3137

It is with great pleasure that we announce the launch of the second part of F.A.R. (Floor Area Ratio). F.A.R. maps the economic, cultural, and residential changes that have been taking place in the city, while giving prominence to multiple narratives and images of both the past and the future of Athens. The program is developed in three consecutive, self-contained parts: It started in December 2020 with a communal web radio station and an artistic intervention in 3 137’s outdoor space; it continues today with a series of artistic events and works in the public space of Athens; and will culminate in a group exhibition in autumn 2021.

A reference point as well as a source of inspiration, the city of Athens becomes a field of action hosting a series of artistic interventions in its public space. These interventions mainly aim at provoking the public’s imagination, while also prompting unexpected encounters with the residents of the city; consequently, these interventions aim to reveal the conceptual bonds between the material world that surrounds us and the economic models that (re)structure it. At the same time, we aspire that this process will nurture new relationships between the communities of the city, but will also trigger discussions about the necessity to coexist and collaborate. 

The first invitees of the F.A.R. II program are the artists Anastasia Diavasti and Dimitra Ioannou, with their work Civil Disobedience. The intervention is presented on the glass facade of an empty office space, on the first floor of the building on 57, Stadiou Street, close to Omonoia Square. The work highlights the notion of civil disobedience, while it tries to evoke questions around its distortion. 

As a notion that is nearly identical with the commons, public space emerges as a key political topos where the citizens can claim their rights and express their resistance against any arbitrary manifestation of power. The starting point of the two artists for the piece was the political management of the pandemic, as well as the manipulation that this operation entailed. 

Civil Disobedience appropriates the format of billboards and the tone of political advertising. The copy text that is embedded in the piece will be updated on a weekly basis, so as to create a narrative that will surprise the passers-by, while also presenting new definitions and new arguments on the notion that inspires the intervention. 

If you want to learn more about F.A.R. (Floor Area Ratio) and F.A.R. RADIO, please click here. 

F.A.R. (Floor Area Ratio) Part II was made possible with the support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Outset Contemporary Art Fund Greece, and Mécène / Mycenae (the membership scheme of 3 137).

About the artists

Anastasia Diavasti’s artistic practice includes performance, curating, photography and video projects. Drawing from pop culture and the current sociopolitical sphere, she creates performative experiments that fall in the intersection of art and activism. Since April 2019, she has been running STOA FEXI, a permanent collaborative space in Omonοia, Athens. The space houses, among other projects of similar inclusive agendas, her new initiative NTIZEZA, an art platform for the support, education, and celebration of femininities and feminist artists.

Dimitra Ioannou experiments with narrative or anti-narrative forms employing various media (writing, photography, publications). She is the author of the chapbook Electric Sarcasm (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2020) and the experimental novella Soy Sea (Futura, 2008). Her radio play How Poems-Cities, with music by Stratos Bichakis, was commissioned by the Onassis Cultural Centre for its Radio_OCC series (2018). She has exhibited her (video)poems and photos in solo and group shows in Greece. She is the editor and publisher of the poetry and arts journal A) GLIMPSE) OF).