News

 

 

 

See more about the projects in 2018:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

S.T.E.P.... [Saunter, TREK, ESCORT, PARADE....] New York USA November > December 2018.

 

Flux Factory September 06.09 > 28.09.2018 and Queens Museum November to December 2018.

 

Curators: Christina Freeman, Moira Williams & Emireth Herera. 

 

Saunter Trek Escort Parade...S.T.E.P. Sep 06-Sep 30 S.T.E.P... seeks to be an overlapping convergence and entanglement of walking, walk-based works and programming, mobilizing throughout New York. S.T.E.P... embraces the many ways and bodies we walk while asking how walking as a creative act can challenge notions and open conversations around visibility, gender, labor, exploration, counter-mapping, colonialism, feminism, motherhood, contesting borders, community building, calling out gentrification, street harassment, 'dis'ability, carbon debt, who sets the pace and measurement of the world, the power of dreams, and our entanglements between all of these and one another.

 

 

Artists + Collaborators: Ariel Abrahams + Tal Gluck, Francheska Alcantara, Artcodex - Mike Estabrook + Vandana Jain, Annie Berman, Tom Bogaert, Becky Brown + Annette Cords, Compassionate Action Enterprises - Joan Giroux + Lisa Marie Kaftori, Xenia Diente, Magali Duzant, Katie Etheridge + Simon Persighetti, Brendan Fernandes, Ray Ferreira, Gudrun Filipska + Carly Butler, Alexander Freeman, Frontview, Angeline Gragasin, David Helbich, Claire Hind + Gary Winters, Lisa Hirmer, Maya Kaminishi Jeffereis, Walis Johnson + Paul Sue-Pat, Kyla Kegler, Kubra Khademi, illesha Khandelwal, Dominika Ksel, gil lopez + Mitch Waxman, Mary Magsamen + Stephan Hillerbrand, Coralina Rodriguez Meyer, Lisa Myers, Kristyna and Marek Milde, Sara Morawetz , Clare Qualmann, Morag Rose + The Loiterers Resistance Movement, Julie Poitras Santos, Marcos Serafim + Jefferson Kielwagen + Steevens Simeon, SleepWalks - Lee Pembleton + Andrea Williams, Camille Turner, Geert Vermeire + Stefaan van Biesen + Simona Vermeire, Jevijoe Vitug plus Walking Discourse - Astrid Kaemmerling + Minoosh Zomorodinia.

 

Opening + Curators' Tour: Sep 6, 6-9pm. Closing Reception + Walk: Sep 29, 6-9pm.

 

https://queensmuseum.org/2018/09/saunter-trek-escort-parade-s-t-e-p

 

 

 

 

Utopia [just around the corner?] Athens Multimation 2018. > 12.10.2018.

 

 

Utopia [just around the corner?] A drift for three performes and silent walkers. With Geert Vermeire. The performance will be lead by three dancers: Anna Maria Makri, Teti Nikolopoulou and Olia Mourouzidou. Photography performance: James M Lane.

 

A group of walkers move in a flow along the now invisible Ilissos river banks in Athens, with no other intention then to get lost, with a book, inspired by Thomas More's, but containing only one word, Utopia, and in a format that challenges the very idea of a book. It is a book that resembles a walk, it is not linear, it opens from different angles, it has pages folded in pages, you can open and browse through it in different directions, actually

 

it is not a book to be read, it is a book to be shared spontaneously between the different silent walkers, carried around and to be opened on places that come towards the walker, symbolically opening the places, inviting to read the place, the walker and the moment in which he stands.

 

The walks go along with a walking score with drawings and text, retracing the walks. A silent walking performance by Geert Vermeire, conceived on the "Utopia" book by Stefaan van Biesen, together forming an artistic walking duo since 2001 developing in a collaborative practice called the Milena principle. As a duo of walkers, they invite guest artists and the public to perform with them in a continuous series of walking performances in contemporary cities around the world. (https://youtu.be/fEHXmCPh-a8)

 

 

 

 

[Libraries As Gardens: Libraries of Walks] TAF [The Art Foundation] Athens Greece 21>29.09.2018.

the Milena principle [2000>2018].

 

 

TAF / the art foundation in collaboration with Analogio Festival 2018 present the group show Libraries of Walks which opens on Friday September 21st at 21.00 and runs until September 29th. Parallel to the exhibition, performances, workshops and talks will be hosted as part of the program Libraries as Gardens taking place in various venues and public spaces of Athens during the Festival. Buildings are for human being the same way as gardens are for trees. Gardens are places to walk and look, but not to live. How could a garden and its trees become a library? How humans and trees can interact in a garden? How can a garden become productive for the mind?

 

 

‘Walking is becoming plants’. According to curator Geert Vermeire, in an etymological path it can be followed back to the planta - the sole of one's foot. Henry David Thoreau, in his essay, "Walking," says that half of one's walk is but a retracing of earlier steps, so that even if we do not know where we are (ultimately) going, at least we might know where we have been. But we are also "carried away" in two other corporeally-conscious ways: first, by the sights, sounds and smells which we encounter and which walk us toward and through them. The elements in the atmosphere, for example, or the mood (as in the weather or song) frequently bears and guides us. Secondly, we are carried by the places we walk and which hold us. And "place" relates to plat, meaning broad or flat.

 

 

To carry this point a final step further, it should be (foot) noted that Thoreau, too, conjectured that there exists in nature a "subtle magnetism" which carries us, often unconsciously, in the "right" direction, and his speculations may relate in a sense to the recent discovery of magnetic zones in areas of wilderness, attracting us. Philosophy, in this sense, begins not simply in wondering but also - quite literally - in wandering. Walking facilitates meditation, in part, because it provides mediation between us and the earth; it initiates conversation between the feet and the ground; it introduces our bodies to and into the world, the surrounding medium. Ideas and images start to flow; they form their own form of kinesthesia.

 

The exhibition features photographs of the ongoing international project ‘A Library of Walks’ as well as documentation and related art works of artistic actions during Libraries as Gardens at the Analogio Festival. Artists/participants: Kleopatra Chatzigiosi (Greece), Olga Doulkeridou (Greece), Eleftheria Rapti (Greece), Lina Efstathiou (Greece), Nora Lefa (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Jelena Marković (Serbia), Lezli Rubin-Kunda (Canada/Israel), Stefaan van Biesen (Belgium), Geert Vermeire (Belgium). Curated by: Geert Vermeire

 

Download pdf file prints of the exhibition at TAF 2018 > >

 

 

 

 

[Analogio Festival Athens] Greece 2018 Libraries As Gardens.

 

 

Open Call for public art and performances, workshops and talks/presentations for the exhibition-gathering "Libraries as gardens", relating public space, body, digital arts and new media, during Analogio Festival Athens 21-27 September 2018 / Athens World Book Capital 2018

 

The exhibition “Libraries as gardens” invites you to collaborate with visual, digital, performing artists, writers and cultural workers. It is part of the forthcoming edition of Analogio Festival, September 21-27, 2018, with performing arts from around the world. Analogio Festival has been annually organized since 2005 and in 2018 its focusing on Asia /Far East, including a tribute to South Africa, with workshops from international artists and in collaboration with the Unesco's International Playwright's Forum (IPF/ITI).

 

The exhibition "Libraries as gardens" will be conducted in collaboration with the Milena principle, Unesco's International Playwright's Forum (IPF/ITI), Drama School of the Greek Art Theater - Athens, Laboratory of Music Acoustics and Technology, as well as the Department of Education and Media of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

 

We are open to proposals for public art and performances, focusing on the creative potential of movement practices in the city. We applaude disciplinary diversity: performances and walking performances outdoors, and outdoors/indoors related performative visual/ installation, time-based media, virtual work, online-IRL hybrids, and others.

 

Creating and sharing imaginary libraries as gardens

We invite groups and individuals, to create and share performances, walks and installations that suggest innovative, experimental approaches to the city and its natural environment. The works should encompass engaging ways of intervening public spaces and relate to Athens' social/cultural/geographical fabric.

 

Topic Libraries as gardens

Buildings are for human being the same way as gardens are for trees. Gardens are places to walk and look, but not to live. How could a garden and its trees become a library? How humans and trees can interact in a garden? How can a garden be a more attractive place that can be used as it was a library. How can a garden become productive for the mind? This concept is the theme of a project of co-creation with writers, artists, performers, creatives of all disciplines and cultural workers with a focus on works involving sharing, intimacies, participation and collaboration.

 

Personal or remote participation

Artists can propose a participation on location, but are also encouraged to contribute remotely. The proposed performative action / installation is meant to be performed remotely by others (performers, public, or mixed) in Athens. We expect to receive a "manual"', a brief or a detailed movement score (step by step instructions for one performer/participant, two performers/participants, ... a group/a crowd). Selected performative works from the open call will be performed by volunteers (performers / dancers / movement artists / and the public). Participants are as well the audience. The performances are meant to be realized collaboratively to fully experience the works. In fact participants and public become part of it. We call as well on artists, creatives, researchers and cultural workers to propose workshops and presentations relating to the theme.

 

Artistic works, workshops and talks/presentations

Artists and creative professionals of all fields are welcome to apply (performers, dancers, actors, musicians, sound artists, designers, painters, sculptors, new media artists, digital artists, internet artists, software and app developers, video artists, installation and technology artists, architects, social and community artists, writers, etc.). Artistic collectives, groups and artists with disabilities are strongly encouraged to participate. We encourage artists to engage with those less engaged, to empower those who are disempowered. Via this open call, writers, artists and creatives are invited to apply with an idea, preferably (but not obligatory) in a collaboration, within the field of space, text and body, relevant to the theme. Performance, digital arts and new media will be the final form of the works, even though the artistic form of proposals can be wider, focusing on interaction and exchange. We call as well on artists, creatives, researchers and cultural workers to propose workshops (max duration one day) and presentations relating to the theme.

 

Where/Venue

Selected proposals will be part of the Analogio Festival 2018, in the form of performances (interactive with digital media), to be presented in venues and locations of passage and transition, across the city. In selected theatres and in the exhibition venue we will present selected works, as well possible in a documentary form (video/sound), next to presentations and workshops.

 

Budge

No production budget or another financial support for the artists can be offered, we do provide support during the exhibition, curatorial and artistic development, next to an important media and public campaign. We facilitate in letters of invitation, as well in support for travel grants for artists from Asia and Australia (ASEF travel grants, deadline 31 June) and STEP travel grants for artists from 59 countries in and around Europe (applying latest 60 days before travel date).

 

Goals/Expectations

The exhibition and gathering investigates and wants to stimulate collaboration between performers, writers and digital artists in public space. Through creating an artistic network working on body and technology communication, we anticipate stimulating awareness, care and an incentive for public spaces reconsidering the cultural, political, ecological and human dimensions of our living environment.

 

Participation fee

A participation fee of 30 euros is applicable to the artists, and 50 euros for researchers, covering local costs, and giving access to all activities of the Festival. Participants that have limited financial possibilities can request a reduction or for the fee to be waived, with a justification. Libraries of Gardens is a non-profit event, without funding and realized by the volunteer efforts of all involved.

 

https://analogiofestival.org/2018/en/news/4/

 

 

 

 

 

[Library of Walks] In situ version. Tinos island Greece 25.07 > 28.07.2018.

 

 

All about walking.
Kinono Art Gathering in Tinos.

Library of Walks: an installation by Stefaan van Biesen, walks with Vermeire Geert. Plantescape with Simona Vermeire. 

Music of biofauna with Anastasia Georgaki. Music improvisations by students of Department of Musical Studies (University of Athens). July 25th, Katapoliani Monastery.

 

Nomad Gardens: sound/-landscapes of Tinos. Between Agapi - Volax, a narrative walk, interpreting the dry stone landscape with storytelling and site specific interventions on the trail by Ecomuseum. The narration will be accompanied with in situ music performances on the go, by students of the Department of Musical Studies (University of Athens), followed by a concert of Sound Poetry in Volax village. 
July 27th, Agapi - Volax.

 

Garden of fig trees, an improvisation concert based on walks throughout the landscapes of Tinos with ten students of the Department of Musical Studies (University of Athens), presenting compositions of soundscapes and sound poetry, Coordinator: Anastasia Georgaki Composer: Orestes Karamanlis. Students:Μποσινάκη Ειρήνη – Αφένδρα, Γιάννης Σταματογιάννης, Ερωφίλη Παναγιωταρέα, Βασίλης Μπίλας, Χρήστος Νταούλας, Αναστασία Καπετανάκη, Γιώργος Μιζήθρας, Λιάνα Γκιόζου, Γιώργος Κόκκινος
July 28th, Volax.

 

 

Curator Artemis Potamianou and the selection committee of Platforms project 2018 selected the Milena principle as one of the 40 representative art platforms worldwide to showcase their work and collaborations in Lisbon and Athens.

the Milena principle presents together with befriended collectives and organisations in Lisbon and Athens a collaborative sound-and visual installation, demonstrating the effect towards other cities, through a network of artistic interventions with remote users from other cities. The juxtaposition of artistic interventions and experiences of different urban environments suggesting the acknowledgement of coherence emphasized in the practices of everyday life-urban rituals, rather than the contrast implied by the geographical and cultural differences.

 

 

 

 

Utopia Book [version IV] Platform Projects [Independent Art Fair] Athens 2018.

 

 

Presentation of the Utopia Book at Platform Projects [the Independed Art Fair] School of Fine Arts Athens 2018. Booth 29 the Milena principle. Curated by Artemis Potamianou (Moma NY & Tate London).

 

'Utopia (just around the corner). A silent group walk, moving in a flow through Nicosia, Brussels, NY City, with no other intention then to get lost, with a book, inspired by Thomas More's, but containing only one word, "Utopia". It is a book that resembles a walk, it is not linear, it opens from different angles, it has pages folded in pages, you can open and browse it in different directions, not a book to be read, but a book to be shared spontaneously between the participating walkers, to be carried around in silence and to be opened on places that come towards them, as an inviting to open and read the place, the walkers and the moment in which they stand.

 

 

 

 

[Interview] Dr Rhea Thönges & Martin Schmitz > Documenta 14 Kassel Germany > 10.09.2017.

 

 

About the relation between Lucius Burckhardt an Joseph Beuys. Documenta 14 Kassel Germany 10.09.2017.

 

the Milena principle made an interview about the relation between Joseph Beuys and Lucius Burckhardt. We had the chance to have a long talk with two icons: Dr Rhea Thönges (a dear friend of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) and working partner) and Martin Schmitz (*1956, student of Lucius Burckhardt [1925-2003]). They both are publishing books about Spaziergangwissenschaft and joseph Beuys. Photo's by Annemie Mestdagh. Video and photo's by Stefaan van Biesen / the Milena principle.

 

Martin Schmitz [*1956] was born in Hamm, Westphalia. After graduation in 1976 to study at the Department followed architecture, urban planning and landscape planning at the University of Kassel with Lucius Burckhardt, from which he graduated with a thesis on the outpatient food in town and in 1983 as a book (with Birgit Knop) Currywurst with chips - About Culture of the snack bar. In the 1980s, he was a correspondent for the magazine 'Werk, Bauen + Wohnen' and wrote beside numerous articles in various magazines for the German Bauzeitung a special issue about the Swiss architect Christian Hunziker. In parallel, he followed in Berlin the work of Wolfgang Müller and The Deadly Doris from among the genius dilettantes and in 1987 was curator of the film program at Documenta 8 d Super-8, which was based on the artistic work with the amateur film format.

 

 

In 1989 he founded the Martin Schmitz Verlag in Kassel together with a gallery. With the move to Berlin, the exhibition was discontinued in 1999. There were projects 'mit Kunst am/im Bau', an invitation as curator of the conference 'Dilettantismus', which was held in Görlitz in 1995, teaching in Saarbruecken, Weimar, Kassel and Dresden. With the exhibition Die Tödliche Doris - Kunst, the work began in 1999 in Berlin, which followed the project 'Die Tödliche Doris - Kino' in 2003 and was shown internationally. After the death of Lucius Burckhardt in 2003, he began by compiling his entire bibliography [2006-2007]. He started to teach walk science at the university in Kassel. Curator of the third symposium documenta urbana Art plans to planning in 2007 in Kassel, the meeting 'Die Spaziergangswissenschaft: Sehen, erkennen und planen 2008' in Frankfurt am Main and the first Lucius Burckhardt Convention 2014 in Kassel 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After an amazing trajectory through three seasons with young artists, students, researchers, residents in media labs, workshops, seminars, performances, public talks, exhibition and above all many shared walks and surprising inspiring meetings with people and places... Thank you all for your fine engagement and continuous dedication for this not always easy and complex project aiming for the fragile and subtle. Especially thank you, Helene Black and Yiannis Colakides and NeMe for your generous involvement!

 

 

 

the Milena principle at ART-ATHINA 2014 - 2015- 2016. Platform Project Athens Greece.

 

 

Art-Athina 2016. Faliro Pavilion (TaeKwonDo Stadium) Athens.

 

Curator Artemis Potamianou and the selection committee of Art Athina Platforms project [2014-2015 & 2016] selected the Milena principle as one of the 40 representative art platforms worldwide to showcase their work and collaborations in Lisbon and Athens.

the Milena principle presents together with befriended collectives and organisations in Lisbon and Athens a collaborative sound-and visual installation, demonstrating the effect towards other cities, through a network of artistic interventions with remote users from other cities. The juxtaposition of artistic interventions and experiences of different urban environments suggesting the acknowledgement of coherence emphasized in the practices of everyday life-urban rituals, rather than the contrast implied by the geographical and cultural differences.

 

 

Platforms project. 49 of the most important independent art platforms from all over the world, distinguishing themselves by working on unconventional ways and by establishing unexpected and influential debates on art, were selected by the Athens Art Fair. Based on the “unity is strength” principle, the platforms have secured their own place on the international art arena without antagonizing the environment they are called upon to serve.

 

At Platform Project @ Art-Athina 2016 by Artemis Potamianou (curator MOMA NY & Tate London).

 

 

the Milena principle focuses on the ongoing travelling project "the Dürer connection" [2003 -], developing itself as an European nomadic network , initiating collaborative encounters between public, experts and artists, referring to the Flemish renaissance, when artists, philosophers and scientists traveled unceasingly, connecting with people and places. Exchange of ideas and continuous journeys created a network of solidarity and affinity. The projects refer to this utopian and human dimension, with traveling as an artistic instrument, with events and exhibitions realized in Germany, Holland, Portugal, Poland, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Romania, Austria, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Crete, parallel events in Latin America, as well bringing artists and people from many European countries to Belgium.

 

 

 

Workshop / Sensing Silence EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens Greece.

 

 

Workshop - Sensing silence A workshop about silence and the body in the empty EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens by Andromachi Vrakatseli (sound) and Geert Vermeire (performance) together with Stefaan van Biesen (visual artist) and Chistos Kakalis (architect).

Departing from sound and walking. as research method and artistic practice we explore the relation between movement, the body and sound in the silent spaces of an empty museum, using recording technology, drawing and writing as tools to capture trajectories through silent spaces. A sketchbook is designed for this purpose and will be distributed to participants to use it as a kind of a diary of their experience.

 

The workshop will be divided in following parts.

1) Introduction about Urban Emptiness and Silence.

2) Sensing spaces. Performance "the Diogenes variations" by Stefaan van Biesen en Geert Vermeire as catalyst for a silent walk through the empty museum.

3) Approaching silence. Division in smaller groups, going out to make recordings, to draw and to write the body and its movement in the emptiness, accompanied by workshop leaders.

24th of May, 11.00 h EMST, Kallirois Ave.& Amvr. Franzti Street, Athens Duration: 3 hours.

 

Recordings of this workshop will be source materials for a second (separate) workshop Placing sounds, exploring the composition of 3D soundscapes by movement of the body in space and by walking, using the SonicPlanet Geocomposer en Geoplayer, on Saturday 28th of May 2016 in Elaionas.

An action within the Urban Emptiness Network - http://urbanemptiness.org/ Real and imaginary embodied landscapes, Athens - Brussels [24-28 May - 7-9 June 2016]. A network of workshop-symposiums about Urban Emptiness and Silence, in Edinburgh, in Athens and in Brussels with an interdisciplinary approach, exploring the contribution of performative and immersive techniques and technologies and new media to the experiential understanding of the spaces/places and its documentation/mapping.

 

 

 

 

 

Invisible places Viseu, Portugal 2014.

 

Sound, Urbanism and Sense of Place. 18–20 July 2014, Viseu, Portugal
Presentation project Passeio Branco 

 

A research of the walk in the works of Saramago and Stefaan van Biesen in Lisbon: in a theoretical approach, a research emphasizing on representations of the city in a promenadological discovery and in a practical approach, where this urban discovery is concretized in a space of artistic and social transformation. As an urban intervention project it investigates, documents and enhances the aural heritage of the city through participation of residents, materialized in the composition of a soundwalk, building a locative  media instrument  based on the noTours platform, referring to the Spaziergangwissenschaft (the science of walking) implying the community, in a kinetic esthetics, in the planification of their own city through minimal interventions and by going on foot, in this project elaborated as a public artistic laboratory in the space of Lisbon as a reconstruction of the urban space harmonizing its own sensoriality out of literary texts and artistic works.

 

http://invisibleplaces.org/ 

Invisible Places [text lecture by Simona Vermeire & Geert Vermeire Viseu Portugal 20.07.2014 [see pdf file]

 

 

Meeting Gilberto Zorio at Serralves Porto Portugal 2010.

The members of the Milena principle, (Bregt Smeets, Shaomin Mhin, Stefaan van Biesen and Filip Van de Velde), are having a conversation with Gilberto Zorio, (the great Italian Arte Povera artist), at the Serralves Foundation during the lunch.

 

© private foundation van biesen-mestdagh 03.07.2021

• introduction partners projects agenda lectures contact filmarchive home water carrier
• concepts luggage carrier institutions organisations schoolprojects education (no)Tour festivals news topics texts you-tube