2019
Workshop: Alternative Practices for Founding Institutionsr

DATA OF INTEREST

GUEST:
Jonas Staal


Synopsis:

During the first of two workshops focused on how to dismantle organizational structures within culture, the Greek critic and curator Iliana Fokianaki rehearsed a curatorial experience to conceive socially engaged entities that are associated with the geopolitical space where they must be able to seamlessly insert themselves. The founding director of State of Concept Athens, a project that researches current issues both in Greece as well as the rest of Europe, Fokianaki views local values and idiosyncrasies as realities to be considered when conceiving cultural organizations. This makes them more effective at confronting concrete situations within each community. In the case of Cuba, the workshop participants identified the features and characteristics that we share as a people and that could serve as inputs for institutions that reflect reality and are geared toward positive transformation.

Bio:

Iliana Fokianaki is a curator and writer. She is the founding director of State of Concept Athens, the first contemporary art non-profit institution with a permanent location and a yearly program to operate in Greece. State of Concept creates a new narrative about curatorial practices by addressing and questioning current social, economic and political phenomena in Greece and Europe. Fokianaki is also the co-founder of Future Climates, a research platform looking into the precarious conditions small-scale organizations of contemporary culture.

His curatorial interests are centered around the multiple manifestations of institutional power and the ways in which they can be examined through the platform of art. He is particularly interested in the theory of the state, national identity, and citizenship, and how these concepts are reflected in artistic and curatorial practices. His most recent work is focused on notions of the state and the formation of power that manifest themselves under the influence of geopolitics, national and cultural identity, and anthropological histories in economies on the global periphery.