For this year’s Residency Programme for Academic and Curatorial Research of Contemporary Greek Art we welcomed Elisa Ferroni in Curatorial Research Programme, from September 8 to October 20, 2024.

Elisa Ferroni (b.1994) is an emerging curator, art writer and qualified architect based in Verona and London. She received her BA and MA in Architecture from the Politecnico of Milan, and recently completed the Graduate Diploma in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Throughout her professional career, Elisa has worked extensively as exhibition designer and assistant curator with international art galleries, museums, and national institutions, including the Italian Ministry of Culture. She also contributes to art magazines. Her curatorial work explores themes such as the social and cultural dimensions of intimacy and identity, ecology, gender, and narratives of errancy. Central to her practice is a fascination with the interplay between word and image, as well as image and sound.

Elisa Ferroni was selected by a committee consisting of: Anna Somers Cocks OBE, Founder of the “Arts Newspaper”, Lucy Bradnock, Vice-Dean for Research, The Courtauld, Caroline Levitt, Head of Art History Department, The Courtauld, Elisabeth Plessa, art historian-curator, and Dora Vasilakou, Managing Director, The Sotiris Felios Collection.

Elisa spent 6-weeks in Athens where she was introduced to artists and leading art professionals living and working in Athens, while also had the chance to engage in extended conversations with Sotiris Felios. Based on her proposal researching “geographies and temporalities of waiting”, a bespoke programme of visits, discussions and exhibition tours was designed, centering around the concept of waiting through space and time and its different manifestations in social, personal and political realms.

Elisa’s research culminated into the exhibition “Until you come back. Geographies and Temporalities of Waiting from The Sotiris Felios Collection”. The exhibition included more than 25 paintings, sculptures and photographs from the Collection created by more than 15 artists. For its presentation, Elisa engaged in conducting research through interviews, museum visits and books reading, while also planning and executing the organisation of the exhibition and the public programme.

THE EXHIBITION

The Sotiris Felios Collection and The Courtauld Institute of Art, London present the exhibition Until you come back: Geographies and Temporalities of Waiting from the Sotiris Felios Collection curated by fellow Elisa Ferroni. The exhibition opens on Wednesday 9th of October 2024 at 18.00 at the project space 16 Fokionos Negri, Athens and will run until the 26th of October 2024. A public programme of guided tours and an educational workshop will take place during the exhibition. Online events to be announced soon.

Until you come back: Geographies and Temporalities of Waiting from the Sotiris Felios Collection is the third exhibition presented in the context of the Residency Programme and is the culmination of curatorial fellow Elisa Ferroni’s six-week residency in Athens, during which she immersed herself in the Athenian vibrant arts community and developed her research and curatorial practice through meetings with artists and art professionals from leading museums and galleries of Athens.

The exhibition comprises paintings, photography works and sculptures by: Yiorgos Avgeros,, Marilitsa Vlachaki, Stratigoula Giannikopoulou, Takis Zerdevas, Ilias Karras, Kostas Lales, Aphrodite Liti, Alexia Marouli, Robert McCabe, Tasos Mantzavinos, Christos Bokoros, Vally Nomidou, Antonis Donef, Giannis Paleologos, Achilleas Papacostas, Kostas Papanikolaou, David Sampethai, Antonis Staveris, Michel Fais, Ioanna Fotaki, Maria Hadjiandreou.

CURATOR’S NOTE

Since the era when the gods and goddesses of Olympus held sway over mortal lives, the myth of Penelope’s ceaseless weaving has symbolised the essence of waiting. Day and night, the queen of Ithaca wove and unwove her cloth, altering the natural passage of time. Yet, far from being in a passive state, she bravely embraced a sense of anticipation, faithfully waiting to reunite with her lover. To protect herself and her status, Penelope cleverly devised a trick, turning the historically passive act of waiting into one of endurance and empowerment.

From the epic verses of Homer’s Odyssey to the modern poems of Cavafy, waiting appears as an underlying act that navigates through time, permeating Greek culture. In a transitional space suspended between past memories and future aspirations, waiting binds together absence and presence.

Through various media, selected artists from the Sotiris Felios Collection interrogate the different aesthetic representations of waiting, revealing on canvas, prints, and through sculpture, the bittersweet sense of nostalgia, the faith in becoming, and the will for adventure. Looking at moments of waiting from this perspective, one soon discovers the vast geographies and temporalities that unfold, allowing stillness to work within.

Beginning with its social and physical manifestations, transitioning to intimate aspects of self-identity, and culminating in the dynamism of journeys driven by hopes and desires, the exhibition explores this in-between space through three sections.

Geographies of Waiting delves into everyday life representations of wait: urban spaces, squares, streets, and everyday objects become scenarios that hold fragments of a mysterious anticipatory space. In simple contemplation, in boredom, and in moments of pause – as if to freeze them like a still life – artists capture fleeting moments, grappling with the inevitable passage of time and the generational separation it brings. Yet, joyful moments unfold if one remains in a state of attentiveness.
As anthropologist Tim Ingold observes, placing oneself consciously in a state of waiting is to remain open ‘to the possibility of not- knowing’. As he states: ‘Scientists are surprised, but not astonished, when their predictions turn out to be wrong. […] By contrast, those who are open and attentive to the world, […] mostly children, though perpetually astonished, are never surprised’ (Ingold, ‘On not Knowing and Paying Attention: How to Walk in a Possible World’, 2022).

Becoming and Self-Becoming explores how waiting intersects with feminine endurance,
portraying it as a transformative process. In this section waiting becomes a catalytic process of growth, a moment of catharsis through which women engage with their subjectivity and assert their agency in contemporary society.

As a culmination, The Journey embodies the desire to create and become through motion. With eyes wide open, individuals embark on journeys, holding on to the promise of new lands and brighter futures. In a blend of motion and stillness, passengers experience physical movement while remaining, in fact, static. These floating spaces, between departure and arrival, embody the longing for what was left behind and the anticipation of a future yet to unfold – a sentiment that still resonates deeply with the experiences of migrants across the world today.

In the fast-paced era we live in, where in-between spaces and temporalities seem not to be allowed, Until You Come Back invites us to view moments of waiting as precious opportunities for self-reflection and togetherness. It calls for patiently and faithfully waiting to see what unfolds, and to embrace openness during transitional moments. Pauses can become decisive moments for creation and action, as it is often in the folds of space and the stumbles of time that the unexpected emerges, and something meaningful eventually occurs.

The exhibition followed by a public programme of tours and an educational workshop.

Artistic Director of the Residency: Dora Vasilakou
Under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture.