Cycladic Rondo

Cycladic Rondo (Return -feedback)

Artists: Eva Yannakopoulos, Dimitra Kondylatos George Samandas

Curator: Despina Zefkili

Bearing the same name of George Samandas’ artwork created specifically for the festival, this year’s exhibition— carrying over from the celebrations that took place two years ago-on the occasion of the then tenth anniversary- and after last year’s suspension—sets the notion of “restart”, “resume” as its departure point. Can the “sapience/wisdom” of the natural landscape as well as the historical, archaeological, and folk heritage provide us with new instruments for thinking about the future? With reference both to the cyclidic surroundings and to the popular and archaeological tradition of the island on the one hand and to its status as a tourist destination which kicks off again within a country that restarts in the middle of a pandemic and a planet worrying about the climate change, on the other female and male artists treat input and the feedback received in diverse manners. Researching by means of figurative and anthropological tools, they cogitate upon the stereotyped representation of gender both as regards to the archaeological heritage and the economy of tourism. The manual dimension of the return, the intangible qualities of hospitality, the sound of the island hearing itself constitute some of the in-situ observations made by the three visual artists and highlighted in their works.

Return, feedback and conceptual repurposing