Untitled​

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Project Introduction: In response to his residency at D6: Culture in Transit, Newcastle, UK, Dimitris Chimonas's work traces the construction, narration, and conservation of knowledge in the post-colonial canon. During his residency, Dimitris spent time with the Society of Bookbinders North East - an encounter that revealed how the preservation of our shared past is in itself an integral part of our narratives. Books are vessels as well as documents of power. Just like an author is an integral part of their fiction, historians are part of history and archivists of archives. What appears as extracted or found rigid information is a construction that shapes histories, identities, and realities. The ever-transforming and mutated colonial practice's ferocity and expropriation are concealed in charming vocabulary, sensual imagery, and advanced production tools.

 

In ‘Untitled’ the information expected in the form of text constantly deviates from the on-screen page. The one phrase can only be read once one flicks through the pages, setting the object in motion. Even then, the phrase never appears as a whole as it exceeds the boundaries of its vessel; it’s within and beyond the book, somewhere between reality and its fiction, between the future and the past, the material and the immaterial. Just like the bodies free-falling under the sunlight, the control appears as an illusion, it is destabilised and elusive, existing only in motion.

 

Untitled was created during an artist residency between October - November 2021 at the D6: Culture in Transit studios with Marcio Carvalho (Portugal), Dimitris Chimonas (Cyprus) and Mónica Rikić (UK). D6, the lead partner on the CONTESTED DESIRES programme, is based in Newcastle, UK. The residency followed the CONTESTED DESIRES UK Assembly,  a capacity building event exploring the role of arts, culture and heritage in defining who we are and interrogating the ways national identities are crafted in the context of colonialism.

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Biography: The practice of Dimitris Chimonas investigates theatre conventions, devices and frames through their use and abuse in the neoliberal and post-colonial narrative, through performance, film, and sculpture. He trained as a theatre-maker at East15 Acting School, and attended the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut (2018-2019).

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