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Never Cross the Same River Twice at Space 52

Updated: May 18, 2021



Never Cross the Same River Twice | Chapter 2: Transhistorical Investigations


Curated by Kisito Assangni and Ariana Kalliga.


Participating Artists Part I: Monica de Miranda, Moataz Nasr, Emo de Medeiros, Harold

Offeh, Longinos Nagila, Ahmet Öğüt, Gilivanka Kedzior, Marinella Senatore, Daisuke Takeya,

Sammy Baloji and Lazara Rosell Albear.


Participating Artists Part II: Valentina Karga, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Mary Zygouri, Ariana

Papademetropoulos, Eva Papamargariti and George Drivas.


Exhibition Opening: 12th of June


Never Cross the Same River Twice embraces expansive videographies that aim to foster new forms of transnational and collective assembly. Curated by French-Togolese independent curator Kisito Assangni and Greek-British curator Ariana Kalliga, the exhibition forms a time-shifting survey of performances converging between video, film and installation. Initiated as a travelling research project in 2020, the exhibition connects two borders that unfold in tandem, tracing the recent video practices of 10 international artists selected by Assangni and 6 contemporary Greek video artists invited into dialogue by space52, Athens.

The selected video works act as sites of visual contestation; cinematic aesthetics with narratives that re-remember; they reclaim histories and ancestries; decolonize both the mind and the imagination. Referencing Heraclitus’ river, which conceived identity as an ever-evolving and fluctuating entity, the title of the exhibition is a call to invent new grounds in place of entrenched environmental, political, and regulatory systems.

The participating artists tackle subjects that challenge us to reflect on the changing world in which we live, reconstructing and reclaiming lived-realities and public domains. Exploring the limits of film as activism, several of the works reflect what Argentinian scholar Walter D. Mignolo termed the, ‘epistemic disobedience and decolonial freedom,’ needed to rebuild non- colonial futures.

From a ‘coming community’ to a planetary escape, the exhibition opens up uncanny spectral exits to new collective and geopolitical imaginaries. Accompanied by a parallel series of bi-weekly screenings and talks, including a night organized by the Athens School of Fine Arts (LAB12), Never Cross the Same River Twice aims to expand and densify the interconnected motifs weaved through the exhibition program; history, ancestry, ethnography, spirituality, memory, colonization, Afrofuturism, feminism, diaspora, identity, globalization, consumerism, myth.



Never Cross the Same River Twice is supported by the NEON Organization and the Polyeco Contemporary Arts Initiative (PCAI).


Project Advisor: space52 Founder, Dionisis Christofilogiannis Communications Coordinator: Dimitra Michail Raftopoulou

Design: Pantelis Vitaliotis-Magneto & Virginia Russolo

Public Program Guest Curators: Argyro Nicolaou, Samantha Ozer, Evi Roumani (LAB12, Athens School of Fine Arts), Menelaos Karamaghiolis


Monica De Miranda, Studio 52, Athens, Art, Ferocious Athens, Ferocious Urbanites
Monica De Miranda, Beauty (2018). Film Still. Courtesy of the artist.

Moataz Nasr, Studio 52, Athens, Art, Ferocious Athens, Ferocious Urbanites
Moataz Nasr, The Mountain (2016). Film Still. Courtesy of the artist.

Space 52, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Ferocious Urbanites, Athens
Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Glow In The Dark (2016), single channel video installation. Film Still. Courtesy of the artist.

Ariana Papademetropoulos, Studio 52, Athens, Art, Ferocious Athens, Ferocious Urbanites
Ariana Papademetropoulos, Baby Alone in Babylon, 2019, PCAI Collection

Eva Papamargariti, Studio 52, Athens, Art, Ferocious Athens, Ferocious Urbanites
Eva Papamargariti, Factitious Imprints, 2016, PCAI Collection

George Drivas, Studio 52, Athens, Art, Ferocious Athens, Ferocious Urbanites
George Drivas, Kepler, 2017, PCAI Collection.

 

Address: space52, Kastorias 52 - Athens

Duration: June 12- September 25, 2021.

Opening Hours: Open to the public on weekends 10:00 a.m. - 13:00 p.m., 19:00 p.m. - 22:00 p.m. Open on weekdays only by appointment.


Contact: +306977041634 | info@space52.gr



Neon Organisation, Studio 52, Athens, Art, Ferocious Athens, Ferocious Urbanites