Commission Series x Dominique White | (Under) studies in Non-Description

Artistic residency and visual arts exhibition

Last year, the first Commission Series hosted the first exhibition of Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pjota in Greece, at the old slaughterhouses of Chios, which attracted a large number of visitors and was covered by various international and domestic media, including Art Forum, Damn Magazine, L’Officiel Brazil, Estadão, Art Newspaper Greece and K Magazine.

For the second cycle of the Commission Series, DEO Projects invites British visual artist Dominique White to research, develop and exhibit a new corpus of works. The artist stayed in Chios for a period of two months, exploring the island’s maritime histories, creating a new body of work for her first solo exhibition in Greece. She studied the way in which maritime trade influenced the dominant narratives of the area, and investigated claims and speculations about the island’s involvement in Columbus’s voyages, which led to the establishment of a colonial regime of human exploitation. Subsequently, she presents her research under the title “(Under) studies in Non-Description” in the form of an atmospheric art exhibition consisting of a series of metal sculptures and drawings.

White’s wider work turns its gaze to both the destruction and the myth left behind by Caribbean hurricanes, in their perpetually transformative awakening at sea. The “form” of the abandoned ship is characteristic of her visual vocabulary: a mass of wrecked sails, timeworn nets, mangled anchors and deflated buoys, all covered with a veil of clay, like a shroud. The artist uses this dynamic ensemble to detach the individual parts from their original function and redefine them as bodies of revenge, protest, endurance. These works –or bodies– combine in studied proportions the conditions of preservation, decay and destruction, while emitting a warning or a threat of what is imminent.

An integral part of the Commission Series program is also to invite insightful patrons, and together with the DEO Projects team to design a personalised experience for the invited artist in Chios. US art collectors Tonya and Ato Wright, whose collection focuses on the African diaspora, have been invited by DEO Projects as the guest patrons  for the 2022 Commission Series. Both are committed to exploring new ways of creating art and to strategically introduce Dominique White’s work to a wider audience.

EDUCATIONAL WORKSHOP FOR CHILDREN

Taking Dominique White’s art exhibition as a starting point, DEO Projects organises an educational workshop for children aged 6-12 years old. The children will visit the exhibition at the Old Horse Stables of Choremiko afterwards staying in the lobby of the venue to interact and express themselves on the axes of “drawing-painting-sculpture”.

The workshop will take place at 20 Kontogianni Street, every Tuesday at 11:30 am, from 19 July for four consecutive Tuesdays (last Tuesday: 9 August). The duration of each workshop will be approximately 1 hour.

The materials to be used by the children are provided by DEO Projects and participation is free of charge.

Workshop coordination: Nafsika Saliari, architect-visual artist

Reservation at info@deoprojects.com

Maximum number of participants per day: 12 children

Dominique White - Commission Series x Guest Artist

Dominique White interweaves the concepts of Afro-pessimism –a term that refers to the lasting effects of colonialism– and hydrarchy –a term that describes the top-down organisation of a maritime society and the bottom-up self-organisation of seafarers– with the myths that accompany the movements of the indigenous populations of the African continent, including the transatlantic slave trade. She calls this conflation “Shipwreck(ed)”, verb and condition together. White’s sculptures prophesise the emergence of stateless people –a (black) future that hasn’t happened yet, but which has to happen.

Ato and Tonya Wright - Commission Series x Guest Patrons

Doctors Ato and Tonya Wright, radiologist-oncologist and obstetrician-gynaecologist respectively, live in Pennsylvania, USA. Their journey into the art world, however, has been shaped by the places where they grew up, Ghana and Anguilla. Their artistic interest focuses on collecting works and supporting artists of the African diaspora. In the art ecosystem they assume the roles of experienced advisors and passionate advocates, aiming to help promote art as a prism through which to see the world as it is.

Old Horse Stables of Choremiko (Dominique White exhibition)

Choremis orchard is linked to a family of historical personalities and benefactors of Greece, and remains their property –an estate of approximately 8 acres today, in the heart of Chora, alive and fragrant for 400 years. It is believed to be the garden where the uniquely fragrant Chios mandarin –as it is called today– was first cultivated, brought by the family from India, and then spread to the orchards of Kampos, Chios, which are residential and agricultural complexes similar to Choremiko. The building where the exhibition takes place was constructed on the site of the old stables. Here were also the storehouses for the estate’s grains and animal production. Important Greek personalities such as Eleftherios Venizelos, Nikolaos Plastiras and Georgios Papandreou have been hosted in Choremiko.

ABOUT DEO PROJECTS

DEO Projects is an alter-institution based in Chios. It explores institutionality as a living polymorph in constant flux Its programme is developed in cyclical timescales through interventions that take the form of commissions, exhibitions or artistic residencies.

Based on the values of empathy, trust and generosity, DEO Projects is committed to encouraging transnational dialogue and supporting the island’s existing cultural infrastructure. As a spaceless cultural entity, the organisation operates across the island, in collaboration with local museums and associations, non-institutional spaces and the public realm. Research thematics emerge from the multi-layered historical, social and cultural roots of the island and extend beyond its geographical boundaries, through stories which are travelling by sea.

DEO projects aims to create a fertile and inclusive space to radically re-examine symptoms of the past, long-lasting wounds, patterns of stereotypical thinking, and to deconstruct ideologies and connotations. By cultivating an interdisciplinary ethos through multiple types of knowledge, somatic experiences and local wisdom, DEO offers a space to marginalised voices and a voice to places that have been silenced. DEO Projects aspires to be a platform for dialogue that invites international and local artists, curators, thinkers, patrons, along with ecologists, healers, scientists, craftspeople, visitors, journalists and viewers to collectively explore versions of cultural, social and political change.

More information about DEO Projects: www.deoprojects.com

Free admission to all projects

DEO Projects and its creative programme of 2022, is financially supported by its circle of donors (Stamos Fafalios, Theodoros Fatsis and Maria Apodiakou, Maria Kalomenidou and Yannis Skoufalos), as well as the additional support of the 2022 guest patrons (Tonya and Ato Wright).

The creative programme of 2022 is curated by the director and founder of DEO Projects, Akis Kokkinos