apothecae

[containers and findings]

The project apothecae focuses at two major events and their realisation in Istanbul that correlate in specific terms architecture and art: the ΧΧΙΙ world congress of architecture, UIA, held on July and the 9th Istanbul Art Bienal, held in September, 2005. The city of istanbul is the same scene for the two events. Istanbul is in different ways important and silent for the events.

Apothecae creates a critical space of exchange and re-ordering of meanings, inside and at the margins of the two art and architecture events. It spreads inside buildings and venues where events, meanings and people gather, inaugurating an uncertain archaeology: in the guarded space of the two institutional events, Apothecae finds and uses out-of-sight, secondary spaces: cleaning and storage rooms, maintenance rooms and basements are considered as mnemonic “thecae”, as destabilising “meaning containers”. Findings (objects, reports, documents, registered situations) are deposited and exchanged inside the thecae via collective actions. an announcement board, a newspaper on a table, conversations with the personel establish multiple narratives with the city of istanbul.

Apothecae uses rhetoric techniques that link memory and space, as well as a participatory strategy, to produce an unstable mnemotechnic, a space of critique for established cultural meanings and values.

Concept: Gregorios Pharmakis

Gregorios Pharmakis is an artificial plural person, (artist, writer, architect, curator), enlived by Aristide Antonas and Panos Kouros.

Gregorios Pharmakis in apothecae istanbul bienial:

Aristide Antonas, Panos Kouros, Nadia Kalara, Kostas Ntaflos

Students (university of patras, university of thessaly, istanbul technical university):

niki dimopoyloy, margarita gkika, ozan taylan seven,

dimitra tsachrelia, eirini tsachrelia,stella tsiontsi 

Apothecae UIA congress workshop participants:

Panos Kouros, Aristide Antonas, Kostas Ntaflos, Nadia Kalara, Zekiye Sarikartal

Students (university of patras, university of thessaly, bachçeşehir university): yannis arvanitis, alp aytekin, sarp çetin, tasos govatsos, katerina grigoropoulou, dağhan gürkanlar, elena kapobasopoulou, nileta kotsikou, marina biza, kaya tabanli, eirini tsaxrelia, alexis tsoukalas, ahmet türk, seda ulutaş

Recent projects include: http://diatopia.cti.gr/diatopia (Diatopia, traversing the landscape, producing networks of place - with dimos dimitriou), www.paradigmata.gr (Paradigms,Greek participation in the 9th Venice Biennale of Architecture), www.mnemeden.org