GIRES - THE RIGHT TO BREATHE-A Virtual Exhibition -

THE RIGHT TO BREATHE - A virtual exhibition

GIRES, the Global Institute for Research Education & Scholarship is honored to collaborate with Greece in USA a New York City-based organization that promotes Greek culture in the U.S. founded by Dr. Sozita Goudouna, Out of the Box Intermedia based in Athens Greece and undercurrent.nyc a collective of artists in New York.

GIRES proudly welcomes & presents, for the first time in Europe the virtual exhibition, ” The Right to Breathe”.

Greece in USA launches the second iteration of its program for the internationalization of Greek Culture in the USA. The group exhibition The Right to Breathe takes as a starting point the “shortness of breath” derived from the experience of political pressure, social injustice, and economic austerity, exploring its connection with poetics, live art, and embodied politics. The concerns driving the “I Can’t Breathe” debates around race, discrimination, and violence have been left unconfronted for far too long. At the same time, the countless social injustices, and the politics of disposability that the COVID-19 pandemic lays bare expose the delusions of a post-racial society, as well as the deprivation of the universal right to breathe (see Achille Mbembe). The topic of breathability that the exhibition identifies and aims to historicize also provides an insight into the ongoing revaluation of criminal justice reform.

The exhibition currently takes place virtually at Undercurrent in New York.

Participating Artists

Chloe Akrithaki, Tonia Andrioti, Elaine Angelopoulos, Antonakis, Yota Argyropoulou / Michalis Konstantatos (Blindspot Theater Group), Christos Athanasiadis, Manolis Baboussis, Evangelia Basdekis, Rania Bellou, Abdelkader Benchamma, Emmanuel Bitsakis, Aggeliki Bozou, Christina Calbari, Lizzie Calligas, Rafika Chawishe, Thalia Chioti, Mat Chivers, Katerina Christidi, Dionisis Christofilogiannis, Lydia Dambassina, SeeVa Kitslis Dawne, Martha Dimitropoulou, Christophoros Doulgeris, Jessica Feldman & Steven Gertner, Dimitris Foutris, Mona Gamil, Maria Georgoula, Eleni Glinou, Nella Golanda, Kyriaki Goni, Delia Gonzalez, Efi Haliori, Zoe Hounta, The Callas (Lakis & Aris Ionas), Elias Kafouros, Eleni Kamma, Athanassios Kanakis, Nikomachi Karakostanoglou, Irini Karayiannopoulou, Ismini Karyotaki, Zoe Keramea, Aspassia Kouzoupi, Karolina Krasouli, Sia Kyriakakos, Dimitris Lamprou, James Lane, Anna Lascari, Jenny Marketou, Jannis Markopoulos, Yolanda Markopoulou (Mind the Fact), Eleanna Martinou, Despina Meimaroglou, Maro Michalakakos, Fryni Mouzakitou, Anna Muchin, Eleni Mylonas, Margarita Myrogianni, Mariela Nestora, John Newsom, Alice Palaska, Maria Papadimitriou, Nikos Papadopoulos, Natasha Papadopoulou, Euripides Papadopetrakis, Ilias Papailiakis, Elli Papakonstantinou (ODC Ensemble), Tereza Papamichali, Kostas Pappas, Eftihis Patsourakis, Helene Pavlopoulou, Anastasia Pelias, Elena Penga, Antonis Pittas, Tula Plumi, Artemis Potamianou, Marina Provatidou, Mantalina Psoma, Irene Ragusini, Nana Sachini, Georgia Sagri, Martha Sakellariou, George Sampsonidis, Katerina Sarra, Martin Sexton, Christina Sgouromiti, Vouvoula Skoura, Evangelia Spiliopoulou, Danae Stratou, Stefania Strouza, Vassiliea Stylianidou (aka Franck-Lee Alli-Tis), Maria Tsagkari, Antonis Tsakiris, Giorgos Tserionis, Filippos Tsitsopoulos, Nana Varveropoulou, Alexis Vasilikos, VASKOS (Vassilis Noulas & Kostas Tzimoulis), Nikolas Ventourakis, Eugenia Vereli, Vassilis Vlastaras, Panagiotis Vorrias, Maro Zacharogianire, Katerina Zacharopoulou, Theodoros Zafeiropoulos, Eleni Theodora Zaharopoulos, Lilia Ziamou, and Dimitris Zouroudis.

Visit the Exhibition

Brief view of the exhibits

ROOM 1

ROOM 2

ROOM 3

ROOM 4

ROOM 5

ROOM 6

ROOM 7

ROOM 8

Affiliated Projects

The Right to Silence?

The exhibition at undercurrent.nyc is in dialogue with The Right to Silence? at Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay School of Criminal Justice (CUNY).
Drawing from the 5th Amendment Right, the exhibition features pieces by visual and performing artists that attempt to uncover the profound and complex sense of silence that characterizes the prison industrial complex.
The pieces investigate whether art and aesthetics can break the silence about crucial political issues such as mass incarceration and criminal justice reform.

Invocations: Retracing Seneca at Seneca Village Central Park

Complementing the The Right to Silence? Invocations: Retracing Seneca is a participatory walk that took place on the 14th of May 2021, paying homage to Seneca Village, conceived by artists Kimiyo Bremer and Karen Finley and curated by Sozita Goudouna. Seneca Village was a community made up of some 300 people. A majority of Seneca Village was composed of African American residents, many of which owned their own homes. Seneca was also populated by Irish and German immigrants who they lived together with as neighbors. The community was prosperous housing 3 churches, a school, a garden, many streets and a center. From 1853-1857, the city used eminent domain and police force to destroy and brutally demolish Seneca Village for the development of Central Park. The planned landscape of Central Park would create some of the most expensive real estate in the world, all of which we see today. The Seneca residents were forced to disperse with little archives maintained by the city to preserve this remarkable hamlet from the pre-civil war era. In our walk we will invoke ritual and retrace steps while offering recognition of these historic New Yorkers. We welcome you to conjure remembrance and sing spirit together, offer fellowship; to proclaim and honor as our way of giving respect.

PARTNERS

Greece in USA is a non-profit organization with a global reach that promotes knowledge of contemporary and ancient Greek Culture while fostering international cultural cooperation, experimentation and social engagement. The organization’s extensive programming includes commissioned artists’ and curators’ projects, residencies, educational and ecological initiatives and the commitment to cultivating a sensible culture of innovation and thought leadership.

The organization is dedicated to offering innovative and unique programs in education and the arts, all exploring the evolving diversity and richness of Greek and Cypriot cultures. It also seeks to generate new thinking about the arts and promote cross-cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of creation.The organization promotes international exchange of practice and knowledge in the arts – visual and sound art, dance, architecture, theatre – research on the methods used in curatorial and performing practices and investigation of points of intersection between the arts, science and the public sphere by means of interventions, collective actions, educational programs and publications.Greece in USA aims to collaborate and build long-lasting partnerships with leading institutions and individuals who actively engage with Greece and its culture and to convey a comprehensive and distinctive representation of Greece and Cyprus by producing cultural and educational programs that encourage intercultural dialogue and enable cultural involvement.

Out of the Box Intermedia was founded in 2008 in London and Athens and produces projects with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Tourism, the European Cultural Foundation, the British Council, the French Institute, NEON Foundation and the Onassis Foundation.

Undercurrent based in New York, is a collective of artists who originated from Sla307 Art Space (2015-2019) & represents, reflects, and identifies aesthetic, emotional, and philosophical complexities in the arts of our time as exhibited in painting, sculpture, mixed media, film, word, and sound. They intend to highlight the existence of multilayered, multipolar systems operating today that simultaneously radiate openness, vulnerability, and self-reflection.

THE RIGHT TO BREATHE-A Virtual Exhibition