Curating Contemporary Art (MA)
Akis Kokkinos
So remember the liquid ground is conceived as a programme of meditative and sensorial experiences across the digital, physical and spiritual realms. Responding to and expanding from the forgotten social histories and ecologies of Vauxhall in London, the programme has been inspired by the secret and suppressed River Effra, which flows underneath the area. The river acts as a way to re-imagine, navigate, feel and find ways in which we connect and synchronise with our surroundings.
The immersive programme features newly commissioned live sound streaming, moving images and performances, by Soundcamp Collective, Myriam Lefkowitz and Julie Laporte, Zoë Marden, Eduardo Navarro, Anna Nazo, Himali Singh Soin and Linda Stupart.
The programme also includes a Reading Room that acts as a circadian space for collective imagining and reflection on the body beyond authoritative representation, with contributions from Chus Martínez, Clay AD, Helga Schmid, Ignota, PaperWork Magazine and NXS.
So remember the liquid ground is curated by Benjamin Darby, Yoojin Kang, Akis Kokkinos, Angelina Li, Lenette Lua, Louise Nason as part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2020, Royal College of Art in partnership with Gasworks.
It is also generously supported by Vauxhall One.
A physical iteration of the project will be presented in Autumn 2020 in the wider area of Vauxhall.
Image Caption: WATERSHED, 2020, Linda Stupart, video still
Sponsors
Vauxhall One
Akis Kokkinos is a Greek curator, based in South London. Akis has worked for major cultural institutions in Greece and the UK, private collections, as well as independent projects. They studied the MA Curating contemporary art at the Royal College of Art (2018-2020) supported twice by the NEON scholarship as well as the Schilizzi Foundation, and the RCA continuation fund.
Akis' practice is focused on ways to disrupt the 'objective' and institutional by introducing or supporting other less appreciated and recognised forms of knowledge.Through multidisciplinary discourses, eco-feminist, non-western approaches, and other non- rational thoughts and philosophies, their practice focuses on the less spoken, invisible or liminal. Currently, their research is centred on environmental care through considering indigenous cosmologies, post-colonial and queer theories as well as esoteric and spiritual practices. This is with a view to explore and embrace non-linear and non-binary entanglements across species.
Their dissertation titled Interweaving the curatorial in beyond-human worlds aims to reposition the curatorial practice within an ecological discourse and asks: What is the model and format of the “Chthulucene” in the curatorial practice? How we, as curators, can work with and of the earth in order to create collective consciousness and symbiotic relationships with the non-human agents? What forms of knowledge does the curatorial need to produce in the age of climate change and how can we decolonize traditional museological mechanisms that go against them?
Akis has also been accepted as a resident in the multidisciplinary research project “La Wayaka Current” in La Guna Yala, Panama to explore new perspectives in ecological crisis through indigenous community engagement (partially funded by the residency).
During their studies, Akis and Will Rees co-curated "Extra Credit": a self-initiated program, funded by the CCA (RCA), that explored contemporary socio-political debates and alternative structures of working in the arts ecology. Invited speakers included Lucia Pietrousti, founder and curator of the General Ecology Project, members of the Asia Art Activism, and independent curators such as Kiki Mazzucchelli among others.
Akis is also an active member of the Museum Professionals Network powered by the British Council in Greece.
