REAL TIME HISTORY
cross section archive
102 Mavromichali st.& Isavron, Athens

finissage & launch

Thursday 2nd March 2023
20:30 - 22:30
Reading by Christos Chrissopoulos at 21:00

cross section archive invites you to a moment of distinct sharing and works in dialogue, along with visual artist Anu Vahtra and writer Christos Chrissopoulos.

Document #2 - launch

featuring a new text by Christos Chrissopoulos Distance - Return. A diary of sentiments

The text is unfolding Real Time History as one of the voices of the theme, suggesting an expansion of the term between consciousness and memory in a phenomenological-poetic sense.

Document is designed by Lina Ozerkina and printed and bound by Friends Make Books, Torino.

At 21:00: a reading by Christos Chrissopoulos

good spaces left - finissage

02/12/22-01/03/23

Anu Vahtra has been invited to respond to the theme of Real Time History with her insight rooted in a practice of critically examining and documenting processes in urban landscapes. In good spaces left, Anu Vahtra focuses on the fenced off Exarchia square, the confrontational presence of the fence and the dynamics that surround it. The exhibition consists of a series of excerpts from the process of documenting this barrier, the unwanted change it covers up and the attempts to capture the fading fragments of a good space, confined. The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Anne Carson’s novel Autobiography of Red, chapter XVII Walls.

Real Time History

What defines a certain image of the city is the memory of that specific moment in time, connected to either personal memories or momentous events kept in the communal memory of the city. These moments are connected by periods of everydayness composed of a sequence of seemingly insignificant events, forming micro-histories that are evidence of the actual change taking place.

The transition from moment A to moment B is hardly perceptible because it is experienced from the middle of a perpetual flux, and a certain sensitivity is needed to observe and record it. This praxis itself consists of a series of indicated variables, the object at the centre of the event, the witnesses of the event taking place and the remains as the imprint in the city’s memory, that will become part of the city’s own mental archive of information. This process of never-ending, indiscernible change and its recording are the starting points for the 2022-2023 program of cross section archive, determined and unfolded through insights and subject-hoods of a collective mind and delegating the definition of the term

Maria Lalou and Skafte Aymo-Boot

Real Time History is curated by Maria Lalou & Skafte Aymo-Boot, running between December 2022 and July 2023. good spaces left and Document #2 are the two first chapters of the annual program and it concludes with its third chapter in public space taking place in June-July 2023.

The program of Real Time History is supported by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sports.

good spaces left is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sports.

Special Thanks To: Lieven Lahaye, Dimitris Liberopoulos, Afroditi Mitsopoulou, Lina Ozerkina, Indrek Sirkel, Tania Theodorou, Georgia Stamou and Friends Make Books.

cross section archive is a space for Art & Architecture, directed and curated by conceptual artist Maria Lalou and architect Skafte Aymo-Boot. Its activities evolve around phenomena that occur in the intersection of those disciplines and explore how historical facts, political structures and everyday circumstances have been interfering with, forming and directing them. With the starting point in an exploration of the politics of urban space, it invites guests/ researchers from fields such as literature, politics, social sciences, history, archeology, and philosophy and from the disciplines of art and architecture to contribute to an unfolding of the hidden layers of the contemporary city.

http://cross-section-archive.org

Bios:

Anu Vahtra is an Estonian artist whose works investigate found spatial situations. Initiated by the architectural characteristics as well as historical and contextual background of a certain site, they often focus on specifics of an exhibition space but also tackle issues of public space. Vahtra composes both physical and photographic space as if through the camera, bearing in mind distinct vantage points. What’s important is that the focus of attention is equally on what her work depicts and how it relates to and is displayed in a specific space.

Vahtra has participated in group exhibitions and has had solo exhibitions internationally. In 2017 Vahtra was an artist in residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Programme (ISCP) in New York, in 2020 she participated in the residency programme at the WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels. Vahtra is one of the founders of Lugemik Publishing (2010) and Bookshop (2013). She is currently based in Tallinn and also works as the head of MA Contemporary Art program at the Estonian Academy of Arts. http://anuvahtra.com

Christos Chrissopoulos, born in 1968 in Athens, has published nineteen books in many genres (fiction, essays, chronicle, photography). In 2008, Chrissopoulos received the Academy of Athens Award. In 2015, the French Republic awarded him the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. He has also received the Balkanika Prize (2015) and the French prizes Prix Laure Bataillon (2013) and Prix Ravachol (2013). He was Writer of Zürich (2020) and Iowa Fellow of the International Writers Program IWP (2007). Translations of Chrissopoulos’ works have been published, amongst others, in Germany, France, Italy and the USA. He is a member of the Greek writers association and the European Cultural Parliament (ECP). He has founded the Kairos Foundation, he has organised and curated literary festivals in Greece and abroad, among others the DaseinFest in Athens (2006-2011), and he lectures frequently on literature, theory and politics. Chrissopoulos is also a photographer exhibiting internationally, and he is interested in the narrative connections between literature and photography. He lives in Athens.