ABOUT
Makryammos Ephemeral Art Residency is produced by KORAX and was initiated by the artist Maria Mitzali under the artistic direction of Sylvia Sachini and curation of Kim Knoppers, offers a one-month residency by invitation to an artist or creative practitioner. Giving the opportunity to rest and ruminate, reflect, as well as brainstorm and develop an ephemeral artwork in conversation with the surroundings of the Greek island of Thasos. The resident’s work takes place at the intersection of ephemeral art, nature and craft.
Tapping into or even contributing to the unique sense of place, the participant might get inspired by the seemingly contrasting atmospheres of Thasos: the hustle and bustle of tourists from Turkey, Bulgaria, Great Britain and Greece on one side, versus the timeless land and seascapes, and archaeological artifacts; hedonistic and fleeting summer fun versus old customs still observed by locals; English as a world language versus local dialects, even “Sfyria” - the rare whistling language; waste production as a result of the tourism sector and industrial interventions in the landscape (marble quarries) versus the rich
biodiversity; abundant food buffets in resorts versus hunting traditions.
The first edition of the Makryammos Ephemeral Art Residency in the form of a pilot is centred around the questions What Trace Do You Leave Behind? What Is Worth Keeping or What is Not Worth Keeping? These questions serve to initiate thoughts not as a tight framework.
The second edition of Makryammos Ephemeral Art Residency is all about “ON WEAVING” and will take place in September and October of 2023. It will be a multifaceted, interdisciplinary program including a residency, a series of lectures, workshops and tours around the island of Thasos, linked to the practice of weaving. The residency aims to present the innovative ways in which a traditional art form has witnessed a renaissance in contemporary art history in addition to providing inspiration to the resident artist and establishing a continuation of traditional weaving of Thassos.
Korax was established in 2019 in Kavala, Greece and aims to develop, promote and disseminate all visual and documentary arts and activities that promote culture and contemporary art, especially those related to the projection, dissemination and promotion of photography both nationally as well as internationally. It also aims to highlight the social and cultural value of every visual art form in contemporary society. As a company, it is a continuation of the initiative which since 2017 organizes the international program Lucy Art Residency, which has been identified by international media, such as the British Journal of Photography and Monocle, as one of the best new artist residencies in Europe. In 2020, during its first year of its operation, KORAX successfully implemented their first international cooperation as a partner of the 3rd Biennale of Industrial Art in Croatia, supporting and funding the commission and production of new artworks of the participating artists from Greece in partnership with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
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THE TEAM
Maria Mitzali
Founder
(b. 1976, Greece) is a visual artist working with photography andvideo. She documents and magnifies intimate worlds she inhabits, where the element of water often prevails. Her images often evolve into large-scale video installations that blend in with
the architectural structure of sites to create new spaces of experience. She studied Fine Art in Chelsea College of Art & Design and Middlesex University (London, 1998). She took filmmaking workshops at the NYFA (New York, 2000) and participated in “Stigma” masterclass with Antoine D’Agata (Athens, 2010). She has collaborated on video installations with a.o. the Institute of Contemporary Music Research in Athens (2002-2005) and the 9th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities / Photobiennale parallel program in Thessaloniki (2012). She was commissioned to create “Epiphany”, a video projection incorporated as a “liquid ceiling” in deca ARCHITECTURE’s design for Periscope Hotel lobby (Athens, 2016). Her work is held in Dakis Joannou Collection and other private collections in Europe. Maria is the founder of Lucy Art Residency (www.lucyartresidency.com 2017-ongoing) for visual artists working with photography. She moves between Athens and Thasos the most northern island of Greece in an archetypal reciprocating motion, covering the distance by car in the company of her two children, a cat and a dog. Her work is a diary (“Knight Riders”, 2006). She travels preferably to hot climates longing for an endless summer (“Amphibian”, 2005). Maria is the founder of the Makryammos Ephemeral Art Residency. Both Lucy Art Residency and Makryammos Ephemeral Art Residency are residencies managed by KORAX A.M.K.E
Kim Knoppers
Curator
(b.1976, The Netherlands) is an art historian working as a writer, independent curator and lecturer. Currently she is working on several projects in Albania, Turkey and Greece. Between 2011 and 2021 she has been curator at Foam, photography museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands where she worked on over seventy group and solo exhibitions at the intersection of photography and other disciplines like sculpture, video, painting and performance. She has contributed to various magazines including Foam Magazine, Unseen and Aperture and has written essays for many catalogues and artist books. She is a lecturer at the MA Photography at ECAL in Lausanne, where she initiated the course Do Not Disturb — Curating in Progress.
Currently her focus is Photography in relation to archaeology, geology and ecology. Next to this she is working on a contemporary embroidery and weaving exhibition for a museum in The Netherlands. She is based between Selçuk, Turkey and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. For the Makryammos Ephemeral Art Residency she has the role of curator.
Sylvia Sachini
Director
(b. 1988, Albania) is a curator and publisher based in Athens. In 2021 she founded MISC, a non-profit gallery of contemporary art in Athens, with the primary goal of building and contributing to horizontal practices. It provides a framework for artists and audiences to interact and converse in a space where they can create and share works produced through different media and materials.
From 2016 to 2021 she was a founding member and publisher of the Void publishing house. She teaches the process of developing a photographic narrative in a photographic book, exploring the limits of the field of photography as a means of representation, with main focus on understanding the development of the book’s concept and deepening its relationship with materiality. For the Makryammos Ephemeral Art Residency she has the role of director.