Art historian and curator Maria-Thalia Karra in “K”: Athens is unfair but magical
Maria-Thalia Karra, an art historian and curator with an academic background, was born and raised in London, but for many years has chosen to lay the foundations of her life and work in Athens. In 2004 he co-founded the non-profit organization “Locus Athens”, which for years had turned unexpected corners of Athens into a temporary, unexpected theater for groundbreaking performances and artist performances. For the past three years, this organization has had a permanent new base, a cultural site in Taurus, named after the neighborhood: “Tavros”. On the occasion of the new group exhibition that is “running” there these days, we approach it for a discussion. In her words, a new ecology of the field of art breathes.
– What made you leave a metropolis of art like London to start a career in Athens?
– I left London because it had become a place full of inequalities, a consumer society that was constantly pushing you to want (and buy) something new. The melancholy British darkness of previous decades (that of Derek Jarman or Doris Lessing) seemed to be gone. I’m very wary of what we call ‘success’ and ‘successful societies’. I feel like they are always hiding something suspicious under the rug. The current situation in Britain was the escalation of all that was felt then. It is an immorality that looks at you, without shame. I chose Athens, however, not only because it is a less saturated city, but also because of its chaotic freedom and how emotionally open it is. Of course, there are bad texts here too: the occasional unworthiness, lawlessness or inaction. And yet, even so, Athens wins you over.
– How much “London” would you say is inside you – in you and your job?
– If there is London in me then it has nothing to do with an educational system that encouraged critical thinking, fruitful argumentation and dialogue, the spiritual principle and the belief that the world stands on our shoulders. How it is up to us – in smaller or larger ways – to shape it as we imagine it. An education system, too, where, as girls, we received a clear push to choose and fight for our place in a (still) patriarchal world.
– What inspired you to found “Locus Athens” in 2004?
– We started “Locus Athens” with Sofia Tournikioti, wanting to make known so many untold stories and the invisible buildings and places of the city. As my son used to say to his grandmothers when he was little: “All these old buildings around us are and stories are whispering to us.”
– Your first events were innovative and unusual for Athens. What do you remember from them?
– Our first projects were overflowing with possibilities. They all had this stimulating feeling that the otherwise ephemeral presence of the works left a layer of History on Athens, as if its buildings were sculptures that came to life under the touch of artists.
I left London because it had become a place full of inequalities, a consumer society that was constantly pushing you to want (and buy) something new.
– What role does Athens play in your work, then, and now? How do you feel about this city, what is your relationship with it?
– Athens is on the one hand dirty, chaotic and unjust. But it is also magical. You can’t help but love them – maybe just because they fail at so many things. It is a cliché to say it, but it is also so true, that in a few cities of the world you can feel so deeply this human footprint that goes back thousands of years, to imagine that on the same paths you walk today, some walked a thousand or two thousand years . before. Athens is also the context in which we worked nomadically as “Locus Athens” and now as “Tavros”. It is also the center of “our world” – a world that stretches around us to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Balkans and Europe. The textures of the city and its geopolitical position are things of crucial importance in the projects and collaborations that we develop.
– Why did you choose Taurus as the headquarters of “Locus Athens”?
– Because it is one of the few areas of the center that generally has low buildings and a real sense of neighborhood. I am very interested in the decentralized places, the voices that come away from the center, the stories that are heard less. We have a lot to learn from neighborhoods like Taurus. And if we can give them something back, so much the better.
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– What could you tell us about the current exhibition in your space?
– Our current project is called “There is Nothing Inevitable About Time” and is a group exhibition with artists from Greece (such as Sasha Stresna, Konstantinos Giotis and Efrosini Doxiadis) and abroad (such as Francis Alice, Ethel Adnan, etc.). He was born into a pandemic, when everything seemed to stop, a minute seemed like eternity and time seemed to have its linearity. That’s why even today art exhibitions seem so appealing to me: they seem ephemeral and temporary, like the dialogues between artists and works. It is as if the moment a moment is born, it is immediately lost.
– What’s next?
– A solo exhibition of paintings by Palestinian artist Jumana Emil Abboud entitled “The Water from Your Eye”. It is the result of a research into oral narratives, legends, myths and lullabies that women pass on to each other from generation to generation and that talk about cradles, springs, lakes and rivers of the Mediterranean.
– What do you wish for “Taurus”?
– To become a center for the telling of interesting stories through different media. A place where different voices meet to hear, an art space that will be in tune with the present and that will reflect – and appreciate – our times.
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Fewer flights, less noise…
– What future do you foresee for the art world?
– Today it seems almost impossible to predict the future for something else, with so much growing uncertainty everywhere. This is, after all, the common reflection in our current group exhibition, on time, progress and the future that is not given. Nevertheless, I hope for a future where empathy and kindness are at the heart of our actions, but above all a future where art will be more ecological: fewer flights, less spectacle, less fuss will lead to better work, to fairer production conditions. At a time when the influence of capitalism is becoming increasingly harsh on our lives and works, artists may make us resist, see reality more clearly and imagine new worlds. As Ursula Le Gen said, “we live in capitalism, and its power seems inevitable. But this is how the power of kings once seemed. “Every human force can be confronted and defeated by man, and resistance, change, often starts with art.”
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