Salon de Vortexcontinues its nomadic practices within the structured urban space, transferring its attention from the metropolitan center to the heart of the west suburbs of Athens, Nikaia.
The work 851 Athens-Nikaia (which was a well known bus line), presented in 2015 Art Athina, is a starting point of a critical approach to the connections between fatherland and metropolis and consists a “prologue” to the work in progress titled Stories from the west side. This broader work will attempt to build interpretations of the period starting from the big cordon of the Germans in Nikaia in August 1944 (resulting in numerous executions of the locals, arrests and imprisonments in concentrations camps) and ends with the dissolution of the local center of the Golden Dawn ( the neo-nazi political party) in 2014.
We are concerned with the complementary relationship of the past to the present moment, with the playful scarification of history, a constant practice of our collective since its foundation in 2009. We consider the suburbs as a more dynamic field than the metropolitan center for the continuation of our activity and research, and so we move from the Historical center to the Historical suburb. (This particular area happens to be the place of origin for both of us).
Stories from the west side, will be situated in Nikaia where we plan to create a network involving architects, urban planners, writers, historians, social activists, artists, in order to illuminate aspects of the place and bring forward its particular qualities.
Urban wandering, the interpretation of the suburban network and the emergence of the micro-cultural particularities, the re-description of events, the phycogeography of the area and its differentiations within time consist the main methodological tools and the artistic practices of this venture.
At the core of Salon de Vortex, are: Yiannis Isidorou Yiannis Grigoriadis.
| 851 athina-nikea the bus SDV installation @artAthina 2015 4-7 June 2015 |
yiannis isidorou 