34 Exercises of Freedom
An encounter between political theorist and philosopher Antonio Negri and indigenous rights activists Linnea Dick and Niillas Somby opened documenta 14’s Public Programs at the Athens Municipality Arts Center at Parko Eleftherias (Freedom Park) .
It was the first of 34 Exercises of Freedom which compose the inaugurating ten-day program. Until September 24, you are invited to become part of an evolving Parliament of Bodies, which unfolds through dialogue and activities on diverse notions of freedom.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 2016
(5:45–11 pm)
Εxercises:
#11. Torture and Freedom Tour of Athens
(5:45–8:45 pm)
Collective walk through the city of Athens, in collaboration with ASKI archives, exploring the historical traces of oppression, violence, and the quest for freedom during the military dictatorship of 1967–74.
—Tour in Greek, starting point: 5:45 pm at Polytechnion by the Tositsa Street entrance, ending point: Parko Eleftherias
The Greek tour is conducted by Vangelis Karamanolakis (historian, University of Athens) and Tasos Sakellaropoulos (historian, head of the Historical Archives, Benaki Museum, Athens)
—Tour in English, starting point: 6:15 pm at Polytechnion by the Tositsa Street entrance, ending point: Parko Eleftherias
The English tour is conducted by Kostis Karpozilos (historian, director of the Contemporary Social History Archives–ASKI, Athens) and Katerina Labrinou (historian, Panteion University, Athens)
In collaboration with the Contemporary Social History Archives–ASKI, Athens.
Meanwhile at the Athens Municipality Art Center, Parko Eleftherias:
#12. The Chronicle of the Dictatorship (1967–74)
Pantelis Voulgaris, Greece, 37 min
Film screening
Εpitaph for Democracy
(9:30–11 pm)
#13. Epitafios II
Angela Brouskou – Theatro Domatiou, theater group and MiniMaximum ImproVision, improvisational group of musicians
Epitafios II is a collaboration between professional actors, musicians, students, performers, and the audience. A blanket of human bodies and objects covers the floor of the former headquarters of the Greek military police EAT/ESA. At a time when the world is plunged into economic, political, and social desolation, the performance formulates an ode, a musical installation, that is in dialogue with Pericles’s Funeral Oration from Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War—read by an honorable citizen of contemporary Athens—with excerpts from Cornelius Castoriadis’s text The Problem of Democracy Today (1990).
Epitafios II is open to anyone who wants to participate for personal or shared reasons. The questions being raised deal with the concept of public grief and its expression, death, the end of sexual and family relationships, everyday crime, political and socio-political turbulence, violent displacement and existential dead ends, or simply time’s passing with no return. We are expecting the visitors to express and confess—together and separately—unthinkable public or private losses. The first version of Epitafios was presented at Kunsthalle Athena in 2012.
The whole ten-day program features forty-five invited participants who are active in distinct critical contemporary movements in the city of Athens and beyond. In their exercises of freedom they will engage in talks, performances, workshops, walks, rituals, screenings, soundscapes, and other practices. The Parliament of Bodies is a political theater that welcomes the public to be an active part in its construction.
A detailed version of the program 14–24 September, 2016 is now available on Documenta 14
