What about Eve? at “Melina Mercouri” Cultural Center, Athens, GR

Video Art Miden collaborates with the group exhibition “What about Eve?” (“Melina Mercouri” Cultural Center, Athens, GR, 3-13 of July 2024), presenting the video work “Lamento” (Germany 2022) by Binha Haase , in a special screening that will take place in the frame of the exhibition on Wednesday 10 of July, 17:00h.

As an experimental hybrid between ancient mythology and the present, “Lamento” deals with the discursive limitation of female voices. A politician, an actress, a mother and a scientist hold feminist monologues on a revolving stage about the reality of their professional and private lives as women on topics such as the racial and gender bias in artificial intelligence. The text material is taken from current lectures and interviews by public women. The constant rotation of the stage always pushes one into the picture and withdraws another from the camera, thus interrupting her address to the viewers. The result is a fluid multi-perspectival, intersectional feminist dialogue that criticises the stereotypes of their social roles. With its protagonists, the video translates four of the most prominent female figures of ancient mythology, Medea, Cassandra, Medusa and Helena, who were deprived of their voices in different ways, into the present. In parallel, three mythical animal creatures comment on the events in the machinery of the dark understage like an ancient chorus. “Lamento” raises the question to which extent the narration and inscription of these ancient images of women in our cultural memory still affect the discursive limitation of female voices today.

BIO: Binha Haase‘s work focuses on video art and film. As an educated musician sound and music compositions play an important role in their works as a means of expression and in a socio-political context. Binhas works often deal with queerfeminist topics, especially with realities of FLINTA with focus on voice and body like in their film works “lamento”, “en travesti” “#popfem” (in Co-authorship with Sara Glojnaric) and others. Binha’s works have been shown at EMAF, in the Museum of Art Lucerne, Opera Halle, C.A.R., among others, and have been awarded the soundzz.z.zzz…z Prize 2016 (Museum of Art Lucerne), the Kranichsteiner Music Prize 2018 (Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt) and an approval of the Kunstpreis der Saalesparkasse 2021. Binha was fellow of the Akademie der Künste Berlin, the Kunstfonds Bonn and others and studied music at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and timebased arts at Burg Giebichenstein. More info: www.binhahaase.org

The group exhibition of contemporary art entitled “What about Eve?“ explores femininity and its various manifestations, with the participation of female artists from various nationalities. The implementation of the project is carried out by the curators of the artistic group Axionart in collaboration with the Institute of Mediterranean Culture, under the aegis of ECI – European Communication Institute and with the support of the Organization for Culture, Sports and Youth of the Municipality of Athens.

Curators of the exhibition: Eva Maragaki [Visual artist – Curator]  and Julia Sysalova [Art critic – Curator]

Participant artists: Rania Bellou / Dora Βelegrinou /Ismini Bonatsou / Tita Bonatsou /Dimitra Chanioti / Kleopatra Chatzigiosi/ Patricia Demba / Valia Gouzia / Binha Haase / Anni Kaltsidou / Niki Kanagini /Polina Kassimati / Niki Kapokaki / Uli Lekkas / Valeria Lviatina / Dimitra Maltabe / Anna Maneta / Eva Maragaki / Silvina der Meguerditchian / Fiona Mouzakiti / Elena Navrozidou /Eirini Pagoni / Gioula Papadopoulou/ Irina Pakhmutova / Stenia Paraskeva / Vicky Perikleous / Artemis Potamianou / Liora Redman / Veera Romanoff / Vera Siaterli / Elisaveta Sivas / Annetta Spanoudaki / Barbara Spirouli / Maya Shi / Martha Tsiara / Sofia Vlazaki / Dina Zakman / Niki Zahari / Matina Zevgoli

More info: axionart.gr/what-about-eve/