MESSINIA – The Pleasing Effect: An Annual Marathon of Live and Visual Acts, curated by Sozita Goudouna featuring COMOTIRIO, produced by Out of the Box Intermedia and Greece in USA, takes place Friday, July 12, 12 PM-12 AM, at the Fairytale Castle of Filiatra in Agrilis, Messinia, Greece.

“Everything I do is imitation and authentic at the same time! (…) I employ heterogeneous materials in my work. It does not matter. Take whatever you want. As long as it gives a pleasing effect,” Dr. Charalambos Fournarakis said.

The Pleasing Effect: A Marathon of Live and Visual Acts is a location driven project, based on the concept of diasporic utopias. In the 1960s, Harry or Babis Fournier, born Charalambos Fournarakis originally from the city of Filiatra, a Greek doctor from America, returns to his birthplace and builds his own unique reality to generously share with all of us- the ‘Castle of Fairy Tales’ – a castle state, a country within a country, another Narnia, the “Disneyland of our place.” He builds this state in detail, a city within his city, based on childhood memories and the timelessness of imagination. In order to relive, as stated in the inscription that welcomes the space, the romantic era in this place. And indeed, ignoring any ‘objective’ judgment of beauty, Dr. Fournier romantically defends spontaneity as a source of creation, as a perceptual reception, as a decoding of the world.

“Everything I do is imitation and authentic at the same time,” an intriguing oxymoron per se. By disrupting the notion of scale and by mixing materials with paradoxical visual juxtapositions, inventions and improvisations, the abolition of aesthetic boundaries and historical linearity, what is ultimately activated is an immediate emotional response and a sense of carefree joy. A fairy tale from a fairy tale, namely, consolation.

The Castle of Fairy Tales is currently not accepting any more visitors. Nevertheless, it will welcome 22 contemporary artistic contributions, which with chivalrous galloping imagination and in an open exploration of interfaces between continents, nations, ethnicities and fluid borders, are invited to recreate and revive “The Pleasing Effect.”

Participating artists: Marilena Aligizaki, Victoria Bartlett, Veronique Bourgoin & Juli Susin, The Callas / Lakis & Aris Ionas, Marcel Dzama, Mia Enell, Daniel Firman, Camila Galaz, Ioanna Hatzipanigyri, Jessica Mitrani, Warren Neidich, Phantom Investigations, Poka-Yio, Sarah Singh – Panorama Editions, Shoplifter, Panos Sklavenitis, Roubini Stagouraki, Naira Stergiou, Yann Toma, VASKOS, Marina Velisioti, Eriphyli Veneri.

The event is in collaboration with the Educational Association of Filiatra ‘The Torch.’

The Hospitality Sponsor is Apollo Resort Art Hotel Kyparissia.