HORS LES MURS
curated by Barbara Polla and Dominique Fiat
The non-profit organisation Sharing Perama has been invited to participate in the European Cultural Centre's Biennale 2022, which will open in April 2022 in Venice, alongside the Venice Biennale.
Perama is a neglected and fascinating suburb of Athens, originally created by migrants a century ago: the first settlements followed the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922. Perama is one of the few cities that still remembers that it was created by migrants and, as such, it resembles New York. It also resembles New York in its extraordinary diversity, whether social, industrial or territorial.
Liminal Realities by Marios Fournaris
The exhibition SHARING PERAMA, SHARING ART, will highlight this diversity through the photographs of Marios Fournaris. The artist, born in Perama, obtained his Master of Fine Arts in the UK and then returned to live and work in Perama, and now photographs Perama on a daily basis, especially when the sky is overcast, as Perama is far from the "white sea-blue walls" that one usually imagines when thinking of Greece.
Perama is reflected in the photographs of Marios Fournaris, like a self-portrait. Marios Fournaris' photographs will be printed in large format, on "blue back", to give the viewers the impression that they are really in Perama and that they live here, in the shadow of the steel swans.
A Love Song by Robert Montgomery
In this landscape, poetry is to be found in every street, behind the hills, in the harbour, in the shops, in the memories of the people, in the music of the Rebetiko. Allen Ginsberg was here in 1961, and sang Perama in his poetry. The post-situationist artist and poet Robert Montgomery found Perama to have many similarities with the city where he was born, Glasgow, where his grandfather was a miner. Montgomery knows from the inside the hard times of industrial work and the worst times of unemployment. Before writing and installing his luminous poems in Perama, the artist spent a lot of time in the city, to get a feel for its atmosphere. His first poem is entitled THE BEGINNING OF HOPE. The exhibition SHARING PERAMA, SHARING ART will present photographs (taken by Marios Fournaris and Robert Montgomery himself) of this luminous poem as well as of the next work to be installed in the public space of Perama: A LOVE SONG.
Dreaming Perama by Christos PANAGOS & Charalambos MARGARITIS
Along with words, moving images best capture and convey the soul and memories of a place. Filmmaker Christos Panagos, a connoisseur of Perama, spent time with Barbara Polla, the founder of SHARING PERAMA, walking around the city in search of her memories. Together with Charalambos Margaritis, a specialist in video/film animation, Christos Panagos conceived the medium-length film DREAMING PERAMA, a docu-fiction mixing real images and animation, past and present, beauty and loss, fear and love. Viewers become like sleepwalkers while watching this immersive and hypnotic film, and can retrieve the memories of others for themselves: Perama belongs to everyone. The film (work in progress) and its storyboard will be presented, together with Robert Montgomery's poetry, with the images of Perama for a total immersion of the spectators in the space.
Curators
Barbara Polla, founder of Analix Forever Gallery, Switzerland, and president of the Sharing Perama Foundation. As an independent curator, she has organised numerous exhibitions on the theme of imprisonment, video, and created Video Forever in collaboration with Paul Ardenne. She is currently preparing a book on Perama, with photographs by Marios Fournaris.
Dominique Fiat, founder of the Galerie Dominique Fiat, France, established since the early 2000s in the Marais in Paris, is also an independent curator creating art projects.
Her approach is characterized by a transdisciplinary vision, the discovery of young talents such as Camille Henrot or Hicham Berrada, and the importance she gives to the "Global South" and particularly to Africa and the Mediterranean rim.
The SHARING PERAMA - SHARING ART project is driven by ecological values and reflections on environmental issues that are addressed through the artworks themselves, which are presented in a unique way by the artists.
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