The Athens Biennale announces its eighth edition, titled STASIS/EKSTASIS, curated by Thiago de Paula Souza under the artistic direction of Poka-Yio. The 8th Athens Biennale will take place from 2 April to 27 June 2027 at the former Tobacco Factory of the Hellenic Parliament, which will serve as its main exhibition venue.
Departing from personal notions such as proximity, intimacy and nostalgia, the 8th Athens Biennale reflects on broader, globally entangled political concerns, such as displacement, complicity and fear. AB8: STASIS/EKSTASIS seeks to investigate whether artistic practices can cultivate conditions for support, exchange, and to transform our political imagination, while functioning as spaces in which established certainties may be challenged. The exhibition emerges from a commitment to engage historical contexts in dialogue with contemporary art and everyday concerns, avoiding the illustration or commodification of those histories. How can we remain engaged and resist silence or indifference towards what’s going on? The title STASIS/EKSTASIS assumes the form of these two sister-images, revealing the nuance that has come to define our contemporary condition.
Stasis derives from the Greek term hístamai, meaning “to stand” or “to defend”, which in Ancient Greece was also used to refer to moments of internal conflict or disputes among members of the same community. STASIS is understood as a state of no movement, of stagnation, of restriction, marked by a feeling of inability to make decisions. At the same time, it functions as a metaphor for the present: a condition of crisis or decline in which it does not always seem possible to identify the proper tools or forms of action capable of producing change.
The original meaning of the Greek term ekstasis means “to stand outside of oneself”, to experience moments of intense emotions, translocation or displacement. Over time, its meaning broadened across different contexts and cultures, becoming more associated with ceremonies, pleasure, and trance-like experiences, often in various urban settings, circling back to the idea of a displacement of the body. What remains perhaps is the constant presence of this notion of the transcendental, or rather the idea of transformation. EKSTASIS is articulated through artistic practices which can take the form of manifestations of celebration and euphoria, but primarily as forms of energetic intensity, a large concentration of energy that manifests as a change of state.
AB8: STASIS/EKSTASIS proposes a relationship of friction and exchange between these terms, engaging both their traditional meanings and their contemporary resonances through a dialogue among artists from local and global contexts. The exhibition does not intend to remain silent in the face of today’s urgencies, yet it also refuses to instrumentalise them. From Athens—a city marked by history that is difficult to escape or simplify, but also a city that in recent years has foregrounded collective practices as responses to the world’s perversities—the 8th Athens Biennale “STASIS/EKSTASIS” functions as an exercise in understanding the present.
The 8th Athens Biennale is co-funded by the European Union through the NSRF — Regional Programme “Attica” 2021-2027.
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