TAF presents the exhibition Little Gardens of Happiness, which opened on Thursday 10 November and runs until 11 December 2011. The exhibition is curated by the group of students on the seminar Curating and Organizing Art Exhibitions, held as part of the continuing education programmes at the Athens College – Psychiko College, under the guidance of curator and art critic Marina Fokidi.
Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s words, “Near the pain of the world, and often upon its volcanic soil, man has laid out his little gardens of happiness”, the curators set out to raise key questions about the ways in which societies may react in times of crisis.
People tend to create, of their own accord, personal microcosms, little utopias that fence in whatever traces of happiness they have left. This individual space seems to function as a symbolically protected garden-refuge. At times, however, these gardens turn into personal hells of isolation.
How much comfort do these worlds offer, how frightening are they, and how extreme can they become?
In the uncertain times we are living through, little gardens of happiness can become spaces for self-organization and reassessment, sources of inventiveness, places of invention and inner resilience, and can help us answer the questions that reality itself poses to us.
The exhibition will include a screening of Giorgos Panousopoulos’s film Mania.
Participants:
Stathis Athanasiou, Steven Antonakos, Kostis Velonis, Nikos Giavropoulos, Vangelis Gokas, Evnomia Dimitriadou, Theodoros Zafeiropoulos, Christos Kolios, Giorgos Korbakis, Alexis Kyritsopoulos, Leda Luss Luyken, Vally Nomidou, Zafos Xagoraris, Giorgos Panousopoulos, Marie-Françoise Poutays, Marina Provatidou, Xenis Sachinis, Dimitris Tsoumplekas, Pantelis Chandris, Manolis Charos, Alexandros Psychoulis, EN FLO, Organosi Gi
Curated by:
Fotini Vergidou, Penelope Katsatou, Evangelia Melissourgaki, Pulcheria Papageorgiou, Eleni Papagiannopoulou, Kalliopi Stamatakou
