November 19 - December 22, 2022
@ One Minute Space, Athens
︎︎︎Curated by Ariana Kalliga
Artists: James Beckett, Jesse Chun, Alexis Fidetzis, Carolina Fusilier and Miko Revereza, Jenny Marketou, Ashkan Sepahvand, Anastasia Sosunova, and Maria Varela
Folk Fiction brings together nine artists from different geographies who share a fascination with demarcating and poetically deconstructing fundamental aspects of representation. Pulling away from traditional modes of meaning-making, they look at language as a system of oral resonances and historically imbued forms. The works on view draw on lores, oral traditions and anecdotal accounts transmitted across times. Considering how these forms of knowledge have been reused and co-opted to build imperial and colonial narratives, these artists explore a double consciousness—simultaneously rediscovering oral traditions and inheritances, and dissembling them in order to examine their implications in the present.
From mythical maps to invented rituals, Folk Fiction looks at the past as imaginatively open-ended. Building narratives from fragmented knowledge, several of the works on view evoke Saidiya Hartman’s method of “critical fabulation”, which combines fiction and critical historical research to transgress the official accounts and protocols of history. Folk Fiction sees how far fabulation can be pushed, and what capability it has for producing multifaceted representations of the past, present and future.
Jenny Marketou. Ceremony for an Undead Oyster, 2022. Installation View. Caged, cemented oysters, sand and water. Dimensions Variable. Courtesy of One Minute Space, Athens.
Ashkan Sepahvand. and speak (why?) with mute ash, 2022. fire, words, ash, various papers oil, musk, zinc, lighter, kindling, found materials, salt, steel brazier. Dimensions Variable. Photo of the artist’s performance on November 19th, 2022. By Nikos Maliakos. Courtesy of One Minute Space, Athens.
Anastasia Sosunova, AGENTS, 2020. Installation View. Video, color, sound. 14:57. Video commissioned for “Roots to Routes,” curated by Juste Kostikovaite, Maija Rudovska and Merilin Talumaa, with the support of the Baltic Culture Fund. Photo by Nikos Maliakos. Courtesy of One Minute Space, Athens.
Folk Fiction opening at One Minute Space, Athens, on November 19th, 2022. Photo by Nikos Maliakos. Courtesy of One Minute Space, Athens.
Folk Fiction opening at One Minute Space, Athens, on November 19th, 2022. Photo by Nikos Maliakos. Courtesy of One Minute Space, Athens.
Jesse Chun, 술래 SULLAE, 2020, single-channel video still. Courtesy of the artist.
El Lado quieto (The Still Side), 2021. Mexico/Argentina/Philippines. Directed by Miko Revereza, Carolina Fusilier. US premiere. 70 min. Video Still. Courtesy of the artists.