Phenomenon is a biennial project for contemporary art held in the Aegean island of Anafi, Greece, that includes a residency with performances, lectures, video screenings and other events, as well as an exhibition throughout the island. It is organized by the Association Phenomenon and the Collection Kerenidis Pepe. According to Apollonius Rhodius’ “Argonautica”, the island was named Anafi because Apollo made it appear to the Argonauts as a shelter in a dark night, using his bow to shed light (Aνάφη is derived from ανέφηνεν, "appeared”, the same root as phenomenon).
The third edition of Phenomenon will take place 1 - 14 July 2019.
The project will investigate the role of art in times of political urgency. By questioning singular points of view and naturalized concepts, art offers new ways of imagining a collective life, producing forms of social engagement, counteracting authoritarian and populist ideologies. We will be looking for strategies through art that enable encounters of differential forces and interests, circumvent constructed binary oppositions and realize the creative and political potential of the unstable in-between. |
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Phenomenon exhibition from 15 October to 16 December 2018 at the Fondation Hippocrène, Paris. This exhibition questions how to construct a common imaginary beyond binary oppositions, through transposing the experience of twenty artists and scholars from the Greek island of Anafi during the Phenomenon biennale to a foundation in Paris, in the former workshop of a modernist architect.
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The second edition of Phenomenon took place between 3-16 July 2017. The project looked at how histories, collective and personal, are socially constructed and constantly renegotiated. What are the forces at play that actualize the visible and the discursive and construct historical formations? How can history be retold and the master narrative denaturalized? The project investigated the circulation of images through space and time and argued for a multiplicity of partial and irreducible archeologies that create new connections and open up the world to new kinds of imaginaries.
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The first edition Phenomenon took place between 6-19 July 2015. A phenomenon is something that is made appear or brought to light, but that can, as easily, fall back into obscurity or oblivion. On this remote island, suddenly brought out of the darkness by Apollo to provide shelter to the Argonauts, the project explored contemporary art as a lens that reveals the invisible, blurs the apparent, gives access to unimaginable worlds; how notions of visibility/invisibility are formed through light, language and memory.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Association Phenomenon and the Collection Kerenidis Pepe would like to thank the Municipality and the people of Anafi, the artists and their galleries, the invited participants and everyone supporting the project. With the support of the NEON organisation and the Fondation Hippocrène. Phenomenon was awarded the Montblanc Arts Patronage Award 2018.
The Association Phenomenon and the Collection Kerenidis Pepe would like to thank the Municipality and the people of Anafi, the artists and their galleries, the invited participants and everyone supporting the project. With the support of the NEON organisation and the Fondation Hippocrène. Phenomenon was awarded the Montblanc Arts Patronage Award 2018.