Exposition

The game (last edited: 2024)

Zoe Panagiota (aka Betty) Nigianni

About this exposition

Happening, 2016. Participant's research, including improvised full recorded interview with first generation Albanian immigrants to Greece, images, and thematic text. The research was conducted for the workshop, "Logics of Worlds", inspired by Alain Badiou's work and organised by architect Filippos Oraiopoulos, at Athens School of Fine Art (ASFA), Master of Visual Arts (Marios Spiliopoulos, Giorgios Xiropaides), December 2016. Adopting the political approach of Badiou's "L' Organisation Politique", applying direct intervention for societal problems, including immigration and labour, I used play as a method to facilitate improvised discussions. People share and respond more freely when participating in structured, but playful interactions, such as those a game involves. Albanians speak three languages, Albanian, Greek and Italian, so I wasn't able to translate parts of the conversation. Avlona is an English now obsolete name for Vlore, an Albanian seaport and former ancient Greek colony Aulon. Albanians came as refugees in Greece initially in the 1990s, after the fall of communism in their home country. Notably, the workshop was slightly interrupted by a performance art student, who brought a live hen to slaughter in the studio. This can be taken as a metaphor for scapegoating (and re-assigning the gender of male) refugees. For this exposition, I include an essay by Pantelis Boukalas, in Kyriakos Katzourakis, O "Dromos Pros Ti Dysi" (The Way to the West), 2001, as well as Kyriakos Katzourakis' introduction in English. The exposition also aims to juxtapose the experimental and the conceptual in the fine arts; and to make the 'invisible' visible. I don't have any personal or other connections with Albania (or North Macedonia); I have never visited. This was a project to research and document in an artistic manner the refugee and immigration crisis in my native Greece, but also to voice my opinions on this topic from the perspective of the native. Albania (and North Macedonia) is a non-EU country; Greece, my native (and my parents' and grandparents' native), has been in the EU since 1981. I have also been a UK national, by naturalisation, since 2011. Paradoxically, the outcome of this project was that fictitious non-EU son(s)/daughter(s) of mine have been (since 2018) on UK police databases, as disabled 14, 19, 21 year-old transgender Italian/Albanians - maybe I was married to a Swedish neo-Nazi? Dismissed. My serious concerns about international organised criminal activity, were reported and confirmed by the Greek and Swedish authorities. The Greek Golden Dawn - with their Big Idea of conquering foreign countries, like North Macedonia, and their chronic attacks on immigrants and refugees in Greece - was convicted as a criminal organisation in October 2020. They invented the 'concept' of the 'Real Greek', dependent on any Greek's political orientation. Now they're losing their sixty seven (67) appeals. For Pavlos Fyssas, aka Killah P. For Alain Badiou and the OP. The work is in progress.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsHappening, Neighbourhood, language-game, play, Readymade objects, artefact, ethnography
date01/03/2023
last modified11/03/2024
statusin progress
share statuspublic
affiliationUniversity of Athens, Athens School of Fine Art
copyrightZ.P.Nigianni
licenseAll rights reserved
languageGreek
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2006944/2006945


Simple Media

id name copyright license
2006970 The game_page-0001 Z.P.Nigianni CC BY-NC-ND
2007011 The game_page-0002 Z.P.Nigianni CC BY-NC-ND
2007014 The game_page-0002 Z.P.Nigianni CC BY-NC-ND
2007015 The game_page-0003 Z.P.NIgianni Public domain
2007050 The game_page-0003 Z.P.Nigianni CC BY-NC-ND
2007853 Image Z.P.Nigianni CC BY-NC-ND
2007855 main-image Z.P.Nigianni CC BY-NC-ND
2008164 525px-Caravaggio_(Michelangelo_Merisi)_-_The_Cardsharps_-_Google_Art_Project Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND
2008188 Greek police Hellenic Police CC BY-NC-ND
2035430 p. 1 Pantelis Boukalas Public domain
2035432 p. 2 Panelis Boukalas Public domain
2035434 p. 3 Pantelis Boukalas Public domain
2045403 Schrift Creative Commons All rights reserved
2045406 Schrift Creative Commons All rights reserved
2045408 Schrift Creative Commons All rights reserved
2091421 the-card-players-1892 Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND
2091870 Schrift Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND
2118061 Katzourakis1 Creative Commons Public domain
2118066 Katzourakis2 Creative Commons Public domain
2200301 Art Edi Rama Creative Commons Public domain
2233584 Playing Creative Commons All rights reserved
2622394 Relevant from Greece Creative Commons Public domain
2625705 Square Movement Z.P.Nigianni All rights reserved
2639613 WORKSHOP ΜΕ ΤΙΤΛΟ ΑΣΚΗΣΕΙΣ ΝεοΠοιητικής ΙΙΙ ASFA All rights reserved
2639615 Συνοδευτικό υλικό παρουσίασης ASFA All rights reserved
2639617 ΘΕΣΜΙΚΟ ΣΥΜΒΑΝ Α.Σ.Κ.Τεχνών ASFA All rights reserved
2640324 Συνοδευτικό υλικό παρουσίασης Z.P.Nigianni All rights reserved

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