PROJECTS & PERFORMANCES2003-2012

angeliki avgitidou

2012MyTop10interactive performance-for-camerapart of di.p.art festival

The artists dances her favourites songs in urban non-places, revealing a per-sonal story that the viewer can rear-range by voting for his/her favourite clip.

Former Kodra camp, THESSALONIKI

2011Catharsis

performance

The contrast between the “insignificant” mundane everyday labor of women and the tragicness of events such as migration, separation and loss meet in women’s bravery, care and lament.

with Aliki Dourmazer

Former Kodra camp, THESSALONIKI

2010Returning

performance

A performance about loss and separa-tion, the impossibility of going back in space and time. A series of family pho-tos are placed in various sites, at the old city of Nicosia. In every site I stand still while counting ceremonially from 1 to 42 (my age at the time). At the last site on the Green line, I place a photo of my parents while I count backwards to one.

NICOSIA (old city), CYPRUS.

2003Returningphotographic objects

The photographs, placed at various sites, at the old city of Nicosia, depict my family’s past parties and occasions where everyone is dancing and celebrating.

Photographs were left in their original frames.

2003Returningmental map of performance route

Sites form either landmarks of some kind, such as the High school and the Green line, or sites that hold some kind of architectural interest such as a gal-lery or an abandoned shop.Photos are matched to sites.

2010Returningphotographic objects

The photographs, placed at various sites, at the old city of Nicosia, depict my family’s past parties and occasions where everyone is dancing and celebrating.

Photographs were left in their original frames.

2003Returningphotographic objects

The photographs, placed at various sites, at the old city of Nicosia, depict my family’s past parties and occasions where everyone is dancing and celebrating.

Photographs were left in their original frames.

2010Returningperformance route

The route begins in the parking lot and continues to the the high street (Lydras) and up to the Green line (Red area). Progressively the sites show signs of abandonment and decline.

Here in front of a drycleaner’s.

handout text

Before my mother’s funeral all mirors in the house had to be covered. In the living room, in order to cover a large mirror, I took a white tablecloth out of the cabinet. When I took it down from it’s temporary position, it easily fell back into its folds. As if untouched, yet used. Neither dirty, nor clean. Should I wash it? Should I put it back in the drawer? I left it to gather dust.

Thessaloniki, 29.9.2010

2010Washingperformance

The tradition of singing while washing by the riverside, is used in this perfor-mance of loss, sharing and catharsis.

part of Back to Basics

FLORINA, GREECE

2010WashingWhile sitted I hum the song “Asma Asmaton” by Mikis Theodorakis. After some of the handout papers have been collected by the viewers, I put the ta-blecloth into the basket and walk by the riverside while I continue to hum the song.

2010WashingI descent to the waterfront where I start washing the tablecloth and singing the song. When I am finished I take down my hood and drink from the river.

The performance was carried out at the Sound garden by the sea front of Thes-saloniki. With my back to the sea I begin setting the table with my mother’s china, fresh off the boxes.

2010Eatingperformancepart of Back to Basics

Eating is the first of the Back to Basics series. Eating is here associated not only with gathering, sharing or provid-ing but with sympathy and grief relief.

sound garden (sea front) Thessaloniki, GREECE

2010EatingTwo texts are handed out to viewers. They were written by me after my mother’s death (one of them was later used in Washing).

2010Sotiriaperformancepart of “The Sotiria project: Memory and Disease in visual arts discourse”.

A performance on memory, loss and mourning at a historically and politically charged location.

Sotiria Hospital, ATHENS, GREECE.

2003Returningphotographic objects

The photographs, placed at various sites, at the old city of Nicosia, depict my family’s past parties and occasions where everyone is dancing and celebrating.

Photographs were left in their original frames.

2010Sotiria

One spoonful of sugar and one spoon-ful of salt are packed into a copy of a phonebook page in which all names and numbers have been erased.These are later handed out to viewers.

Fernando Pessoa’s poem

They pass quicklyThe days that I have And after they have passedTo catch them I cannot

Soon hereAll will be finishedI’ll be a corpseAnd some will cry

2010Sotiria

I throw water from a metallic container set at the top of the stairs, take off my top garment and start sweeping the stairs with it while singing. When I de-stroy the piles of sugar salt at the bot-tom of the stairs, a poem of Fernando Pessoa is revealed.

2009Recitationperformance

part of the1st Performance Festival2nd Biennale of Contemporay Art of Thessaloniki

participant: Tatiana Tsigaridis

Harbour area, THESSALONIKI.

2003Recitation

mental map of performance route

Sites form either landmarks of some kind, such as the School and the Green line, or sites that hold some kind of ar-chitectural interest such as a gallery or an abandoned shop.Photos are matched to sites.

2009Recitation

from the festival catalogue

[... the artist, deressed in a red, fancy gown, tears up houge sheets of paper, pasted in multiple layerson the wall of a small, neoclassical building located at the port. The performance started with a little girl reciting a poem by Ioannis Polemis. Parallel to the recitation, the artist is destroying the sheets of paper, where the word “HOMELAND” is written in sevaral languages. The performance allows the audience to contemplate the meaning of the wor “homeland” - not as an abstract national idea but as a multidimentional experiential reality, which at times becomes attractive and at other times repulsive. The perfor-mance makes also a critical statement on issues of history, individual and col-lective memory, authority, racism and Diaspora. ...]

2009RecitationRecitation is a comment on the mean-ing of the word “homeland”, on identity, memory and difference. Utilizing the I. Polemis poem “What is homeland”, a familiar school memory to most of Greeks, the otimistic command of our childhood turns into a collective illusion of contemporary reality.

2008Recitationperformancepart of MIR Festival

The first presentation of Recitation.

participant: Tatiana Tsigaridis

Thessaloniki pedestrian streeet, ATHENS

2008Recitation

languages used

GreekAlbanian RussianBoulgarianPollishHinduChineseArabic

2008Memory Transference

with Iordanis Stylidis

installation views

publication (cannot not publications, 2009)

2008Memory Tansference projectparticipatory environmental installation

Our initial intention was a work that deals with nature as reminiscence for modern men and women, who think of nature as a get away, a playground or a weekend break; something different from their daily routines. Life with na-ture was perceived in this contect as a childhood memory, a cherished sum-mer with one’s grandparents, a trau-matic displacement or the intimidating unknown. A letter was addressed to thirty people asking them to narrate a story of their life within nature. The answers were gathered, translated in Italian and designed as panels to be viewed on site.

part of MedArtGarden

E.N.A.O.L.I., TUSCANNY, ITALY

2008Memory Transference

The collected stories were printed on cloth and were hung by wooden poles in the field, looking like strange fruits of a land that is formed in the ocean of ideological versions of every artistic gesture.

list of promises I WILL NOT LOSE MYSELF ONLINE AGAIN.I WILL NOT BETRAY MYSELF AGAIN.I WILL NOT TAKE WHAT I HAVE FOR GRANTED. I WILL ENJOY EVERY DAY AS IF IT WERE THE LAST ONE. I WILL NOT LEAD MY LIFE IN FEAR.I WILL NOT DENY MY DREAMS.I WILL LEAD MY LIFE BY MY OWN ETHICS.I WILL CHERISH MY ENCOUNTERS WITH OTHER PEOPLE.I WILL TREAT MYSELF AS IMPORTANT.I WILL NOT CONFUSE MY DESIRES WITH THOSE OF OTHERS. I WILL NOT OCCUPY MYSELF WITH THE PAST.I WILL LEARN FROM THE PAST.I WILL ACCEPT MYSELF.I WILL ACCEPT LIFE AS IT COMES.I WILL NOT JUDGE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME.I WILL NOT TREAT OTHERS AS ENEMIES.I WILL EXERCISE MORE.I WILL KEEP MY SPACE TIDY.I WILL BE MORE RELAXED AND ENJOY MYSELF.I WILL STOP BUYING THINGS I DON’T NEED. I WILL GIVE UP TALKING TO PEOPLE THAT BRING ME DOWN.I WILL DO MORE OF THE THINGS THAT KEEP ME HAPPY AND LESS OF THE THINGS THAT MAKE ME UNHAPPY. I WILL NOT LOOSE MY SELF-CONTROL IN A HEATED DISCUSSION AGAIN.I WILL WELCOME FAILURE AS A PART OF LIFE.I WILL CONGRATULATE MYSELF OVER MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS. I WILL STOP FALLING ASLEEP IN FRONT OF THE TELEVISION.I WILL SPEND MORE TIME WITH THE PEOPLE I LOVE. I WILL NOT MAKE EMBARRASSING ART AGAIN.

2009False Promises

installation

happening

Much more than the promises of em-ployers, bankers, advertisers, politi-cians and lovers, the unfulfilled prom-ises that frustrate and disappoint us the most are the ones we give ourselves. Perhaps in contrast with the former, promises we give ourselves are uttered with candid yet usually futile intentions.

“False promises” is an archival docu-mentation of such promises. Utterly personal, middle-class, tragic, ex-com-municative or over-optimistic, “False Promises” employs various media of interaction with urban life and the in-volvement of the public in the work it-self.

Former Kodra camp, THESSALONIKI

2009False Promisesinstallationhapenning

In the happening people can sign their promise of choice.

2009False Promisesurban intervention

part of Action Field Kodra

Kalamaria, THESSALONIKI

2009False PromisesperformanceDuring the performance I copy “my promises” in school notebooks until the alarm goes off. After the last alarm I get up, tear up the pages of the notebook and give them out to viewers.

2007WANTED

stencil & posterinstallationweb-site

part of Action Field Kodra

This project is about everyday “small-time” cruelty that will never make it to the police report. It describes incidents which directly involve us, or we have been an unwilling witness to: acts of unnecessary cruelty, unrecorded in-justice, disregard for people’s feelings, particularities and dignity. We passively observe them everyday or attempt to take a stance against them. How do these incidents shape our world and our experience? How does our experi-ence of them alter us?

Former Kodra camp, THESSALONIKI

2004Not Made in Greece

performance-for-camera single channel videopart of Open Studios

In front of my London appartment win-dow I sing Pontic songs and songs my mother used to sing. The work deals with belonging and the (un)familiarity of place. The video is shown in the female section of the Turkish Baths of Bey Hamam in Thessaloniki.

Bey Hamam, THESSALONIKI

2004Little Embarrassing Secrets

The revelation of secrets that maintain a particular place in each individual’s personal story constitutes the basic objective of L.E.S. (Little Embarrassing Secrets). With the help of the internet - since the secrets that are presented in the work were contributed through e-mail by various people from Greece and abroad - Angeliki Avgitidou rakes up memories by playing the role of the accomplice in insignificant, yet rather unpleasant small-time crimes.

L.E.S. (Little Embarrassing Secrets) is a landscape in which secret stories have been brought together because, despite their insignificance, they contin-ue to occupy our memory. The dissimu-lation of a secret, as well as the desire to reveal our secrets and purgation as concept are some of the elements fea-tured in this work.

performance with agentspart of Action Field Kodra

Former Kodra Camp, THESSALONIKI

2004Little Embarrassing Secretsperformers:

Aklidi Polyxeni Galatou Katerina Evstratiadis Manolis Klinis Yiannis Mouratidou Mimi Pantelidis Kostas Papadopoulos GrigorisTsikara Mara

2004Wish List/Prallel Lives

In these performative photographs I am depicted in various snapshots of my “ideal” life. The prints mimic printing errors by duplicating the image of the self. The presence of another person, is always implied in the scene.

Parallel lives would be days of com-munication, exchange and belonging, altough it becomes clear that they are about absence, daydreaming nad loss.

Digital Prints 37X50 cmpart of Less is More

Millefiori ARtspace, ATHENS

2003The Self and the netmultimedia performance for camerapart of Web as Performance Space

In this multimedia screen presentation the user can navigate through three different identities, those of the viewer, the academic and the artist, identities which challenge the perception of the self as an easily definable entity.

ICA, LONDON