Press Release
"Helen's Dress" was found in Vamvakou!
An innovative digital visual hospitality program (e-Residency)
22-27 June 2020, Vamvakou - Lakonia
Can a visual hosting program from all over the world in the midst of a pandemic crisis? Can it be carried out without physical presence? A visual hospitality program transformed into digital? And all this, in a small village in Lakedaimon, Vamvakou?
The pandemic crisis has made it difficult for the physical presence of participants in the village of Vamvakou, as part of the visual hospitality program "Helen's Dress". We adapt once again to the new data required by times and organize an innovative digital hospitality program, e-Residency from Vamvakou.
Eight international artists will be "hosted", during the period 22 to 27 June 2020, in the cyberspace from Vamvakou... where they will attend an intensive program of meetings, workshops and lectures around embroidery and Greek mythology, using new technologies. The e-Residency "Helen's Dress" is an innovative response to unprecedented challenges of the times and carves new roads. The hospitality program is implemented for the first time by Vamvakou Revival, as part of the Vamvakou Revival program, with the exclusive donation of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (ISN). The design and custody of the digital version was made by the artists Christoph Ziegler (Germany) and Lucia Richards (Greece).
Exercises, new works, visual observations will be published in a digital volume that will record the course of the innovative visual approach to the main question of the program: Does Greek mythology still give key answers to modern problems? Greek embroidery tradition can translate these messages into the language of symbols and patterns and as another "esperanto".
Eleni, the mythical queen of Sparta, is an interesting universal archetype that allows us to talk - in modern terms - about gender equality, oppression, manipulation, "fake news" and "scapegoat’s” as was demonized as few as the cause of a relentless war. At a time when, unfortunately, violence against women writes headlines, new interpretations of the myth gain special gravity.
“The name may be in many places, though not the body.”
The participating artists are: Carla Castiajo, visual artist, Portugal / Anika Gupta, author and Trisha Gupta, visual artist (fabric), USA / India / Anastasia Hasiotis, choreographer and writer, Greece / Christina Mitrentse, visual artist, United Kingdom / Greece. / Amelie Spitz, visual artist (jewelry), Germany / Hannah Stippl, visual artist, Austria / Aggeliki Symeonidou, embroidery and activist for the revival of traditional arts, Greece.
The team will record daily the challenges they meet on the program blog, while information about digital workshops will be available to the public at
www.vamvakourevival.org