads. Niederkirchner migrates from one desolate scene to the next as if he himself is one of the dogs; vagrant, aimless. Photographs of ghosts of Greece's past follow him as he documents Greece's present. While dark in nature, Niederkirchner’s photographs suggest also the country’s clean slate as it were; perhaps an opportunity for regrowth in a new, hopeful direction.
Wild and dusky with glimpses of affection, the Greece portrayed by Niedderkirchner is misted yet razor-sharp. Greek Dog Days invites us on an entrancing and ominous journey; walks past empty shops, as if abandoned, concrete rules over nature while the stereotype of clear blue greek sky is lacking. Only the traces of life are present; laundry hanging from windows, but the people themselves are markedly absent. The dogs are unfaltering in their glare, showing their control.
Presented for the first time at the origin of the work, Greek Dog Days at Zoetrope is intimate and ephemeral in both subject matter and presentation. The artist Ilja Niederkirchner will be present for an artist talk and book signing at the opening event on Friday the 22nd of October from 17:30.
Ilja Niederkirchner is a graduate of the Neue Schule für Fotografie in Berlin. His first work "The Only Thing That Matters" was published in Die Nacht Magazin in 2016 and as a Photobook by Calin Kruse with Die Nacht Publishing in 2017. "Greek Dog Days" has been published by Freya Copeland and Youvalle Levy at Replika Publishing. Greek Dog Days has been reviewed by Paula Gortázar on C4Journal and is the recipient of the 2020 Volumes Award Zürich by Kunsthalle Zürich. His work lies between documentary and personal storytelling.
Replika Publishing (founded 2015, Berlin) is an independent publisher producing work under two branches; Replika Volumes and Replika Artist Books. The former is a three-dimensional, curated artist periodical in which artists, writers, musicians, and creators of all descriptions are invited to respond to a given theme with object-based works. The latter; through close collaboration with artists who work in photo-related mediums; small-run artist books. We explore new methods of exhibition through printed matter and book arts.
Opening: Friday 22/10/21 17:30
Duration: Friday 22/10/21 - Sunday 24/10/21 17:30 - 22:00
Zoetrope, Kimolou 17, Kypseli, Athens
4th Balkan Can Kino Film Symposium
The F* Word: SCREENS IN LOOP
The F*Word returns for a second year, and in the context of #4BCKFS, presents the 3-day installation The audience will be able to watch, admission-free, 27 contemporary experimental films, video art pieces and animated films, created by female filmmakers, from 16 different countries, on four screens playing in a loop.
The F*Word is a BCK initiative and aims to create a chain of emerging female* filmmakers. Last year, in the frame of #3BCKFS, 12 emerging Balkan female filmmakers and academics, from 7 countries of the wider Balkan region, during a 4-hour online roundtable, discussed the representations of gender, female body politics, work environments, wages and job opportunities. The audience had the chance to watch 3 min. excerpts of the roundtable participants’ work, alongside a written Q&A.
More info here:http://balkan-can-kino.com/the-f-word-creating-a-chain-of-emerging-female-filmmakers/
In addition, each evening at 20.00, a special #4BCKFS screening will take place.
On Tuesday 12th of October, there will be a retrospective of Susu Laroche’s work with the filmmaker attending the screening for a Q&A with the audience, curated by Pugnant Film Series.
On Wednesday, 13th of October, we will present a co-curated short film programme from the British Council and BCK, showcasing five short films made in the UK.
Last, on Thursday, 14th of October, we will present the curated short film programme by Flavia Dima, “Female Waves: Romanian Experimental'', with the filmmaker Teona Galgoțiu attending the event.
The installation will run from 17.00 to 20.00 each day. Both the installation and all the screenings that follow are admission-free, but due to limited space, the audience needs to pre-book a seat for the screenings by sending an email to balkancankino@gmail.com
Photobook boom | The Greek case
THESSALONIKI PHOTOBIENNALE 2021
The global boom in photobooks is a growing reality in Greece as well, with its own facets and multiplicities.
The independent Greek self-publishing scene, which seems to be the most active in terms of diversity and number of produced photo-books, is of particular interest. More and more artists are systematically exploring handmade and experimental artistic practices, to create photobooks while they seem to be tracing in parallel an alternative way to display their photographic work in which intimacy, storytelling and materiality are central.
The sequencing of the images, the nature and the choice of the materials, the design, the methods of bookbinding and the printing techniques that the artists employ are key elements of their artistic process. Because of this organic relationship between the content and the materials, photobooks are autonomous and idiosyncratic objects and their reading is an immersive experience.
The multitude and the range of these editions as well as the personal-political element that they exude, is related on the one side with the quest of many artists for more inclusive and pluralized spaces, in which the audience can encounter their work and on the other side with an urgency of reflecting upon the current socio-political life.
The exhibition Photobook Boom | Τhe Greek Case presents an indicative collection of photobooks and dummies of the last three years, in an attempt to equally represent the wide spectrum of the domestic self-publishing photobook community, which is now leaving its own considerable mark on the contemporary history of the photographic medium.
Artists: Mary Chairetaki, Panos Charalampidis, Anargyros Drolapas, Yiannis Hadjiaslanis, Haris Kakarouhas, Yorgos Karailias, Charalampos Kydonakis, Alexandra Masmanidi, Dimitris Mytas, Stefania Orfanidou, Athanasia Papadopoulou, Stylianos Papardelas, Antonia Petriti, Artemis Pyrpilis, Georges Salameh, Alexei Siozov, Dimitris Tairis, Sophia Tolika, Annie Tsevdomaria, Ania Vouloudi, Eva Voutsaki, Spyros Zervoudakis
Curation: Alexandra Saliba, Yorgos Yatromanolakis
Nurturing archives, nurturing communities
Athens Art Book Fair | Public Program
In what ways does the care of an archive help to create more intimate bonds between artists, readers and publishers by empowering the contemporary scene of independent publications? And how does the relationship between audience and archive expand when housed in environments where exchange and collaboration are encouraged?
The participants will talk about the process of nurturing spaces and archives of artists’ books and how this has contributed to the visibility and support of local communities.
Presentation with Athens Zine Bibliotheque, Zoetrope Language: Greek
Tuesday September 07 2021
Athens Art Book Fair 2021
The Local Edition invites us to think in a smaller geographic scale and to reassess notions of locality. Turning the insecurity that surrounds international travels into an opportunity for introspection, this year’s edition focuses on publishing practices based in and around Greece.
Aiming to showcase the diversity of publishing practices, the AABF brings together established publishing houses, institutions, small presses and experimental, DIY publication projects.
On the 11th and 12th of September visitors will have the opportunity to explore a wide range of printed matter; from artist books, photobooks and zines, to poetry publications, independent magazines and rare editions.
September 11-12/ 11:00-21:00
Kypseli Municipal Market
Pack the Books Flat
Photobook Exhibition
Zoetrope is on the go!
‘Pack the Books Flat’ is a traveling photobook exhibition designed to present a variation of collections from Zoetrope’s library in different places and spaces out there.
Participants: Eirini Angelidi, Calliopi Beku, Thomas Beltsios, Loukia Goni, Yannis Karpouzis, Charalampos Kydonakis, Elena Kollatou & Leonidas Toumpanos, Christos Lialios, Georgia Ponirakou, Alexandra Saliba, Danai Simou, Ellie Tsatsou, Alexis Vasilikos, Olga Vereli & Katerina Markoulaki, Yorgos Yatromanolakis
First stop: Cantina Analogue, Hermoupolis, Syros
Dates: Friday 23.07 - Sunday 25.07 at 11:00 - 24:00
Time to Blossom.
Open Lab Exhibition
‘Time to Blossom. Open Lab Exhibition’ presents ten experimental approaches in developing and constructing visual narratives, through the process of photobook making.
The exhibition attempts to unfold in space, the reflections, the attempts and the different artistic practices and methods, employed by the participant artists, during the production of their works, within the framework of the workshop ‘Time to Blossom’ instructed by Yorgos Yatromanolakis.
Participants: Calliopi Beku, Thomas Beltsios, Loukia Goni, Nelli Kolyvodiakou, Pelly Mandreka, Alexandra Masmanidi, Ismini Mathioudaki, Ioanna Natsikou, Eva Stamatiou and Petros Toufexis.
Saturday 26/06 & Sunday, 27/06 15:00 - 22:00
Zoetrope | Kimolou 17, Kypseli, 11362, Athens
Phases Magazine
Portofolio Reviews
We are pleased to announce the first Phases Magazine portfolio reviews, at Zoetrope Athens. The portfolio reviewers will be Phases Magazine editors Alexis Vasilikos and Yorgos Yatromanolakis.
Photographers are invited to present one or more of their works during a 20-minute individual session.
Phases Magazine (started on December 2012) is an online magazine that focuses on international contemporary photography. Phases publishing weekly a selection of 3 portfolios on an irregular basis. In our archive you may find 1083 published portfolios. more here
Date: Friday 7/5 and Saturday 8/5
Time: 14:00-18:00
Place: Zoetrope, Kimolou 17, Kypseli
Limited availability. To book a place for this workshop or for more information please send an email to zoetropeathens@gmail.com
Self - Publishing as an act of collective resistance
Saturday 12/12 at 11:00 Live on F.A.R. Radio - 3137.GR
Αthens Zine Bibliotheque & Zoetrope Athens talk together about zines and artist books by unfolding their parallel universes. Moderator: Alexander Strecker
F.A.R. is an atlas of the city of Athens mapping the evolving economy, the housing market and the various communities living in the city. It's a storytelling action around the present and future of the city and unfolds in three successive independent episodes: A community radio along with an intervention in the outdoor area of 3 137, a series of actions and performances in public spaces of Athens, and finally a group exhibition next fall.
F.A.R. explores the ways in which Athens is inhabited. It stems from the need to understand the different types of transformations that have been taking place in Athens in the past recent years. Despite the economic recession of the last decade and the political instability in the wider Mediterranean region, the city has become a place to be. At the same time, over the last five years, we have seen the local art scene changing; the number of art spaces is growing and venues and initiatives of varying scale are developing.
Invited guests of F.A.R. RADIO are several art initiatives of the city, individuals with a research interest in housing and collective/individual property, as well as employees or owners of small businesses in Exarcheia neighborhood. The guests will develop a 50-minute show -featuring sounds, music and discussion-about their activity, their daily habits, and the city networks within which they engage.
The Splitting of the Chrysalis & the Slow Unfolding of the Wings
Audio Visual Projection
Two years after the publication of the photobook “The Splitting of the Chrysalis & the Slow Unfolding of the Wings” by Yorgos Yatromanolakis and after a series of attempts, experiments and project presentations, in different exhibition settings, one question still remains.
How can a photographic series, realized in the form of a book, unfold within an exhibition space?
Each exhibition of his work is every time a new challenge, as he is invited to deconstruct and reconsider his work, to seek alternative mediums as well as narrative paths, which will inevitably lead to its ephemeral reconstruction.
In collaboration with the composer Chrysanthos Christodoulou and the artist Kallia Triantafyllou and in a dialogue with the curators of the Amsterdam Museum of Photography, an audiovisual installation of the book was attempted, which will be presented in a few weeks at the Kuehlhaus in Berlin, as part of the FOAM Talent 2020 award. Part of the installation will be presented as a work in progress on Friday 09/10 at Zoetrope.
Archives, Process: Images of the African and Black Diaspora
by Anietie Ekanem & Ariana Kalliga
“According to Bell Hooks, photography provides the opportunity to create an empowered, portable self-history. There is a personal and cultural reclamation of Black history through an artistic eye. As it stands: time, memory and decolonisation come together in play through photography and photographic reproduction to construct new identities.”
-Anietie Ekanem
We are pleased to announce our two-day program, “Archives, Process: Images of the African and Black Diaspora”, organized by British-Nigerian artist Anietie Ekanem and Greek curator Ariana Kalliga. The program will consist of a workshop and reading night, which aim to introduce photography past and present, as a dynamic site of black cultural formation and diasporic identity.
The workshop will take place at 19:00 on September 24, 2020.
Anietie will introduce participants to his approach of producing cyanotypes using Southeastern Nigerian archival photographs, demonstrating how to expose photo-negatives onto light-sensitive paper. Participants will learn how to produce cyanotypes through their interaction with a variety of mediums and archival images.
The following day on September 25, 2020 at 18:00 we will host a reading night outdoors in Zoetrope’s neighbouring Pedion Areos Park. We will read and discuss a selection of texts in an open format, including Bell Hooks’s essay: “In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life,” thinking about questions of identity, memory, and diaspora, among other collective themes that emerge from our discussions.
How to talk about the past and the present of art in Athens?
A participatory workshop around an ethnographic film
In the summer of 2017, Herbert Ploegman and Grigoris Gkougkousis made an ethnographic film about a participatory artwork in the Athenian public space: a tent in Plateia Kotzia where meals were served daily. Now, in Zoetrope, their film turns into a collective exploration of what art means in Athens.
This workshop is an invitation to collectively think about the arts in Athens in the current moment and the recent past. It aims to create a space for collectively outlining aspects of this moment and a discussion of their significance. Amongst these may be the disappearance of that artwork from the Athenian public space, and the appearance of art spaces in the city. Another may be the difficulties that exist around screening the film and the repercussions for the workshop and the debate at large.
This workshop links art initiatives with anthropological research on art in Athens. It originates in Herbert's PhD project on artist-run spaces and their significance in Athens. The workshop aims to make room for questioning the ways we talk, think, and learn about art practices in Athens.
Saturday 14.03.20 at 16:00
and Sunday 15.03.20 at 16:00
Free Entrance
Seats are limited! To participate please reserve your seat by sending us an email to zoetropeathens@gmail.com
Death in Athens Festival
New Archives - Exhibition
MEDphoto Festival
The flourishing of photobooks dealing with archival works reflects the desire and the urge of many authors to develop artistic practices, that transcend the archive from a place of storage to a place of production and discourse with the past under the effect of the shifting present.
The archival image liberated of its strictly factual and bureaucratic function, is activated in photobooks to introduce counter-narratives, to uncover untold or repressed stories, to negotiate collective or personal trauma or even to establish grassroots social, political and emotional archives.
What’s really interesting about the photobook as an artistic medium is that by enabling the production of complete narrative holes, especially through the editing, the sequencing as well as the interrelation of the images, it opposes the overall static and taxonomic archival format. In this very condition, montage and storytelling almost necessitate a repositioning and a critical reflection towards the archival material.
In this collection we attempted to gather works that represent the main strands of archival art as reflected in photobooks. These works break free of the concentrative format of the archive to move towards to its reinvention and rearticulation.
Zoetrope
Alexandra Saliba - Yorgos Yatromanolakis
Books: Top Secret - Simon Menner, The Longest Way Round - Chris Dorley-Brown, Let Me Fall Again - Julia Borissova, Libya - Stella Chronopoulou, Where Mimosa Bloom - Rita Puig Serra Costa, Sangre - Leslie Spak, Everflow - Alexandra Saliba, Encyclopedia - Charlotte Lybeer, The Bοοκ of Fantastic Antiquities - Antonis Theodoridis, Conquistador - Nicolas Savary, Dotter - Aimilia Balaska, Fantastic Woman - Nelson Morales, Every Body is an Archive - Liz Orton
MedPhoto Festival 2019-2020 | Archive: Between the Public and the Private
Main Exhibition: Critical Archives IV: Documents
Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete
The right to be Radical
Black Feminism Workshop
The United African Women Organization – Greece and the European Network of People of African Decent invite you to three days of events in Athens, Greece with Dr. Carole Boyce Davies over the course of October 11, 12 and 13, 2019. The events centered on the theme of “Sisterhood and Struggle: Writing Black Women’s Political Leadership” mark the first visit of Dr. Carole Boyce Davies to Athens, Greece.
Esteemed scholar of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York), and author of prize-winning books such as Left of Karl Marx: The Political Activism of Claudia Jones, Dr. Boyce Davies will be presenting a historical examination of Writing Black Women’s Political Leadership, centering the historical struggles and causes of erasure of Black Women’s activism legacies, posing pressing questions leading to action in the present.
The events take place in the context of UAWO’ s ongoing study of Black and Afrofeminist traditions.
A continuation of UAWO’s 1st Black Feminist Skillsharing Workshop, which took place in Athens over the course of five weeks in 2018, the initiative aims to address issues concerning the politics of space, and function as a platform to access knowledge and histories of political struggle often unacknowledged in many activist spaces in Greece and elsewhere. The event series includes workshops, womxn’s circles, reading groups and public talks.
The upcoming events also mark the first visit of ENPAD to Greece. ENPAD’S annual meeting will be taking place over the weekend, with members gathering from over 15 countries in Europe.
Matter of time
Αn aquatic cartography
In the work in progress ‘Matter of Time. An Aquatic Cartography’ the fundamental property of material is its duration. Yannis Stournas explores the traces and the inscriptions of the encapsulated rivers and streams in the urban environment of Athens. By collecting and photographing matter from the soil and the subsoil covering the rivers, he attempts to reinstate and solidify parts of the buried aquatic geography of the city.
The pre-industrial photographic technique of ambrotype, being employed for this work, on the one hand is monumentalizing the material findings and on the other hand it is pointing out their variable state. Each object appears in the wet plate of the ambrotype not only as a visual but also as a material memory, as a sort of a paradoxical archaeological find. At the same time, the singularity of each plate which can’t be mechanically reproduced along with the fact that it is developed in water from different springs, rivers and seas seems to be mystifying somehow the objects which depict something unseen and in constant mutation.
‘Matter of Time. An Aquatic Cartography’ will be presented as an installation at Zoetrope which has been transformed into the lab of Yannis Stournas for the past weeks. The opening will take place on Friday, September 13nth at the walk of Time Takes Time initiative within the framework of which it is realized.
About Time Takes Time
TIME TAKES TIME is a momentum around paper & words with a focus on the processes, materiality, touch and smell of prints, letters, inks and stained fingers.
Time Takes Time connects Greek and international artists and designers for a moment of co-creation within various workshops and print studios around the city of Athens. It takes place within strong local-global interconnections and seeks to weave between them a relationship and a possibility for tuning-in. Time Takes Time operates as a creolization of points of view, techniques, skills, and imaginaries, not to be seen as distinct entities. It merges layers of technologies from print ambrotypes, fax machine thermal ribbon, up to 3d printing and algorithm data poetry. Time Takes Time aims to combine diverse intimate feelings and subjective relations to the city of Athens through the lens of printed matter as to let waves of resonance emerge between alternative but complementary processes of work.
Time Takes Time organizes city walks through its interconnected workshops and spaces as to allow the various processes to be experienced by the public. Each walk is max 4 hours.
PLATEAU 0 3 4
An exploration of Greek self-published photobooks
Artists’ self-publications are disorderly phenomena. They are defined by freedom, discovery, creativity, and experimentation as they move away from narrow, predefined structures. Unclassified and unseen, most self-publications entail their own multiplicities, occupying a space of their own.
Self-publishing is a growing practice in Greece, as many photographers and artists are becoming increasingly engaged in exploring and discovering new tools as well as collective initiatives to experiment with their own book production.
In many cases, self-publishing is clearly an act of resistance against formal and conventional structures of publishing. Self-publishers are manifesting new ways of artistic expression and sending out distinct signals, sometimes via just a handful of printed copies.
Despite the fact that many self-published editions are exceptionally designed, by way of introducing lesser-known materials and techniques which move beyond the limits of traditional display and storytelling, their exposure and distribution is extremely limited.
The exhibition ‘Plateau 034’ is a first attempt to map Greek photographic self-publications. Through the presentation of a non-hierarchical and non-complete assemblage, it constitutes a converging point of small, individual gestures. Our aim is to continue this exploration, via a developing rhizomatic platform, which, detached from conventional publishing practices, can set the conditions for the creation of multiple paths, branches, and plateaus.
Books:
Michael Almiroudis - Genius Seculi / Konstantinos Doumpenidis - Halt / Nikos Deltakapa - NO TURNING BACK / Pavlos Fysakis - Land Ends / Nicholas Faraklas - Athens Hates Pigeons / Panos Charalampidis and Mary Chairetaki - Second Chance / Giorgos Gripeos - a Kind of You / Yiannis Hadjiaslanis - Drive / Zoe Hatziyannaki - To kakovoulo / Antonis Kourkoulos - Roubabikia / Charalampos Kydonakis - WARN'D IN VAIN / Zisis Kardianos - In Limbo / Natasha Killova and Ritsa Blue - A diary of a nighttime / Elena Kollatou & Leonidas Toubanos - Avoid Area / Christos Lialios - Same but Different / Ilias Lois - Golden Peak / Fotis Milionis - 81 / Vassilis Noulas & Kostas Tzimoulis - Vaskos / Margarita Yoko-Nikitaki - Soil / Stefania Orfanidou - Pendulum / Nikos Papanikolaou - Tagada / Sarantis Raftopoulos - Street Food / Spyros Rennt - Another Excess / Ioanna Sakellaraki - The Truth is in the Soil / Alexandra Saliba - Everflow / Olga Stefatou - CHRYSALIS / Stamatis Schizakis - Athens Porn / Danai Simou - Romance / Myrto Steirou - Cruel Nature / Eliza Tamo - hEy yoU / Dimitris Tairis - The Urge / Antonis Theodoridis - The box of curios / Ellie Tsatsou - Alphabet / Dimitris Tsoumplekas - Texas / These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things - Spata / Alexis Vasilikos - Variations of Presence / Irina Vosgerau - Timetraveller / Yorgos Yatromanolakis - Not provided / Apostolos Zerdevas - State
Curators:
Evangelia Biza, Yiannis Hadjiaslanis, Kostas Kostopoulos,
Georges Salameh, Alexandra Saliba, Alexander Strecker, Yorgos Yatromanolakis.
With the participation of The Athens Zine Bibliotheque
APhF 2019 Satellite Programme
PLATEAU 0 3 4 Talk: Book-making practices in self-publishing modes
With Evangelia Biza (bookbinder) and Kostas Kostopoulos (printer).
Thursday 27/06/19 at 19:30
PLATEAU 0 3 4 Open Discussion: Meet the self-publishers
To conclude our exhibition Plateau 034 / An exploration of Greek self-published photobooks, a first attempt to explore Greek self-published photobooks, we invite you to an open discussion. Sixteen self- publishers share questions, emotions, thoughts, intentions, successes, and failures stemming from their experiences of their self-publishing initiatives..
Thursday 30/06/19 at 19:30
