ATHENS – Artist Residency Center Athens (ARCAthens) announced that the Spring 2023 Athens Residency has officially ended and invited everyone to look back on these past two months with Curatorial Fellow Linnéa Bake and Visual Art Fellow Tariku Shiferaw.

In their update, ARCAthens also noted bringing Ahmedabad artists Rajesh and Sharmila Sagara to the 12th Studio of Painting and Expanded Media of Athens School of Fine Arts (LAB12 ASFA) for an international lecture and workshop program underwritten by Lynda Benglis.

ARCAthens also shared the statement from the Athens Residency Spring 2023 Fellows regarding the cancellation of their public presentation at the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA), standing in solidarity with the striking students and the pan-artistic protest movement in Greece. The public presentation is one of the Athens Residency’s eminent activities “that allows our organization to give back to the Athenian community as we strive to reciprocate their trust and support of our mission,” ARCAthens said via email.

The statement from Tariku Shiferaw and Linnéa Bake follows:

“As ARCAthens Spring 2023 fellows, we have had the great pleasure and privilege to engage with many local artists and cultural practitioners during our residency in Athens. We have had the chance to encounter many of those who contribute to producing, promoting and fostering both contemporary and ancient culture in Greece, keeping it very much alive, despite being faced with ongoing hardships.

“In the last two months, we have witnessed not only the enduring multi-faceted mobilizations by artists and students – their strikes, marches, interventions and occupations in protest of ongoing and recent political decision-making – but also a time of national mourning and public outcry about political negligence, following the devastating train accident in Tempe. Out of respect and solidarity we made the decision to cancel our public presentations, which usually mark the end of the ARCAthens residency.

“We would like to thank the Athens School of Fine Arts, and especially Associate Professor Poka Yio, for having initially invited us to give our public presentations at the school as well as holding a seminar with the students from the ASFA LAB12. Like many other art, drama, dance and theatre schools in Greece, the Athens School of Fine Arts has since then come under the students’ occupation in protest of political developments perceived to neglect and threaten the quality and valuation of artistic education and practice.

“It is our aim to use this (internationally facing) platform, in lieu of a public presentation of our individual practices, to express our support for the striking students, and to direct attention to this growing pan-artistic protest movement in Greece.

“We wish to thank ARCAthens, and everyone with whom we have had the chance to exchange about these and other, historical and contemporary, locally specific or shared issues for their generosity, openness and hospitality.”

More information is available on ARCAthens new Fellows page: https://arcathens.org/fellows-page/.

Learn more about ARCAthens online: https://arcathens.org.