15-DAYS CURATORS
AND ARTISTS RESIDENCY
IN ITHACA.
An international Artist in Residency Program in Ithaca that results in the production of original work regarding the island and its history.
10 international Artists will meet in Ithaca, will work on the meanings of Odyssey, will be curated by 4 international Curators, will exhibit their work on Return2Ithaca 2023.
2022 Theme
Home(r) keeps me alive
Our program embraces the concept of hope for return that Home(r) mentions in many ways in the Odyssey.
Here Home and can be expressed through a critical and contemporary point of view concerning political, social, (displacement, economic migration, war trauma) racial and environmental issues (natural catastrophes, devaluation of living surrounding).
The participating artists connect intimate experience of the returning subject to multiple locations, historical experiences, inter-subjective relations, and cultural interactions. Through the wide variety of multiple photographic narratives of the artists the program raises questions about the need to return as a journey to untouched roots and Home that the ethnic subject left behind.
Their diacritical approach combines, on the one hand, a sensitivity to the context and structural elements of modern diaspora and wandering and on the other, an analysis of the individual psychological processes inherent to the experience of displacement and return such as nostalgia, memory and belonging.
Exposing the realities of this modern-day odyssey as well as the moral shortcomings evident in our own indifference, the program is a critical call for participation and an unprecedented exploration of a world we often choose not to know.
Home(r) explores the human Odyssey
not only in the past or present but in eternity.
Selection Process
The selection of the participant artists 2022 has been completed.
Participants
They will present their work, design and propose installations, set up exhibitions and screenings. They will discuss contemporary reflections on the artistic practices they follow. They will donate part of their produced work to a permanent collection of the Municipality of Ithaca.
Residency Venue
The renovated Environmental Education Centre in Vathi looking at the sea, will be the ideal host center for artists. The Program covers accommodation for 15 days with breakfast.
The founders of the R2I Program, Dr. Nina Kassianou (Curator and Historian of Photography) and Costas Ordolis (Photographer) will be your fellow-voyagers on this journey.
He studied at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna (Mag.art 2001) and at the University of Vienna. He works in the fields of media-performance, installation, net.art, radio art, sound art, video art and visual arts. Since 2001 he is one of the curators of FLUSS – society for the promotion of photo- and media art, based in Wolkersdorf, Austria; from 2005 to 2008 co-curator of the International Photographic Triennial Backlight in Tampere, FIN.
Martin is founder of alien productions, together with Norbert Math (I), Andrea Sodomka (A) and August Black (USA), established 1997 as an artists’ network for theory and practice of new technology and media. Typical for some of their interactive installations is the use of high end medical interfaces, like a computer aided biofeedback system in “Auto-regulative Spaces” or a non-mydriatic fundus camera for “The Thought Projector”.
Since 2013 they are working on their long-term project “metamusic” which involves a flock of grey parrots as creative partners in an artistic research process. Martin currently lives and works in Vienna, Austria.
alien productions: alien.mur.at
He is the founder and former director of the International Festival of Photography in Łódź, the Foundation of Visual Education and the Łódź Art Center in Poland.
In 2015 and 2018 he was artistic director of the Triennial of Photography in Hamburg. Currently working as a curator at Łódź Fotofestiwal and at Ci.CLO Bienal in Porto, Portugal.
In the past years, he was a member of the jury of various art projects. Currently, he is working as a guest curator, consultant, and visiting lecturer for numerous organizations, museums, schools and festivals in Europe and worldwide.
He lives in Łódź and Porto.
Dr. Nina Kassianou holds a PhD in History and Theory of Photography from Panteion University of Athens and gained a scholarship from Princeton University in the USA, to research photographic archives relating to the Greek Civil War and the Greek Resistance against Nazi.
She has worked for a decade as a photo book critic for the Sunday edition of the prestigious Greek newspaper "To Vima" . She has participated as a portfolio reviewer in many important festivals in Europe.
She has curated more than 100 exhibitions of renowned artists in Greece and abroad and edited a significant number of photo book publications. She has collaborated with the Photographic Center of Skopelos, the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography (for more than 10 years). She was the artistic director of the M55projects gallery in Athens, a space aiming in inviting photographers and curators from all over Europe to exchange works and ideas with Greek Artists.
She has collaborated with various galleries based in Athens. She has authored numerous academic essays, and articles on the Greek and European Photography History as well as contributed to Cyclopedia “The History of European Photography 1900-2000” by writing the Greek History of Photography from 1900-1969.
The last four years she is the Photography Director at DL Gallery in Piraeus Greece, having curated international group and solo exhibitions.
She is the founder of R2I Curating Art & Artists Cultural Program, held every summer in her home island Ithaca.
Born 1963 in Vienna, Thomas is Managing Director of 'Eyes On'. From 2004-2016 organised and developed the Month of Photography in Vienna, currently he is working mainly as a curator on international projects.
He is also Chairman of Reflektor, a Vienna based platform for self-published photobooks, and member of Rotlicht-Festival, a new festival for analog photography in Vienna.
From 2013-2017 he has been President and 2017/18 Secretary General of EMOP (European Month of Photography).
Since 2014 he has been a member of the advisory board of CAP Prize (Contemporary African Photography Prize).
He has been member of juries for Festivals and Awards and participated as a Portfolio Reviewer in Arles, Athens, Belgrade, Berlin, Bialystok, Bratislava, Budapest, Kaunas, Lille, Ljubljana, Lodz, Luxembourg, Madrid, Montpellier, Montreal, Paris, Vienna, and Zurich.
In 1982 he began working as photography curator. From 1985 through 1996 he was director of the Photography Department at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, where he organized the photo-festival FOCO (1985 to 1989). He has been founder and initial artistic director of PHotoEspaña, Madrid (1998 to 2000). In 2003 he curated the project –touring exhibition and book– MAPAS ABIERTOS. Fotografía Latinoamericana 1991-2002.
He has curated many solo and group exhibitions in 25 countries, among others: curator for the X Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2006; Getxophoto, Bilbao (2007 through 2009); the Latin American section of the Biennale Photoquai (Museum Quai de Branly) 2007-2009, Paris; Seoul Photo Fair 2010, Korea and the Singapore International Photography Festival 2012 and curated in 2013 the exhibition and book Spain throughout Photography, 1839-2010, at MAPFRE Foundation, Madrid. He was the curator of the Daegu Photo Biennale 2014, Korea, guest curator of the ChangJiang International Photography & Video Biennale, Chongqing, the Guangzhou Image Triennial 2017, at the Guangdong Art Museum, China, and Imago Lisboa 2019.
In 2010, he participated as lecturer and mentor in the Joop Swart Masterclass 2010 at the Foundation World Press Photo in Amsterdam. He was Series Editor of the Biblioteca de Fotógrafos Latinoamericanos, PHotoBolsillo, La Fábrica Editorial, Madrid (2010-2012). In 2006 he was awarded with the PHotoEspaña Prize Bartolomé Ros for the best professional track record in photography in Spain. From 2014 through 2016 he has been director of the Latin American Master of Photography and Visual Arts at the Centro de la Imagen of Lima, Peru.
Ana Catarina Pinho is a visual artist, editor and researcher. She’s currently a FCT fellow researcher, developing a PhD at the European Centre for Documentary Research (eCDR), at the University of South Wales, in the United Kingdom. Pinho is the founder director of ARCHIVO, a research platform focused on photography and visual culture where she annually develops a program of both research and cultural events and activities. She’s the editor of the open access academic journal Archivo Papers Journal, and has recently launched the publishing house Archivo Press. Within her academic work, she is a member of the research groups Global Art Archive (GAA) from Departamento de Historia del Arte, Universitat de Barcelona, and Contemporary Art Studies (CASt) from Instituto de História da Arte, from NOVA University of Lisbon. She recently edited the book Reframing the Archive (2021), published by Archivo Press, and curated the exhibition The Empire of Fiction, at the Extremaduran and Latin Americam Museum of Contemporary Art (MEIAC), in Spain.
→ anacatarinapinho.com
Marina Paulenka is Director of Exhibitions for Fotografiska Berlin where she is responsible for museum’s exhibition strategy. Fotografiska is a museum experience for the modern world and a premiere destination for photography and culture.
Paulenka has 15 years of experience in artistic direction, curating, education, leadership, management and development in culture and art institutions and organisations, but also in her own artistic practice.
She was Artistic Director of UNSEEN Foundantion and UNSEEN, an Amsterdam based platform for contemporary photography that presents the latest developments in the field of photography and amplifies the careers of boundary-pushing artists.
Prior to her role at Unseen, she worked as Artistic Director and Curator of the Organ Vida International Photography Festival, the leading institution for contemporary photography in Croatia.
Paulenka is a member of the Creative Committee at the Bristol Photo festival, a guest curator at FUTURES Photography, and a keynote curator for FORMAT21 International Photography Festival. She is the recipient of the Lucie Awards 2018 for a best curator/ exhibition of the year for the exhibition “Engaged, Active, Aware: Women Perspectives Now”.
So far she has curated numerous exhibitions and work with artists such as Tabita Rezaire, Juliana Huxtable, Martine Gutierrez, Dana Lixenberg, Zanele Muholi, Hannah Starkey, Nina Berman, Amalia Ulman, Laia Abril, Morehshin Allahayari and many others.
Paulenka nominates photographers for The Joop Swart Masterclass, the Prix Pictet, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize and she is an international juror and portfolio reviewer at many institutions, awards and festivals worldwide including the Les Rencontres d’Arles, Hamburg Triennial, Plat(t)form Winterthur, Robert Capa Prize, FORMAT.