KALIMÉRA, KALIMÉRA
Performance action by visual artist PASHIAS at Herakleidon Museum, followed by the closing of exhibition “Oops! I broke the sun” at Space for International Cooperation [SiC]
Performance action: Holy Saturday, 19th of April, 11:00 AM, Herakleidon Museum, Herakleidon 16, 11851, Thiseio - Athens
Exhibition closing: Holy Saturday, 19th of April, 11:30 AM - 3:30 PM, Space for International Cooperation [SiC], Nileos 6, 11851, Thiseio - Athens
On Holy Saturday, 19th of April, before the celebration of sunrise service welcoming the dawn of Easter Sunday, visual artist PASHIAS invites the public at 11 o’clock in the morning to join his performance action “KALIMÉRA, KALIMÉRA”. In collaboration with the Herakleidon Museum in Thiseio, PASHIAS will take over the neoclassical building’s façade, appearing onto its balcony with an amphora on his shoulder. In his long-standing research of historical artefacts and narratives as tools for understanding our present social conditions, PASHIAS parallels the clay body with the human body, visually and conceptually, as universal vessels carrying, safekeeping and spilling materialities, notions, images and values. Every Holy Saturday at 11 o’clock in the morning, the islanders οf Corfu go out onto their balconies to throw away the ‘old’ and welcome the ‘new’, repeating the ritual breaking of pottery, as connected to ancient Greek and later Venetian customs of purification. This shattering gesture results into deafening noises exorcising all evil, and into heaps of clay fragments to take away for good luck throughout the year.
PASHIAS tells us ‘kaliméra’, good morning, expanding this ceremonial act into the unending circle of light and darkness, of life, death and rebirth, through the release of materiality from its defined shape, the release of water into a shared cleansing experience. This live action is the last chapter of exhibition “Oops! I broke the sun”, inviting audience members to its closing, at Space for International Cooperation [SiC], next to the Herakleidon Museum, from 11:30 AM until 3:30 PM. The exhibition is part of the joint artist residency programme of organization Art Futures - Serendipity in Action based in Amsterdam and [SiC], selecting PASHIAS as their Art Futures Fellow 2025. In his Athens residency, the artist visited archeological sites, museums, archives and educational institutions, souvenir shops and touristic representations of culture, interacting with archeologists, curators, academics and craftspeople. PASHIAS created an amalgamation of performance, installation, documentation means and community-based exchanges, opening up space for dialogue, empathy and togetherness.
Coordination: Vasiliki Papakosta, Georgios Papadopoulos
Oops! I broke the sun
Exhibition by visual artist PASHIAS
Opening: 29th of March, Saturday, 19:00, Space for International Cooperation [SiC] - Nileos 6, 11851, Thiseio, Athens
Duration: 29th of March - 19th of April 2025, Wednesday to Saturday, 15:00 - 19:00 and by appointment via email at contact@pashias.art or via phone at 6933198804
"Oops! I broke the sun": a spherical volume as the belly, side handles as arms, a narrow neck and a mouth. The connection between the human and the clay bodies transcends visual parameters and imagery, equating the body and the amphora with vessels carrying, safekeeping and spilling substances, materialities, experiences, notions and values. The transformative interaction between artist and amphora develops through a series of identifications and exchanges, revealing the materiality and corporeality, not only of the ‘aesthetic objects’, but more broadly of the historical time and heritage they contain. It is hybridity, of performance art, of the multidisciplinary and participatory installations by PASHIAS, that allows such relations of sublimation and condensation to develop. Yet, the precondition for consolidating this hybridity, as a constitutive condition of cultural production, is an iconoclastic disposition towards all kinds of regularities and monotheisms.
The sun - king, at the centre of this exhibition, signifies and reveals identities. The ambivalent vessel of abundance and light that gives form to everything by coloring it with its rays, can prove harmful to anything that does not keep a safe distance or stares at it directly. The blue of the Mediterranean, the orange evening echo and the yellow sphere playing hide and seek are fragments of the broken light. For visual artist PASHIAS, the shattering of the icons and vessels representing normativities is not only a necessary symbolic act, but also the precondition for the release of crystallized forms, energies and substances that do not fit into established social forms.
The exhibition "Oops! I broke the sun" is part of the joint artist residency programme of organization Art Futures - Serendipity in Action based in Amsterdam and Space for International Cooperation [SiC], selecting PASHIAS as their Art Futures Fellow 2025, offering a platform for the artist to further develop his long-standing study of historical artefacts and narratives as instruments for understanding the contemporary human condition. The research of PASHIAS has been presented at Musée des Augustins for the “Festival Ιnternational d'Art de Toulouse” (2014), the archeological collection of George & Nefeli Giabra Pierides at Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation (2017), the Christophoros Savva artwork collection at State Gallery of Contemporary Cypriot Art (2018), the Michalis Michaeledes artwork collection at A. G. Leventis Gallery (2020), the historical Larnaca Archives - Phivos Stavrides Foundation (2021) and the archaeological collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum - Cambridge (2024).
Curatorial Advisor & Texts: Georgios Papadopoulos
Art Futures Fellow 2025: PASHIAS
Fellowship by Art Futures - Serendipity in Action
Visual artist PASHIAS has been selected as the Art Futures Fellow 2025 - Serendipity in Action, hosted by Space for International Cooperation [SiC] in Athens. In his residency, PASHIAS investigates the intricate connections between mythology and cultural narratives, in relation to contemporary social urgencies, focused on the human body as a catalyst for change and a vessel for understanding our world’s present state. PASHIAS approaches the extensive ‘wealth’ of anthropocentric images, actions, objects and devices embedded in antiquity, as the predecessor of performance art and its diverse formulations encountered nowadays.
His residency period began as artistic research into archaeological sites, museums, archives and educational institutions, souvenir shops and commercial representations of culture, interacting with local archeologists, curators, academics, art practitioners, craftspeople and shop owners. By studying specific artefacts and narratives, as framed within museological settings and as located in public consciousness, PASHIAS reconfigures the human body according to its hybrid, fluid and subversive parameters, into the primary vessel of knowledge concentration, withstanding, breaking and continuously transforming. Through an amalgamation of performance, artwork installation, means of documentation and community-based exchanges, PASHIAS invites the public into an open space of dialogue, centered around our necessity for empathy and togetherness.
Art Futures - Serendipity in Action is an international non-profit organisation based in Amsterdam - Netherlands, supporting and initiating activities with an unconditional belief in the value of the arts, culture and education - www.artfutures.nl
Space for International Cooperation [SiC] is an independent non-profit project-space in Athens - Greece, embracing otherness and diversity as catalysts for positive change, advocating for collaboration across all boundaries and disciplines - www.sic-athens.com
