Exhibition: 9 – 23 June 2018
Preview Party: Friday 8 June 9pm
Taking the exhibition’s location, Thessaloniki, as an entry point, the term ‘thresholds’ has special significance. Situated at the gateway to Europe; in the region of Central Macedonia, it is a site of a rich shared history, with the Balkans to the north and Turkey towards the east. Today Greece is an arrival site for thousands of migrants and refugees, who enter the country via the Mediterranean sea and are unable to continue their journeys across the Balkans border. A threshold is primarily defined as a doorway; it marks a point of departure, and at its most positive, an opening to the possibilities of a new beginning. Yet in its physical state we are reminded that it remains an in-between place, both a link and a separator. Who can pass through a ‘threshold’ is heavily policed and politicised, both on a macro scale in terms of national border control, where, across the globe, borders continue to have an enduring yet permeable presence; and on a micro level the control and separation of bodies is invisibly embedded within our everyday public spaces, institutions, and systems.
The exhibition maps multiple cultural, historical, spatial and temporal positions of the threshold; mirrors and connecting points are found within the realm of passage ‘between’. Whilst some artworks stem from social-political positions, the scope of the concept and its global resonance is woven through the critical and creative response of the exhibiting artists. Beyond a physical dimension, the act of crossing a threshold can also be a mental, spiritual or creative process. The threshold is the periphery, it exists at the margins, and is essentially a gateway into the unknown or even the otherworldly. On a personal and metaphoric level crossing a threshold might require the individual to give something up, let go, and succumb entirely to the unfamiliar, marking an act of irreversible change. In everyday life as we move between different spaces, we continuously perform and negotiate elements of our personal and professional identities. Though forms of entertainment, the internet, fictionalised or virtual worlds, we might actively seek out an exit point or an escape from mundanity. The threshold, too, marks the limit, it is a set marker, either to exist within or to be exceeded. Whilst some works in the exhibition linger in a state of suspense at the margin or offer a glimpse into the other side, other works purposely seek to transcend the boundary. Though experimental process materials are pushed beyond their limit to a point of abstraction or collapse. The apparatus becomes an extension of the body, blurring boundaries between technology and nature, and capturing transition as trace. In disrupting fixed notions, taboos and normative ideals are challenged; and through meditative and ritualistic process entry might be granted to the other side.
List of exhibiting artists:
Tatiana Altini – Greece
David Bickley – UK/ Ireland
Naomi Bishop – Australia
John Blythe – UK
Rebecca Bradley – UK/Ireland
Ann Carragher – Ireland/UK
Emma Coop – UK
Craig Dow – UK
Ben Fuog – Australia/Greece
Michael Gatzke – Germany
Theano Giannezi – Greece
Christos Gkenoudis – Greece/UK
Gobscure – UK
Aksel Haagensen – Estonia
Vera Hadzhiyska – Bulgaria/UK
Natasha Hall – UK
Jack Hughes – UK
Benjamin Jones – UK
Virginia Karypidou – Greece
Kishwar Kiani – Pakistan
Tony Linde – Australia/UK
Camilla Lundquist – Sweden/Vietnam/Japan
Nour Malas – Syria/UK
Enzo Marra – Italy/UK
Ryoko Minamitani – Japan/UK
Janet Morrow – USA
Simon Raven – UK
Valentino Russo – Italy/Netherlands
Lucy May Schofield – UK
Aleschija Seibt – Germany
Chris Webb – UK
Luke White – UK
The exhibition has been curated from an open call inviting artists to submit work which responds to, reflects, or is inspired in any way by the term ‘thresholds’.
One exhibiting artist will be awarded the prize of a two-week solo exhibition selected by a panel of judges: Anna Schwanz and Rachel Murray, Gonzo Unit curators, Syrago Tsiara, Art Historian and Director of Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art, Panagis Koutsokostas, Independent Curator and Matthew Chesney, Director of Backlit, Nottingham UK.
We are please to announce that Nour Malas has been selected as the exhibition winner, with a special mention for Benjamin Jones who is the close runner up. We look forward to working with Nour over the coming months to develop an exhibition in Thessaloniki in 2019.
Gonzo Unit 