PCAI Residency: participating artists announced

PCAI is happy to announce the first participants in its Artist-in-Residence program. The selection process had been quite painstaking and demanding due the truly impressive and humbling quality and amount of entries that the organisation received during its open call. PCAI selection committee, consisting of Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries Artistic Director, Krist Gruijthuijsen, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Director, Athanasios Polychronopoulos, PCAI Director and Founder, and Kika Kyriakakou, PCAI Residency Artistic Director, has finally selected artists Rindon Johnson and Lito Kattou to participate in the program that starts on March 16, 2020.

More about Rindon Johnson
Rindon Johnson is an artist and writer. His most recent virtual reality film, Meat Growers: A Love Story, was commissioned by Rhizome (New York) and Tentacular (Madrid). He has exhibited and read widely throughout Europe, the US and Asia. He is the author of Nobody Sleeps Better Than White People (Inpatient Press, 2016), the virtual reality book, Meet in the Corner (Publishing-House.Me, 2017) and most recently, Shade the King (Capricious, 2017). He lives in Berlin and is an Associate Fellow at the Universität der Künste Berlin, Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences, there he writes about Virtual Reality. 

More about Lito Kattou
Lito Kattou is a visual artist born in Nicosia, Cyprus 1990. She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London with an MA in Sculpture and the Athens School of Fine Arts. Kattou is the recipient of the Ducato Prize 2019, the New Positions Award for Art Cologne 2018 and she was the invited artist for the 89plus Google Residency 2017. Recent solo shows were presented at T293 Gallery, Rome; Artothek, Cologne; Tile Projects, Milan; Benaki Museum, Athens; Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia. Her works are included in prominent international and private collections as the Dakis Joannou Collection and the collection of Deutsche Telekom.

More about PCAI Residency
–How can the contemporary way of living become more sustainable or resilient?
–In which manner do the topic of hazardous waste and its cruciality concern our everyday life?
–Can we expand the environmental agenda through science and art?
–Can contemporary art and moving image sensitize their audience over issues of environmental protection?

PCAI launched its Artist-in-Residence program in 2019 focusing on the interaction between contemporary art and environmental consciousness. Believing that art is the best way to stimulate dialogue about sustainable thinking and the crucial matter of toxic waste PCAI invited artists from all over the world to apply for its residency program in Athens, get inspired and create a video work on the topic. During the residency selected artists will be able to perform research, draw inspiration from local waste management sites and facilities, interact with scientists involved in the waste handling process, meet other Athens-based visual artists, curators and environmental experts and exchange ideas and opinions. 

Polyeco Contemporary Art Initiative (PCAI), was founded in 2014 by Athanasios Polychronopoulos, Polyeco Group Executive Chairman, as a means to increase environmental awareness through contemporary art and video. The organisation implements its objectives though three areas of activity: its mainly commissioned-based Collection, its Projects and its Support. Since 2018 PCAI has been a member of the International Association of Corporate Collections of Contemporary Art IACCCA and it has been awarded for its art projects, educational programs and partnerships on many occasions.