Invited artist: Nikos Charalambidis

Deadline: Thursday 27 March 2025

GENERAL INFORMATION

MOMus invites young artists to take part in the Inspire Project 2025 artistic creation workshop.

The Inspire Project, launched in 2012 in its first form, continues in the premises of MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Collections of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and the State Museum of Contemporary Art. From the beginning, the event has been an extensive workshop for hundreds of young artists, led by distinguished artists from Greece and abroad, and this year it is again addressed to young artists and the public, in order to promote the contemporary way of producing works in the studio.

This year's version revolves around the theme of "Epistrophe, the Return", a concept/process/action that starts from the 50th anniversary (1974-2024) of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, but at the same time extends to the intergenerational trauma of “longing”, of lost homeland and lost home, of forced displacement and migration and other related socio-political and philosophical concepts.

Nikos Charalambidis, invited artist of this year's event, undertakes the organisation and conduct of the workshops, as well as the guidance of the production process. The participating young artists will have the opportunity to get to know his artistic practice and methodology through the exhibition of his works, mainly of a retrospective nature, entitled "If you graze sheep, why don't you play the flute?" The new works to be created by the participants in the workshops will be exhibited alongside the guest artist's works, provoking possible interactions, dialogues and confrontations.

The Inspire Project is co-funded by the European Union (NSRF - Central Macedonia Programme).

THEME

The cycle of artistic activities with the general title Epistrophe, focuses on the bipolar thematic axis of HOMELAND (HOME/HOMELAND), through the prism of the Cyprus issue and the black anniversary of the 50 years from the Turkish invasion on the island. In the space of half a century, the demand for "Return" to the ancestral homelands not only did not find justification but also became the demand of thousands of other people in the surrounding countries who are still today subjected to the suffering of bloody military conflicts. The longing, this archetypal megalith of archaic epic poetry, the violent expatriation and the demand for return, while they should have been placed definitively in the dystopian history of bygone eras, are paradoxically becoming increasingly topical. Love of and nostalgia for the homeland seem to have been defining emotions from antiquity to the present day. These pretentious reflections are only the trigger for reflections and broader discussions, alongside a program of activities such as artistic workshops, participatory actions, film and documentary screenings.

INVITED ARTIST

Nikos Charalambidis is a visual artist and Professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts. He ranks among the most important visual artists of the 90's generation, with extensive international activity and acclaim. According to the rationale of his award in 2007, by the Association of Art critics AICA HELLAS, he is considered the main exponent of Political Art in Greece, while the influence of his work has been decisive in establishing a new generation of artists more sensitive to socio-political issues. His multifaceted research work is distinguished from very early on, with the 1st Prize of the Yannis & Zoe Spyropoulou Foundation being awarded to him in 1992, even before he had completed his studies at the Athens School of Fine Arts, thus setting the starting signal for an upward course that is today the subject of academic study and doctoral dissertations, as well as a key reference point for art theorists and historians.

Already since the late 1980s, the artist's daring interventions on the Green Line in Cyprus, his homeland, but also in war zones of other countries, even endangering his life, go beyond the dominant artistic trends of the time. Charalambidis establishes a primary, radical artistic activity that deals with a wide range of socio-political themes, adopting unprecedented artistic practices. At the same time, he enlists innovative digital tools of robotics and other cutting-edge technology, developing interdisciplinary methodologies and collaborations with researchers of various disciplines. The examination of archives relating to the troubled space of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East is at the core of his research, focusing on the political problem of Cyprus. Forced expatriation and refugeeism, the legacy of colonialism and its effects, migration and nomadism, national identity and its contestation, localness and "non-place", even the colonization of space and its exploitation strategies, are issues that first appear in the artist's early work, which would, decades later, become common themes for many artists.

The "iconic renegade of the Green Line", as Henry Meyric Hughes, President of the International Association of Art critics, calls Charalambidis in his extensive theoretical essay on his solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2003, has been curated by other internationally distinguished curators and art historians, more than 65 solo exhibitions in international art centres and exhibition spaces, institutional events and biennales, as well as in leading museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, France, Centre Pompidou, Turner Contemporary in London, Palazzo Querrini Stampalia and Palazzo Giustinian Lolin Querini in Venice, Pavilion Ciccillo Matarazzo in São Paulo, Institute of Contemporary Art in Sofia, Musée des Archives Nationales in Paris, etc.

TIME & PLACE OF THE WORKSHOP

4-11 April 2025 (exact times will be communicated to participants)
MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Collections of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and the State Museum of Contemporary Art (within TIF-Helexpo, Thessaloniki)
The basic language of the workshop is Greek, with possible support in English

PARTICIPATION IN THE WORKSHOP

The workshop is addressed to students of fine arts and other artistic fields, who are in the last year of their studies or graduates (not more than 5 years after graduation), who primarily express a special interest in participatory, laboratory-based educational processes. Expressions of interest from non-academic participants will also be considered. The basic language of the workshop is Greek, with possible support in English.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Interested parties are invited to register their participation by sending:

Completed participation form (see attached file below, forma_inspireproject2025)
Visual material, up to ten (10) photographs of their recent work in electronic format. Optionally, artists may also submit a portfolio in electronic format.
Electronic submission to info.contemporary@momus.gr

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF MATERIAL

Thursday 27 March 2025

NOTES – INFORMATION

The selection committee will review the submissions and assess their compatibility with the style and content of Inspire Project 2025, without being obliged to publicly justify its choices. The names of the finalists will be published on the MOMus website, www.momus.gr , and they will be notified accordingly by email.

Information: info.contemporary@momus.gr & phone (+30) 2310 589141, Monday-Friday 11:00-15:00.

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