Research Catalogue

PROJECT DESCRIPTION “Working Title” is an art performance about labor conditions and class structures. The motivation behind the piece is to interrogate the many ways in which work affects us. The boundaries between labor and art are also examined, as the physical and mental demands placed on the performers reflect the burdens of modern working life. The format mirrors a regular workday: the performance lasts eight hours, including a break. It is presented in two versions—a day shift and a night shift. Today, many sectors are marked by rapid change, demands for efficiency and ever-increasing productivity. Which values are prioritised, and which are undermined to meet the needs of such a labor market? In the piece, structural challenges will be studied and observed through scenarios acted out on stage. Some examples of questions that will be used to form these scenarios: -At what cost do you actually sell your time? -What kind of value is, beyond the monetary, created for those who buy your time? -In what ways, physically and mentally, do you experience your labouring hours, after you have clocked out? The performance will explore themes such as: - Monotony and repetition as fundamental elements of labor - Power dynamics in the workplace and how privileges are maintained and reinforced - The body’s needs in relation to work: illness, disabilities, menstruation, and pregnancy - The physiological consequences of labor - The value of time as an economic and social divide - The close link between economic stability and mental health In a time when the job market is shaped by rapid technological development, climate change and an uncertain future, thinking through alternatives for how to organise ourselves has become crucial. With this performance, we aim to dig into the mechanisms at stake in order to hopefully be able to both raise questions and think deeply about how we may face the challenges ahead collectively. A dynamic, experimental and collectively driven form of artistic expression is combined with societal critique. We believe in art as a way of adding to the discourse in poetic manners, activating questions through embodied experiences. With this unique format, we hope to open new perspectives on what labor means for individuals and society—and what values we wish to build our common future upon.

Based on the Jungian concept of the shadow, I wanted to develop illustrations that depict a journey within the self, leading to the discovery and understanding of one’s own shadow. It represents the dark side of our personality, which we refuse to acknowledge and accept.

When preparing for the dead, may we peep into the future? In the broader geography of the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean, we cook our coffee in the briki or cezve. Every region has its own variation, some heat up the water before adding the powder, some add spices, some make it thick, others thinner. And every person has their own variation as well. Coffee is something as personal as communal. Apart from the daily morning and evening consumption, we also share two uses of the coffee that are central of interest here: the coffee cup reading and the tradition of coffee drinking in funerals and memorials. Imagination and memory, future and past, the association with grief; and the unique timelines traced in each cup. I think that it has been with me for years, the memory of my grandmothers, my mother’s morning ritual of cooking a light Greek coffee in a big cup. The familiarity of the Kafenio. And most importantly, community dynamics; sharing others, participating. Here I aspired to create a meeting space with people, artists or not, with whom I have met over the years and share the subtle fascination about this type of coffee and its rituals. Acknowledging the blood, oppression and displacement behind and around the product. The Cafe Imperial.

Playing the Mountain is an artistic research project investigating balance as the dynamic interplay of yinyang, through the practice of taijiquan (a Chinese internal martial art). Based on this embodied practice, I explore balance not as a state but as movement, by transposing this dynamic of opposing forces into a constellation of participatory, sculptural and expanded cinema forms. Drawing on principles of Chinese aesthetics from a diasporic perspective, Playing the Mountain deploys artistic strategies to consider agency, (non-)presence, tension, and resistance. This constellation traces unseen forces through kites, music, geological processes and Chinese calligraphy, gathering different ways to ask: what are the implications of understanding balance, not as a state, but as a process? This research project manifests through material investigations, martial arts practice, participatory exchanges and collaboration, as part of my broader PhD-in-Practice research project, undertaken at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The exhibition and writing workshop were presented in Summer - Autumn 2022 at Centre[3] for Artistic + Social Practice, in Hamilton, Canada, curated by Lesley Loksi Chan; the kite-making workshop was conducted in Summer 2024 at Decentric Circles Assembly in Warsaw, Poland (various sites), curated by the Work Hard! Play Hard! working group. Download Accessible PDF

I am a composer, musician and radio producer, and in this exposition I explore how I brought my artistic practice into dialogue with a cartographic approach called deep mapping to create a sound installation called ECOTONE: A Sonic Journey Through Kildimo-Pallaskenry. Deep mapping encompasses the discursive and ideological dimensions of a place, such as memories, imaginations and the multiple realities that exist in our surroundings (Bodenhamer et al. 2015; Roberts 2016; Biggs and Modeen 2020). The approach has spatial considerations and adheres to locations and boundaries, but what is added is a reflexive narrativity that includes the complexity of human stories and identities that exist in a place. Deep mapping has the capacity to bring together histories, mythologies, facts and fictions, and weave them together in expressing a place. In this work, which formed part of my practice-as-research PhD, I developed a sonic deep mapping approach that involves recording the music, sounds and stories of place, and re-imaging them through my composition practice. This research explores a new approach to understanding and representing place, and adds a new perspective to the field of deep mapping. I propose that my sonic deep mapping approach forges connections between creative process, people and place. It invites us to listen deeply to our surroundings and to create representations of place that bring us into the realm of imagination and connection. Download Accessible PDF

This exposition invites you to reflect on the various things you do in your doctoral artistic research and to consider how these activities might form an interconnected system — a methodology. In a guided tour of words, images, and visits to my garden, I reconsider several research models I encountered as a PhD student investigating transdisciplinary performing practices. However, my primary aim is to carve out a pathway — from model to metaphor — one that offers a viable means of seeing your doctoral project existing within a terrain of complexity rather than utter chaos. Throughout the exposition I employ metaphors inspired not only by my artistic work, but also by my garden in Abruzzo, where I lived throughout my PhD studies. To fully discover Abruzzo, it is necessary to slow down — even allow yourself to get bored — before inevitably being revitalized and inspired by its natural beauty and ever-welcoming ambiance. I hope you will embrace this exposition’s journey. Permit yourself to be a rural-Italian wanderer, enjoy the breaks, and take extra ones so you can also enjoy an espresso or glass of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Download Accessible PDF