The Holobiont Project is a Nordic art and cultural research project with a special focus on Athens, Greece. It is the result of a research project called '2Extremes', funded by the Nordic Culture Fund, and carried out by Teemu Takatalo and Niklas Karlsson. The research has focused on the reality for creative and cultural production and dissemination in the Greek capital, a place shaped by recent political and economic crisis and with a long history of conflict and turmoil. We were interested in looking at this unique city at the other end of Europe and have worked towards gaining a greater understanding of the complexities it offers, whilst exploring themes such as social sustainability, urban transformations, public space, identities, alternative ways of organisation and production and international collaboration.

Findings from this research, and questions that have arisen from it, will be discussed via a Skype conference between Athens and Stockholm this coming Thursday at 21:00 at our partner gallery 'Galleri Momangen'.

Galleri Momangen, Kocksgatan 23, Stockholm.

Talk will be held in English and is free.

We had the pleasure of meeting up with Joe Painter and Antonis Vradis from Durham University, and filmmaker Ross Domoney, who are working on the project The Urban Politics and Governance of Social Innovation in Austerity, and Dean Hewitt from Boutique Athens and Sarri 12, to discuss art and cultural creativity in modern day Athens at our office in Psirri. The research project is a part of Urban Transformations, connected to University of Oxford and the Economic & Social Research Council. 

We discussed issues such as the social impact of art, urban transformations, gentrification, social sustainability, poverty and crisis. Dean Hewitt shared his insights into the transformations of central Athens, and Psirri specifically, and the growth of street art in recent years. The research project looks at Athens, Berlin and Newcastle as case studies and 'aims to identify the roles of alternative finance, grassroots mobilisation and community provisioning in meeting the needs of their citizens as traditional forms of authority are disrupted and competition for public services increases'. Read a full description of the project HERE.

​We will keep in touch with this research project and hope to exchange ideas and research in the near future. 

The first of some reflections I am writing about a recent trip to Athens. This article goes through feelings of hope, disillusionment, and then (tentative) hope again for a country at the hard end of extreme austerity. I hope that I have managed to illuminate the state of things over there for folks in the UK. Thanks to everyone that helped me out, everyone who was so welcoming, honest and open when I was there.

Debates about censorship of the arts came to light again as a controversial theatre production came to an abrupt end at the end of January, days before it was set to finish officially, after pressure from politicians, NGOs and the American Embassy. “The Nash Equilibrium” (Ισορροπία του Νας) had been performed at the Greek National Theatre’s Experimental Stage (REX) since the beginning of January and had attracted controversy since it contained excerpts of texts written by Savvas Xiros, a convicted member of the group November 17 which carried out 23 assassinations and more than 100 attacks between 1975 and 2002. The leadership of the play decided to cancel the production due to fear for the safety of the staff and the withdrawal of the main sponsor.

Many artists, cultural workers and activists who visit Athens ask us about the situation with the neo-nazi organisation Golden Dawn, an organisation which has gained power and notoriety in recent years. Today we dropped by the offices of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Athens and picked up several copies the new book 'Golden Dawn on Trial' by Dimitris Psarras, which they have published, and which gives an insight into the background of the group and the current trial against them. We also picked up several copies of the info-graphics pamphlet from Golden Dawn Watch, which visually lays out several of the key aspects of the trial and the events and people related to it. This pamphlet is also available online HERE. We will be helping with distributing both the book and the pamphlet to international visitors who we have contact with.

If you're in Athens and you want copies, get in touch and we can get them to you, or contact the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, who are based in Exarchia, and pick some up there. The publication is free.

A significant aspect of the Holobiont Project concerns expanding our already existing networks. We are currently looking for new partners in Iceland and Norway specifically, though our interests are not limited to these two countries.

Back in 2012 the art project Angeli Novi produced the film 'You Can't Stand in the Way of Progress' as a part of a larger solo exhibition in the Museum of Living Art, Reykjavik, September 29 - December 2, 2012. Much of the footage in the film was shot in and around Athens and the topics are just as relevant today as in 2012. The project brought together local, international and Icelandic individuals and artists and is representative of the kind of collaboration and networking which the Holobiont Project wishes to accommodate. Nik Karlsson worked on several logistical aspects of the film.

More info about the project from the artists can be found below.

The big art event documenta, which takes place every five years in Kassel, will for the first time exist in a new location. The event will start in Athens in 2017, then start in Kassel where it will also finish. The publication South as a state of mind will act as a as a publication from within which  documenta 14 will provide "research, critique, art, and literature paralleling the years of work on the exhibition overall, one that will help define and frame its concerns and aims". It would be fair to assume that the art and cultural worlds of Athens will be affected by the presence of such a big and well known occurrence and we will be looking into this effects and what the possibilities are for collaboration or parallel artistic and cultural work.

Please read below to see the introduction to this upcoming collaboration:

Hello,

this is our first blog post for the new initiative, The Holobiont Project. It is the realisation of an idea which has existed for some time and which has come into being through the combined work and initiative of Nik Karlsson, Teemu Takatalo and Matina Pantelaki.

Born out of a combination of art, travels, culture and an interest in different ways of organisation and living, the project aims to take advantage of already existing connections to explore possibilities for cultural cross-pollination. We are not interested in the art industry, but rather in free and ever changing creativity. The project has a Nordic dimension due to the countries of origin of two of the members, but we are more interested in challenging and de-constructing national identities than romanticising them. There is also a Greek dimension since this is where we all met and because we have a great interest in this country, at the other edge of Europe, which challenges many of our own assumptions whilst at the same time inspiring us in new ways.

We wish to facilitate and develop an already loosely connected Nordic network and also connect it to the creative fertile environment of Greece, and in particularly, Athens. Therefore we are creating a clear network and developing visits, exchanges, discussions, meetings and events. On this blog we will present our findings, thoughts, projects and ideas. We see this as the very beginning of something which will grow and spread into various initiatives and projects.

We are currently having several production and research meetings in Athens, exploring neighbourhoods, writing texts and meeting local artists and cultural workers.

Check this blog for further developments and please follow us on Facebook & Twitter.

If you wish to contact us, please feel free to fill in our contact form HERE.