ARCAthens Virtual Residency #1
We are delighted to introduce our Inaugural ARCAthens Virtual Residency Fellows,
Blanka Amezkua and Eirene Efstathiou
Blanka Amezkua is an artist, cultural promoter, educator, and project creator based in the South Bronx with exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Queens Museum, El Museo del Barrio, Art Base; Brussels, the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, San Diego Art Institute, and the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, among others. Amezkua’s practice is greatly influenced and informed by folk art and popular culture, and in 2008 she began an artist-run project in her bedroom called the Bronx Blue Bedroom Project (BBBP). BBBP ran from 2008-2010. Between 2010-2016, she lived in Athens, Greece where she initiated FoKiaNou 24/7, now FokiaNou Art Space, in the center of the Hellenic capital. Blanka currently operates AAA3A (Alexander Avenue Apartment 3A) an alternative artist-run project which offers food, dialogue, workshops, and art in her living room. Mentions of her work and projects can be found in various notable publications including HYPERALLERGIC, The New York Times, ART NEWS, HuffPost Arts, The International Review of African American Art, and Time Out New York. www.blankaamezkua.com
Blanka Amezkua Eirene Efs tathiou with the Kiafa series Eirene Efstathiou is a visual artist living in Athens, Greece who works in a variety of different media from painting and printmaking to performance to small scale installations. Her practice investigates collective and archival memory, sentiment, affect and how these function in the public sphere. Efstathiou is a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tufts University, (Studio Art Diploma and BFA, 2003) where she studied painting and printmaking, and the Athens School of Fine Arts, (MFA 2010). She received a residency fellowship at Zea Mays Printmaking in Northampton, MA in 2017, and she is currently a PhD candidate at the Athens School of Fine Art. Efstathiou has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the United States. Her most recent solo exhibitions include: A Jagged Line Through Space , Eleni Koroneou Gallery Athens (2020); Regarding the Continuity of Disrupted Images , Irene Laub Gallery, Brussels Belgium, (2017); I Draw, I Learn Greece, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, Greece (2016). Her most recent group exhibitions include: When the Present is History, DEPO, Istanbul, Turkey (2020); Anatomy of Political Melancholy , Athens Conservatory, Shwartz Foundation, Athens Greece (2019); Truth Is Always Something Else: A dialogue between two Collections , Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, Italy (2018); ANTIDORON. Works from the EMST Collection, documenta 14, Kassel, Germany (2017). Efstathiou’s work is represented in public and private collections in Europe and the United States. In 2009 she was the recipient of the DESTE Prize, DESTE Foundation, Athens, Greece. She lives and works in Athens, Greece. www.eireneefstathiou.com
Instagram Visual Conversation ARCAthens Virtual Residency #1 is the work of our first two AVR Fellows, Blanka Amezkua, the Bronx, New York, and Eirene Efstathiou, Athens, Greece. The Instagram conversation below is taking place from June 1-June 30, 2020, and is posted in chronological order, with the most recent date first.
AVR Synopsis – A Cross Cultural Dialogue Between the AVR Fellows
VIDEO
Featuring Blanka Amezkua, Eirene Efstathiou, and ARCAthens Executive Director Aristides Logothetis, Recorded June 12, 2020 Week 4: #MagicOrTheTimeIsNow
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Curatorial Reflections for Week 4 #MagicOrTheTimeIsNow #BlankaAmezkua (#TheBronx) and #EireneEfstathiou (#Athens) complete their Virtual Residency with ARCAthens #AVR during a moment of unprecedented uncertainty. This moment, the #SummerOf2020, is a moment of “seeming” oppositions, and the Fellows explore these distressing contradictions through contextualizing the images of their artwork with their own text as well as excerpts from thinkers they are inspired by. The Fellows have been asking us questions throughout the AVR, just as we are desperate for answers. We all have questions, now more than ever, about the pandemic, about the state of our communities, our nation, our world, our planet, our humanity. I’ve often found myself asking, “Can someone please tell us the truth?” Alas, answers, and truth are always elusive, and, as we search now, we seem to be in a moment of haze, confusion, and lack of clarity. Or, are we? Is tomorrow really “unknown” now any more than ever, or is our perceptive facility under a necessary reconstruction? Blanka reminds us the words of #AlokVaid-Menon: “permanence is unambitious. things don’t die, they go somewhere else,” and “’natural’ & ‘reality’ are political aesthetics. birth new worlds. every pattern can be unwoven.” Maybe it’s not haze or confusion we are experiencing, but the pain of truth, unmasked, forced on us to contend with?
Eirene asks, “What can happen as if by magic, between two tomorrows?” I was pleasantly surprised to see the Fellows choose this final week’s theme, #MagicOrTheTimeIsNow because, as we battle viruses –physiological or perceptual- artists (and all of us, really) need to continue asserting and embracing the unknown: that which we may not yet be ready to visualize, or even comprehend, through our corrupted rational or political tropes, and allow for a courage, or audacity, to overtake us for that which comes, however new, together, with light. Yours, Aristides Logothetis #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency
#blankaamezkua
#eireneefstathiou
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 28, 2020 at 2:53pm PDT
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2020 NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS: 1. return to the basics: the lungs, they are for breathing. the heart, it is for forgiving. 2. remain porous through the pain. a broken heart is an invitation: there is space here, inside. 3. your life is your greatest romance. so, speak roses. make every conversation a ceremony. 4. amidst diffused despair, harvest hope. cultivate idealism. wear them like heirlooms. 5. become indelible. linger in everything you touch. 6. permanence is unambitious. things don’t die, they go somewhere else. 7. “natural” & “reality” are political aesthetics. birth new worlds. every pattern can be unwoven. 8. language is bewitching, but do not mistake talking about the thing as doing the thing. 9. comparison is creativity’s curse. genius is the ability to orbit elsewhere, imagine otherwise. 10. even trash is teeming with life. surrender to your insignificance & find your magic there. 11. empathy is a daily baptism, but do not confuse bartering your dignity as compromise. ——-******** / Alok Vaid-Menon ALOK is an internationally acclaimed gender fluid writer, performance artist, and public speaker based in New York City. /photo of the floral installation, “Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes”; Mixed media; silk flowers, thumb tacks; Variable dimensions (72 x 72 in roughly); 2020. Part of EXODUS III: : MEXICO IN NEW YORK – FROM OROZCO TO OROZCO at WhiteBox, NYC May 5 – June 12, 2020. Post by Blanka Amezkua #blankaamezkua #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency #MagicOrTheTimeIsNow #flowers #magic #whiteboxny #orozco #mexico #alokvaidmenon
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 26, 2020 at 9:34am PDT
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Depending on where or when or how it goes down, they might even come to you looking to cover their behinds. They already plan to tell people about the “listening session” they had and how they “consulted with their staff of color” on how to proceed. This could happen at any time, so don’t get ready, STAY READY. And when the time comes, feel no shame, be opportunistic, stand in your finally — if temporarily — acknowledged power. . .and start looting. Snatch as much as you can, demand better for Black people in your organization. Demand the kind of "better for Black people" that fuels #BlackLivesMatter, the kind of better that makes life better for ALL OF US, all marginalized communities (and, SURPRISE! – better for all the people for whom these systems were built). Bend the arc. Do it for the culture. Start Looting as if Your Life Depended on It: A Call To Action By Gail Drakes (@gaildrakes) https://spark.adobe.com/page/2RNgT9UdlBpYS/?fbclid=IwAR0x6JWn0a6VaZlAq7b_nx4D2COMXt1gDY7vtDmdF20MlA0QFTbnQMNz6K4 —— Disco dreams; Color photographs; Variable dimensions; 2016. A series of photographs taken in random locations using a portable pipe cleaner soft sculpture as the main protagonist in the overall composition. Post by Blanka Amezkua #blankaamezkua #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency #MagicOrTheTimeIsNow #pipecleaners #magic #discodreams #nyc #color
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 25, 2020 at 7:46am PDT
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Drawings from the archival work ‘Fortification Typology – an Overview’ (2014). The drawings are from a group of photographs I found at the Greek Military’s historical archives. The photos, taken by the National Army are of captured Democratic Army of Greece fortifications from the civil war (1946-49). I was struck by the fact that as a set they read as an architectural typology, as if the photographer could have been photographing Cycladic farmhouses instead. I remember at the time of my research, the civilian archivist (there were also soldier archivists) asked me why I was doing research into this period of Greek history, “everyone already knows what happened then”, he said. Yes, I answered, but no one ever talks about it. He grudgingly agreed that this was the case. Strictly speaking this wasn’t true at the time, as deep in our so-called crisis (the last one the financial one) right-wing politicians frequently invoked the civil war as an argument against any challenges to their ruinous status quo. Post by, Eirene Efstathiou. #eireneefstathiou #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency #MagicOrTheTimeIsNow
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 25, 2020 at 11:38am PDT
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Get in. Get out. Get it over with. This burden shouldn’t fall to you, yet here we are. You have spent so much time doing this work, and they have spent so much time ignoring the pain — even if they recoil in shock at the suggestion. You need to get back to healing, back to figuring out how to raise free Black children in a nation that doesn’t deserve them, back to finding ways to connect with others who can support you right now, finding ways to hold on to hope despite the concerted efforts to deny it to you. But now is the time. Rise and Shine. Time for ONE MORE PUSH, fam… until the next push. From, “Start Looting as if Your Life Depended on It: A Call To Action,” By Gail Drakes (@gaildrakes) https://spark.adobe.com/page/2RNgT9UdlBpYS/?fbclid=IwAR0x6JWn0a6VaZlAq7b_nx4D2COMXt1gDY7vtDmdF20MlA0QFTbnQMNz6K4 —— Kalamata findings/ nails/ dead cricket; Black and white photographs; variable dimensions; 2016. An image from this series was included in THE BORDER CROSSED ME at Bronx Art Space, South Bronx in 2016. Post by Blanka Amezkua #blankaamezkua #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency #MagicOrTheTimeIsNow #BronxArtSpace #border #magic
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 24, 2020 at 6:42am PDT
Week 3: “Movement”
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Curatorial Reflections: For Week 3, the theme chosen by the #AVR Fellows was #Movement. #BlankaAmezkua (#TheBronx) and #EireneEfstathiou (#Athens) abducted us, sailed us, and transported us to places of their past, places that also seem like places in our present. We began the week with the movement of bodies and shifting shapes, budging against shifting social spaces, which then pushed us on to movement’s anticipated end: absence –absence of bodies and absence of spaces. Again we are asked questions to ponder: -What counts as history? -What counts as a historical document? -Can the records of movements through a space made for moving bodies remind us of our shifting social constructs and our shifting social contracts? -Can the forms of paper shaped mandorlas, laid out as a mandala, move us to imagine how violence can erase human beings, disappear their, and our, humanity? -Can a cactus, delicately transformed into the shape of a body remind us of the journeys between worlds, old and new? Can a capsized raft in the north eastern Aegean Sea transport us to imagine journeys through space, through fear, through hope and desperation? -Can we be moved ourselves? Yours, Aristides Logothetis #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency
#blankaamezkua
#eireneefstathiou
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 21, 2020 at 2:26pm PDT
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VANISHING WHILE MOVING ——-On September 26, 2014, 43 male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College were forcibly abducted and then disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. They were allegedly taken into custody by local police officers from Cocula and Iguala, in collusion with organized crime. According to official reports, the students annually commandeered several buses to travel to Mexico City to commemorate the anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre; police attempted to intercept several of the buses by using roadblocks and firing weapons. Details remain unclear on what happened during and after the roadblock. It’s been almost 6 years since their disappearance. In 2015, 43 pieces were created , during 43 consecutive days, in private and public locations, to create awareness and clamor for justice; each piece contains the name of one student. Materials used for each were nails, string, and silhouettes of my body.The parents continue searching for their sons while demanding truth and justice. The complete 43 for them/43 para ellos project can be found here: https://43forthem.tumblr.com/ Post by Blanka Amezkua #blankaamezkua #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency #movement #ayotzinapavive #vivoslosqueremos #fueelestado #Ayotzinapa #justicia #runningforayotzinapa43
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 19, 2020 at 7:55am PDT
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Nopal (from the Nahuatl word nohpalli for the pads of the plant) There are approximately one hundred and fourteen known species endemic to Mexico…Nopales are generally sold fresh in Mexico, cleaned of spines, and sliced to the customer's desire on the spot. Like most true cactus species, prickly pears are native only to the Americas. Through human actions, they have since been moved to many other areas of the world. Prickly pears (mostly Opuntia stricta) were originally imported into Europe during the 1500s. In Greece, it grows in such places as the Peloponnese region, Ionian Islands, or Crete, and its figs are known as frangosyka (Frankish, i.e. Western European, figs) or pavlosyka (Paul's figs), depending on the region. Source: Wikipedia / Nopal silhouette; Sliced nopal; Variable dimensions; 2014 —– Post by Blanka Amezkua #blankaamezkua #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency #movement #nopal #pricklypear #cactus #SouthBronx #MottHaven
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 18, 2020 at 9:11am PDT
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Works from the series 'A Jagged Line through Space’ or excerpts from a natural history of Exarcheia home of so many movements. I moved, traversed and wandered in this space following psychogeographic maps drawn by others, pausing at thresholds, landmarks, points of interest (and quotidian) and unofficial monuments. Audre Lorde is right, the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. New tools are necessary, new maps. 'A Jagged Line Through Space', 2019 Etching and mezzotint on paper 20 x 25 cm, and 'Razzle Dazzle K'., 2019 Etching, lithograph, Chine-collé and guache on paper 34 x 24 cm Post by, Eirene Efstathiou. #eireneefstathiou #InstagramTakeover #AAVirtualResidency #movement
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 17, 2020 at 11:17am PDT
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The Movement of Bodies ♡☆♡☆♡☆♡☆♡☆♡☆ He fractured white light into seven colours, reckoned the distance to the moon, wrote laws for the movement of bodies: no mystery to him, until now. Planets in their orbit, the sea's tides, his eyes locked to the lit face of the young mathematician. A body at rest remains so unless some force act on it. So many years, no joy but in numbers, no troubling of the flesh. The pink tongue-tip idly licking a finger constricts his heart. His edges flicker, scintillate, like a heat-haze. A hand brushes his cheek and it colours: to each action an equal and opposite reaction. He tries to think straight: the moon. I worked out its mass. Moonlight, kissing in moonlight. The movement of bodies. The moon draws the tides. A knife in my eye. Once, probing for truth, he nearly blinded himself. This time he will flinch from the lacerating light. Legend will say he died a virgin, and never saw the sea. ♡☆♡☆♡☆♡☆♡☆ Poem from Sheenagh Pugh's 2005 collection, The Movement of Bodies /Photos of me playing with my shadow while fascinated by the forms created by very slight variations of my posture and movements in Morelos, Mexico 2017. Posted by #blankaamezkua #instagramtakeover #AAVirtualResidency #movement #movimiento #shadows #motthaven #play #southbronx
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 15, 2020 at 6:46am PDT
Week 2: “Proximity”
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Curatorial Reflections: With Week 2’s theme, #Proximity, #BlankaAmezkua (#TheBronx) and #EireneEfstathiou (#Athens) ask us several questions: • How close do we come to the world as we wish it to be? • How close can we come to the social justice struggles and uprisings of another country? • How close do we come to other beings? • How many people will be reluctant to touch or approach others? The #AVR Fellows’ images this week are records of their artworks, whether objects or performances, and they seem to weave here an extempore chronicle of conceptual, narrative, as well as formal relationships: corners, cones, and lines, leading from one image into the next, as the touch of a hand passes on the baton of wonder. Together with the Fellows, we ponder #Proximity through physicality, presence/absence, and desire –“Desire to touch and be touched by the amorous other is always also the desire to touch another world.” Yours,
Aristides Logothetis
#AAVirtualResidency
#blankaamezkua
#eireneefstathiou
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 14, 2020 at 9:05am PDT
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The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. A republican businessman and reality television act was elected. On Wednesday morning, November 9 I received a call from my niece Sofia, she lives in California, announcing her discontent with the results. She was 19 yrs old at the time. I couldn’t stay up for the results that night, it was nerve wrecking. Upon hearing her voice and learning the dreadful news the next morning, I rushed to Central Park. My body implored for the solace I find when I’m in proximity to nature. And now, given the months we’ve experienced in lockdown and the last two weeks that as a nation we have collectively voiced our urgent discontent with police brutality and daily ongoing racial injustices committed towards our black communities; again my body begged to find comfort in nature. Not as an escape, but rather as a moment to deepen and sincerely ask how we can assure there will be equality/equity all over the board, in every social structure that exists and shapes who we are as a society. 2020 has revealed much to reflect upon and demands that we change and abandon our wicked ways. #AAVirtualResidency #blankaamezkua #proximity #nature #trees #life #vida #arboles
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 11, 2020 at 11:38am PDT
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“New York City Begins Reopening After 3 Months of Outbreak and Hardship…As many as 400,000 people may return to work on Monday in a city still recovering from the pandemic and roiled by protests.” NYT, June 7, 2020. As we begin to open the city, I wonder, how many people will be reluctant to touch or approach others? I contemplate, on how much this pandemic + our enclosure has affected the way we feel about our skin and that of humankind…Image: KARNALITAS (Sisters); Embroidery on cotton fabric, 36 x 36 in., 2005 / ARCAthens has invited #BlankaAmezkua (#TheBronx) and #EireneEfstathiou (#Athens) to an #InstagramTakeover, where these two wonderful artists engage in a visual conversation in June. For week 2, the theme changes from Location to Proximity. Join us! #AAVirtualresidency #proximity #southbronx
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 8, 2020 at 7:29am PDT
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During the lockdown I was nostalgic for crowds. Now that lockdown has been lifted, I wonder, how close can you come to another person from 2 meters distance? Here bodies close to each other, at a concert, in protest and a festival, Details from the works: 'Map Trace 1', ink on found map 2016, 'We Are Not (Just) An image on T.V.', Oil on panel 2013, and 'Ρετάλια 88', lithograph / ARCAthens has invited #BlankaAmezkua (#TheBronx) and #EireneEfstathiou (#Athens) to an #InstagramTakeover, where these two wonderful artists engage in a visual conversation in June. For week 2, the theme changes from Location to Proximity. Join us! #AAVirtualResidency #eireneefstathiou #Proximity
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 8, 2020 at 10:44am PDT
Week 1: “Location”
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Curatorial Reflections: As the first week of the first-ever ARCAthens Virtual Residency (AVR) closes, and we prepare for Week 2, the theme changes from Location to #Proximity. ARCAthens has invited #BlankaAmezkua (#TheBronx) and #EireneEfstathiou (#Athens) to an #InstagramTakeover, where these two wonderful artists engage in a visual conversation. Although ARCAthens had aspirations of a more robust digital platform from its inception, the timing of the AVR’s birth was directly inspired as a response to the #Covid19 #Pandemic. Little did we, nor our #Fellows, ever imagine our first week would close on the 10th day of historic demonstrations inspired and captivated by tragedy and the nation’s disgust, exasperation, and readiness to push the country further away from the death-grip of institutional racism. Predictably, many of the AVR Fellows’ posts have been journalistic. With the theme of “Location” -Blanka’s base is in The Bronx, Eirene’s in Athens- both Fellows are in locations experiencing public demonstrations. This time, both in Covid and protests, The Bronx is #epicentric. Mixing original, sometimes older works with current photos is revealing a poetry in this project that transcends documentation and begins a peak at deeper, long-identified issues of research and concern for both these artists. The dots are connecting in an interesting, multi-layered visual poem, and I excitedly anticipate Week 2. I’ll chime in again at the end of Week 2. Meanwhile, please share your thoughts with us here, and stay healthy, stay focused, and support the arts, for a vision with clarity and hope. Yours, Aristides Logothetis #AAVirtualResidency #blankaamezkua #eireneefstathiou
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 6, 2020 at 9:56am PDT
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"STAND BY AND FOR BLACK PEOPLE!!!!" ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡Black was one of the first colors used by artists in neolithic cave paintings. In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches, and magic. According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, power, violence, evil, and elegance. – Wikipedia #aavirtualresidency #blankaamezkua #theshowmustbepaused
A post shared by ARCAthens (@arc_athens) on Jun 2, 2020 at 6:23am PDT
