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December Events 2016
Varvakeios Venue
Jenny Marketou, Assembly In No Particular Order (video still), 2016, HD, 14', colour, sound
December events start with The Meeting Room, which emerged as an outcome of the two-day public assemblies event HOW Assemblies Matter?, the ongoing translocal research project by Jenny Marketou which took place at the National Polytechnic School of Athens and the historic M.A.X. and Averof amphitheaters on 21-22 October 2016. The hosted assemblies and performative talks instigated numerous discussions; about the practice of "assembly" as a platform for inquiry, action, reaction, civic participation, collective intelligence and as a starting point for an "art of being many".
The Meeting Room for HOW Assemblies Matter?, features unedited, excerpts of videos and live streaming documented during the two-day assemblies, as well as an artist's book, and a dossier with short statements, scripts, images, texts and other kind of contributions and afterthoughts by those who participated in HOW Assemblies Matter?.
Jenny Marketou's video/essay Assemblies in No Particular Order, 2016 premieres in Athens during the evocative The Meeting Room. The work which has toured at museums in Spain and Portugal, consists of a series of appropriated archival films and images found online on media networks recent records, of distinct historic "assemblies" and protests around the world and in Greece; visual by-products of radical political times. The video is accompanied by a digitally manipulated audio, composed by a mechanical female voice stitched together with interviews conducted by the artist in US and Greece. These interviews with activists, writers, thinkers, anthropologists, art historians and architects are mixed with critical texts and fictional narratives.
The Meetng Room continuous to be informed by and aims to continue revisiting "the art of being many" as instigated during HOW Assemblies Matter?. It is complemented by events that activate, encourage and facilitate new forms of being together.
On Friday December 16 and on Saturday 17 the public is called to bring questions and topics, which are pertinent to them and share them in an open debate with the artist and other members of the audience. During that time the public is also encouraged to read extracts from literature, perform speech acts, poems, music, discuss headline news and environmental issues, gender politics, art, fashion.
Jenny Marketou aims for The Meetng Room to become a contemplative and open space for playful experimentation and for it to act as a platform where the future of activist and socially engaged art becomes more meaningful under the current global cultural and political climate in Greece, EU and North America.
For more information please visit: Assemblies Summit Blog
With the Support of:
Athens City Centre
Passageway of Panepistimou street, Athens, Greece © Mariela Nestora
On Saturday, December 17th, YELP danceco. presents Two steps further down, a choreography within the urban landscape, a promenade. The spectators' walk starts at the National Library on Panepistimiou street, continues towards Omonoia square, and ends inside Bageion. The piece involves walking, witnessing choreographed actions and participating in some of them.
This urban choreography begins at the National Library - a symbol of the city of Athens, evoking thoughts on the relationship and responsibility of citizens toward knowledge and history. Several intermediate stops follow on the way to Omonoia square - another symbol of Athens, which has been changing form continuously over the years. It is a short walk full of contrasts and surprises, which accumulates parts of the recent history of this city and brings forth the wide range of contradictions, settled in the everyday life of Athens.
The spectators are equipped with a mp3 player, listening to instructions of movement and other materials, as they engage in a totally different experience of the city and the movement of their bodies within it. It is an individual and collective experience, somewhere in between the isolated experience of cohabitations in urban context and a group action game. What is created cannot be totally distinguished from real life, but at the same time it is a proposition for a new life, open to dialogue with the unexpected.
With the Support of:
 
Events' Programme
HOW Assemblies Matter? : The Meeting Room | Jenny Marketou
Varvakeios venue | Athinas str. - opposite of Varvakeios Market
Friday, December 8 - Sunday, December 18 | 16:00 - 20:00
Two Steps Further Down | YELP danceco.
National Library of Greece | 32 Panepistimiou str.
Saturday, December 17 | 15:00
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