locus athens is organising an open discussion on the subject of performance/action art and how contemporary theatre, dance, architecture and the visual arts engage with the medium of performance. One of the aims of the discussion is to investigate how the everyday body acts as a meeting place for contemporary forms of expression.

Invited speakers are the actor and director Marilli Mastrantoni, the choreographer Apostolia Papadamaki, the visual artist Lida Papakonstantinou and the architectural team Urban Void (Astiko Keno). The discussion will be hosted by Yiorgos Tzirtzilakis.

The discussion will attempt to open a dialogue on the interrelated elements of these forms of expression, which draw upon personal experiences, activist and interventionist objectives, gender differences and/or critical discourses. The discussion will pose questions that explore the potential for expression which expands the perceptive and sensual-kinetic limits of the body, as well as questioning the boundaries between the artist and the viewer. The aim of the meeting and of the speakers is for an open discussion involving all those present to then take place. The discussion will begin with a performance by the artist Georgia Sagri.

In recent years the notion of the body as a political vehicle in art has gained an intense social presence through actions which test boundaries as well as common-sense values. Many contemporary artists’ performances make use of limits as a starting point, which they later overcome, thus putting embodiment and thought on a new expressive axis. In their performances, the body and time, materiality and immaterial space and the public, coexist and interact.

locus athens is a contemporary art organisation which does not have a permanent exhibition space and which instead has a nomadic, flexible and experimental approach to producing artistic events.