VIDEO ART MIDEN

Video Art Miden: The world is not enough || Aperture

Our immediate personal and social space, our "home" -with a broad meaning of the word- and, finally, our "homeland", are some of the concepts that are investigated by the artists participating in the two screening programs presented by Video Art Miden at the Museum of Byzantine Culture of Thessaloniki, in the frame of Thessaloniki Biennale 6: Imagined Homes. The presented videoart programs "The world is not enough" and "Aperture" complete each other conceptually and thematically, setting questions as: is our "home" an open or a closed space? Is it a geographical/real space or a virtual/imagined one? Or, rather, "home" should be defined by the type and the qualities of the emotional interaction, living together and coexistence between humans? Moving a little further from the concept of "home" as our immediate house construction or an architectural living space and examining in a closer look the personal and social space which we -intentionally or unintentionally- "built" around us, the selected video-programs, inspired from the contemporary global condition and the current international social and political developments, focus on the issues of "opening" or "closing" our homes and the "guarding" of our real or imagined borders: the borders of our houses, our neighborhoods, our cities, our countries, and generally of every space that can be called "home". "Home", in an archaic and primary sense, should be a place that we dream to be intimate, friendly, safe and warm (literally and emotionally), but sometimes proves to be -at the same time- a hostile land, sometimes even for ourselves, becoming a "nest" for fears and for internal or external conflicts. The video-works included in the first program, under the title "The world is not enough", are exploring this exact problematic, while the second program, entitled "Aperture", deals with the concept of "focusing" (in the Greek language, the words "hestiasis=focus" and "hestia=home" have a common ancient root), in a metaphorically photographic sense: if our home is, besides a closed space of warmth and safety, a steady place from where we observe the rest of the world, how far away and on what do we "focus" when we stare outside its windows?

Participant artists: Kristina Paustian, Jan Brand, Shahar Marcus, Arnaud Brihay, Ηanna Ben-Haim Yulzari, Mauricio Saenz, Mattias Härenstam, Carla Chan, Jem Raid, Mario Santamaria, Teymur Daimi, Przemek Wegrzyn, Samer Ghorayeb.

Curators: Gioula Papadopoulou, Margarita Stavraki

Coordinator: Nikos Podias

More info and the complete list of works can be found on www.festivalmiden.gr

The event is realized with the kind sponsorship and support of the Museum of Byzantine Culture -Thessaloniki and the State Museum of Contemporary Art -Thessaloniki.

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Video Art Miden

Video Art Miden is an independent organization for the exploration and promotion of video art. Founded by an independent group of Greek artists in 2005 in Kalamata, it seeks to stimulate the creation of original video art, to help spread it and develop relevant research.

Through collaborations and exchanges with major international festivals and organizations, it has been recognized as one of the most successful and interesting video art platforms internationally and as an important cultural exchange point for Greek and international video art. It also provides an alternative meeting point for emerging and established artists and a communication hub between artists, organizations, festivals and art spaces around the world.

(*Miden means "zero" in Greek)

Art direction: Gioula Papadopoulou & Margarita Stavraki
Info: www.festivalmiden.gr || www.facebook.com/festivalmiden