The first Santorini Biennale of Arts

It is announced that the inaugural Biennale of Arts will take place in Santorini island, in the summer of 2012 (July - September). The Biennale is the idea of artist, designer and economist Kikos Papadopoulos, supported by many public and private art foundations.

The calling
The open call for artist submissions is now open through 19 May 2012. The theme of this year's Biennale is "The Past: Memory and Nostalgia". Artists are invited to submit their works into the following sections: Photography, Glass Art, Graphic Art, Comics, Sculpture, Art Installation, Industrial Design, Ceramic Art, Collage Art, Paper Art, Illustration, Painting, Drawing, Video Art and Short Film. Participation is open to all professional and amateur artists through the official web site of Santorini Biennale of Arts, while it requires an entry fee of 50.00 EUR as registration fee.

The Biennale
The Santorini Biennale of Arts is a non-profit organization that presents Greece's latest and most exciting contemporary visual arts event. Held every two years, the Biennale hosts a three-month exhibition, plus a program of artist talks, performances, forums, film screenings, family events, guided tours and other special events.

The mission of the Santorini Biennale of Arts is to promote both emerging and established artists that are working on the borders between different art disciples, allowing them to surpass the traditional (and perhaps limiting) concepts of classicism, modernism, contemporary and applied arts. The Santorini Biennale of Arts (SBOA) is inspired by the ways in which ideas are born and disseminated - how they then develop and diversify within our increasingly interconnected global society.

Art and culture continue to play a distinctive role in defining the past, present and future direction of human endeavour. In recognition of this, the Santorini Biennale of Arts wishes to cultivate a spirit of research and experimentation; also, to present an environment ideal for open and continuous dialogue. Pursuing a programme of cultural collaboration that is at the same time both regional and international, SBOA intends to support and promote the free exchange of both artistic and cultural experience.

Reflecting the strengths of co-operation across all borders, encouraging and rewarding excellence, Santorini Biennale of Arts will work to advance a broad framework of activities enabling participants to initiate a wider dialogue for new ideas and social change. Ideally, by our art, we can provoke and motivate humanity to take action on today's fundamental issues.

The theme
The 2012 theme, "The Past: Memory and Nostalgia", is a reason for many intense discussions and an expression of our personal researches. The organizing team takes this opportunity to set its personal aspects:

"Our theme for 2012 is The Past. History, Time, Memory and Nostalgia: How do you define your relationship with The Past? How do people you have met in the past, all of your experiences, your memories affect you in the present? Might they subconsciously or even explicitly influence your future? We as individuals each carry forward our own past as 'vessels'. If everything about the present moment is determined by the past, then, when collectively imagining our future, we ignore the lessons of the past at our peril."

"The first step to understand cultural transformations is asking questions. What is the past? What is the memory? What is the nostalgia in the contemporary world? These are the complex, and at same time the easy questions that the artists, that will be involved, will have to answer to."

"Nostalgia today is a form of reflection on the present, a way of taking a position on it... It's a nostalgia not only for the past that was but for the one that could have been - in other words, a nostalgia for the future."  - Viktor Misiano.

The location
The main part of the Biennale will be mainly held in the village of Pyrgos (Pyrgos Old Venetian Castle, The "Santorini of the Past" Museum, Voreina Gallery Suites Hotel as well as about 9 to 13 exhibition halls), and it will be extended also to the town of Fira (Majestic Hotel), to Kamari (cineKamari), to Perissa (Irigenia Hotel and Thera Mare Hotel), to Imerovigli (Andromeda Villas hotel) and Oia Village (Pelagos Hotel) as a satellite locations for both exhibition and parallel events. The various venues in Pyrgos include many internal and external open air public spaces around the village permitting the Biennale's Curators to create a kind of "Art Park" fully dedicated to "THE PAST. History. Time. Memory. Nostalgia." For more information at the web site of the event.

"Probably a lot of people are asking themselves why Santorini was chosen as the location for such a big contemporary art event. This question helps us to remark the theme of this 1st edition of the Biennale: the Past. Starting with the assumption that nothing is as contemporary as the past, it is easy to understand why Santorini Island is a perfect location to host all the artistic world from the 1st of July until the 30th of September.

The roots of the entire cultural world originate from Greece, and our intent with the Biennale is to bring back every art process to his origin through time interpretation, in the land where it all began." Costanza Pellegrini

Place: Santorini (mainly Pyrgos, Fira, Kamari, Perissa, Imerovigli, Oia)
Duration of the exhibition: 1 July - 30 September 2012
For more information about both the event and the procedure of registration: HERE

Editing : Aggeliki Limperopoulou