Open Discussions

Collective Exhibition, Guna Contemporary, Kastellorizo, Greece, August 2nd – September 2nd 2021

Open Discussions aimed to stimulate the discovery of new possible perspectives on Kastellorizo, an island with a complex historical and cultural identity. Setting aside the concept of the commercial gallery’s white cube, we exhibited the works of seven international artists in a typical Kastellorizan house. Kastellorizo has been, and continues to be, the locus of events which reflect the themes the works exhibited dealt with, all of which contemporary art is also currently committed to exploring: geopolitics, climate change and cultural identity. Open Discussions did not propose defined narratives or solutions to existing problems, but aspired to be a space in which dialogues could be opened and reflected upon.

This exhibition brings together the works of :

JULIE ROCH-CUERRIER
ZUZA GOLINSKA
SARKA KOUDELOVA
NASAN TUR
SARI EMBER
EMESE BENZCUR
CHRISANTHY KOUMIANAKI

The exhibition opened with the work of Julie Roch-Cuerrier, who reflects upon the fragility of printed paper and, with it, questions the way in which history and culture are written and conceived. Roch-Cuerrier worked with an atlas from the 80s, scraping off all the maps with sandpaper. From the colour powder obtained in the process, she created monochromes, the Atlas Paintings. Through this gesture of deletion and new interpretation, Julie criticizes the presumption of accuracy of our cartographic conventions, which never result from neutral historical processes, as the history of Kastellorizo can testify.