Interview: Ekaterini Kriezi and Tzimis Efthimiou
Luca Curci talks with Ekaterini Kriezi and Tzimis Efthimiou during FUTURE LANDSCAPES, third appointment of BORDERS Art Fair 2020, at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello and The ROOM Contemporary Art Space.

Ekaterini Kriezi and Tzimis Efthimiou meet as artists in the dreamland, in a vision for a common place where space-time dimensions coexist and unite, and the boundaries between Real, Virtual, Digital, Analog, Past, Present and Future are erased. There is an imaginary space/construction where all the above elements coexist and interact with each other. It is where artwork and real life have the same identity. Ekaterini Kriezi, a coastal/fluid mechanics engineer, creates in her works, strong emotional atmospheres utilizing life experiences, the laws of thermodynamics and digital tools. Tzimis Efthimiou, an assistant professor of Athens School of Fines Arts, creates collages of images, texts, music and 3D installation. He creates interactive spaces by adapting the idea of community through creation.

Luca Curci – What are you currently working on?
Tzimis Efthimiou – My current work is directed in parallel circles: Teaching in the Athens School of Fine Arts, which I consider as part of the artistic action, and it is merely based on collaborative projects. Composing for my music band “Aera Patera”, which consists of a synthesis of music, performance, fanzines and videos. Working in projects at “Event Horizon”, an Art group Platform, where I am one of the foundation members. And least, but not last, constructing “parasites” in the public space.
Ekaterini Kriezi – I keep exploring the way of expressing myself with video art and digital media. In video art, I have the possibility to include all the forms of art I was engaged in in the past i.e. photography, music composition, painting, poetry, and in combination with technology, I can create different aspects of expressions and emotions.

LC – What is art for you?
TE and EK – Art is the field of coexistence, where reality can be considered physical and contingent at the same time.

LC – What is your creative process like?
TE – Mixing media like painting, poetry and architecture to create unique entities and substantial oddities.
EK – Everything starts in the mind, where ideas, thoughts, feelings and images are compiled to an imaginary creation. Afterward, I collect or create my materials, photos, music, text, and combine them digitally to create an entity in my dreamland.

LC – How is being an artist nowadays?
TE – Difficult, essential, but interesting.
EK – Definitely interesting. We are moving through the “Technology Rules” age, where artificial intelligence and machine learning appear as support and simultaneously as a tread to artists.

LC – Which art themes do you pursue? What is your preferred subject, if there is any?
TE – I would refer to Social Sculpture or Fluxus Movement as relations.
EK – My themes are related to space seen from different perspectives and the search for identity in a multiverse universe.

LC – Do you agree with our vision of art and what do you think about the theme of the festival?
TE and EK – Yes we do. The relationship between body and space and the borders between identities and dimensions is totally connected within our work.

LC – We were attracted by your last artistic production, has the artwork presented been created for the festival or as a part of preexisting works?
TE – The project ΟΠΗ(hole) started during the first lockdown due to the pandemic, in March 2020. The concept was to establish a place non-topic but topic as well, where everybody could exhibit and allow the art to be available at a time where everything else was blocked off. The construction of the installation was built in a backyard, during the first lockdown.
EK – A creation of a digital work that projects the physical uninstallation at the backyard was something we thought and talked about a lot, during the lockdown. But wasn’t until the call for Future Landscape when we started actively working on the video, trying to merge the physical and digital world and create the story of our imaginary universe.

LC – What do you think about the organization of our event?
TE and EK – We are very happy about the organization. We do enjoy the projection of artists and artwork on your website and on social media. It feels like we are in the exhibition halls, despite being far away and not be able to be physically present. Another digital experience of a physical event (our new age, apparently).

LC – Did you enjoy cooperating with us?
TE and EK – It was a pleasure.

LC – What are your suggestions about our services? Is there something more we can provide to artists?
TE – Let free our mind and things will follow…