Peace Letters from Thessaloniki to Ukraine!
Peace Letters to Ukraine 6
This video program is documenting the networked collaboration between artists, curators and institutions in solidarity.
Cultural and artistic networking is representing one way how art can serve as a tool to show and confirm solidarity with the Ukrainian people – for Peace and Freedom – not just on times of war, the Russian-Ukraine War. But it’s freedom, of course, as it is understood in a liberal democracy – the freedom of the word, expression and movement- as it is possible only through the diversity as a result of networking.
The screening of the Peace Letters 6 program at Thessaloniki Municipal Art Gallery – presenting a new festival format focussed on that diversity @ is realised via networking with Video Art Miden Kalamata/Gr – our networking partner since 2008, this time in collaboration with Aristotele School of Visual & Applied Arts Thessaloniki in the framework of Video Art Projects Festival – 18-20 May 2022 @ Thessaloniki Municipal Art Gallery.
VisArts Center Rockville (MD/USA) – 07-08 May 2022
Thessaloniki Municipal Art Gallery (Greece) 18-20 May 2022
Torrance Art Museum Los Angeles (CA/USA) – 04-25 June 2022
Rhizome DC Washington DC (USA) – 07 July 2022
Solidarity screening program
In Turmoil
Video Art Projects Festival – 18-20 May 2022
Municipal Art Gallery of Thessaloniki/Greece
will inaugurate in collaboration with the Faculty of Fine Arts of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (School of Visual and Applied Arts, New Media for Visual Arts Studio) and the International Festival Video Art Miden, Kalamata, Greece, a new art festival titled Video Art Projects.
Video Art Projects is a newborn international festival which focus on multiple visual expressions of video art. The festival will take place at Casa Bianca, the headquarters of the Municipal Art Gallery of Thessaloniki, from Wednesday 18th to Friday May 20th 2022, on the occasion of the International Museum Day – May 18th .
This year the festival received 120 entries (New Media artists) from 21 countries and regions around the world. The 3 – days program will be enriched with the participation of other important festivals and curators from abroad, especially from Italy, Germany, Portugal and Brazil. The projections will present tributes to the Greek Video Art, as well as to the School of Visual and Applied Arts students’ artworks.
International platforms / festivals, The New Museum of Networked Art (Germany), Visualcontainer (Italy), FONLAD – International Video Art and Performance Festival (Portugal) and Stangloscope (Brazil), as well as the International Festival Video Art Miden (Greece), will present a selection of video artworks.
in collaboration with
Launch of Video Art Miden Darkroom on 16 May 2022
Curatorial note
In Turmoil
The World is in turmoil, the human civilisation is in turmoil, culture is in turmoil, the artists are in turmoil – racism, intolerance, climate change, pandemic, globalization, violence and war in Ukraine and elsewhere, the war of the political systems and ideologies – genocide – and all simultaneously! The global crisis!
And what function might art have in all that mess? What message may transport this Peace Letter?
In any case much more than just promissing support and solidarity, rather summoning the positive creativity when we, that’s the world community, are staying together brainstorming, acting in respect and responsibility for each other. Art as a tool for sensitizing and encouragment and – Peace. The 11 selected artists – coming from different continents and cultural backgrounds – show and offer their positive creativity via their audiovisual creations.
The Peace Letter to Ukraine Project was initiated by the Cologne based media artist and curator Wilfried Agricola de Cologne for The New Museum of Networked Art as a networked artistic action in reaction on the war against the Ukraine in solidarity for the Ukraininan people.
Peace Letters 6 – selection curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
including Laura & Sira Cabrera Diaz (Spain), Ian Gibbins (Australia), Brit Bunkley (New Zealand), Kokou Ekouagou (Togo), Carolin Koss (Finland), Wilfried Agricola de Cologne (Germany), Ausin Sainz (Spain), Manon Pichon (France), Bernhard Hollinger (Austria), Dimitris Argyriou (Greece), Vito Alfarano (Italy)
Press Release 5 May 2022
Video Art Projects – Thessaloniki Catalogue 2022 (Greek)
Agricola de Cologne @ http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=82
chief curator of The Peace Letters to Ukraine Project
curator of media art, designer of culture, interdisciplinary media artist, director of experimental shortfilms and videos
founder and director of
– The New Museum of Networked Art – the experimental platform for art and new media (2000)
– The Audiovisual Art Collections @ The New Museum of Networked Art (2005)
– artvideoKOELN – the curatorial initiative „art & moving images“ (2005)
– CologneOFF – The New Institute for Contemporary Art & Moving Images 2005/2020
– creator/curator of The W:OW Project – We Are One World – global networking project (2017) & The 7 Memorials for Humanity (2018)
Besides for a broad bandwidth of dynamic curatorial contexts he is initiating in physical & virtual space like JavaMuseum (2001), NewMediaFest (2002), Violence Online Festival (2003), SoundLAB & VideoChannel (2004), CologneOFF (2005), netEX (2007), AVMCI (2012), Agricola de Cologne is standing also for the co-curator & co-organiser of events like festivals & exhibitions of contemporary art, but also for the jury member of divers festivals.
Since its introduction in 2000, Agricola de Cologne is represented as an artist & curator on more than 800 festivals and media art exhibitions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Merida, Caracas, Maracaibo, Buenos Aires, Rosario, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Santiago de Chile, Quito, Bogota, London, Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Madrid, Gijon, Sevilla, Valencia, Barcelona, Lisbon, Oslo, Bergen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Tampere, Kopenhagen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Nagoya, Seoul, Manila, Hongkong, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, New Delhi, Guwahati, Mumbai, Kolkata, Jakarta, Perth, Melbourne, Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakesh, Addis Abeba, Istanbul, Ankara, Yerewan, Tblissi, Damaskus, Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Bethlehem, Gaza, Basel, Zurich, Vienna, Linz, Salzburg, Graz, Kiev, Kharkiv, Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Moscow, St.Petersburg, Kansk, Perm, Yekaterinburg, Sofia, Varna, Bukarest, Arad, Timisoara, Budapest, Belgrade, Zagreb, Split, Lubljana, Rome, Naples, Milan, Pescara, Venice, Torino, Bologna, Berlin, Cologne, Münster, Düsseldorf, Karlsruhe, Nuremberg & elsewhere, but also on Biennials like Venice Biennale 2003, 2005, Biennale of New Media Art Merida/MX 2003, Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth/Australia (2004), Biennale de Montreal (2004), Biennale of Video & New Media Santiago de Chile (2005), ISEA Nagoya (2002), ISEA Singapur (2008), ISEA Belfast (2009), Kochi Musziris Biennial (2016/2017)
Agricola de Cologne –> https://agricola-de.cologne
artvideoKOELN –> https://artvideo.koeln
CologneOFF NICAhttp://cologneoff.nmartproject.net
The New Museum of Networked Art –> http://www.nmartproject.net
Peace Letters to Ukraine 6
In Turmoil
curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
This program is now streaming online here!
Click to view the videoLaura & Sira Cabrera Diaz (Spain) – Between Species, 2021, 9:16
Ian Gibbins (Australia) – Colony Collapse, 2019, 3:54
Brit Bunkley (New Zealand) – Pillar of Fire, 2021, 6:59
Kokou Ekouagou (Togo) – Stand Up, 2020, 1:46
Carolin Koss (Finland) – Plastic Child, 2016, 12:11
Wilfried Agricola de Cologne (Germany) – SODA – Song of Day After: I Am My Father, 2017, 4:26
Ausin Sainz (Spain) – Peaceful Protest, 2020, 5:00
Manon Pichon (France) – Quarantine Contact, 2020, 1.00
Bernhard Hollinger (Austria) – Me, Myself & I
Dimitris Argyriou (Greece) – 5 Minutes Silence, 2018, 10:52
Vito Alfarano (Italy) – I Have A Dream, 2019, 11:30
