Financial Consequences
International Multimedia Poetry Festival
Saturday 9 February 2019
STARTS 16:00 ends 23:00
FREE entrance / doors open at 15.45
organized by
+the Institute [for Experimental Arts] – Athens, Greece
supported by
London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Anthropology
location of the festival:
LSE Saw Swee Hock Centre
1 Sheffield Street
London WC2A 2AP

“Financial Consequences – International Multimedia Poetry Festival” challenges perceptions of economic crises and provides a new point of view via a wide variety of media. For the last 10 years, we’ve seen entrepreneurs, economists, bankers, technocrats and politicians dominate public opinion; now it’s time for poets to explain to all of them the social impact of their decisions and their politics. The social awareness and sensitivity of poets — in collaboration with video artists and musicians — invited from countries crushed by the economic crises offer us the best possible view of the invisible sites of social life, and offer us the opportunity to understand and realize the financial consequences of economic crises in the everyday lives of all of us, especially of people trapped in suffering.

The Institute for Experimental Arts was founded in 2008 in Athens, Greece as a non-profit platform for creative expression and research in the fields of theater, performance art, digital media, installation, poetry and art theory. The Institute is committed to being an open meeting-point for poets and writers, directors, actors, theater engineers/technicians, performance artists, photographers, video artists, and writers who develop new analytical tools for contemporary art, media and communications.

Part A: Introductory Lectures

Saturday 9 February 2019 at 16:00 (duration: 30 minutes)

Lecture by the world-known professor of Anthropology David Graeber (London School of Economics): “How social and economic structure influences the Art World”

Influential anthropologist David Graeber, known for his 2011 volume Debt: The First 5000 Years, speaks about the correlation between the cultural sphere and society. The intellectuals and the artists create an imaginative way to criticize the economic system in any era. Art can overcome hegemonic frameworks and acknowledge other possible worlds, offering us the opportunity to better understand marginalized social entities. Social exclusion is the process by which individuals or people are systematically blocked from, or denied full access to, various rights, opportunities and resources that are normally available to members of a different group, and which are fundamental to social integration and observance of human rights within that particular group (e.g. housing, employment, healthcare, civic engagement, democratic participation, and due process). As the economic crises go deeper in time more people face the effects of exclusion. Art and social sciences can give voice to the voiceless. Young, socially aware poets especially can give us a clear view of the real social effects of financial changes.

Lecture by Tasos Sagris: “Poetry and Revolt- Political Art in the 21st Century”

Theater director, poet, and activist Tasos Sagris, art director of the Financial Consequences festival, is best known to English-speaking audiences for co-editing the book We are an Image from the Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008, will introduce us to a new way of understanding political art in 21st century.

Part B: Video Poetry Zone

(duration: 2 hours – starts at 16:30)

A compilation of the outstanding video poems from the last seven years of International Video Poetry Festival will be screened.  A unique compilation including cinematic visual art based on poetry by artists from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania). The programme will include the most social aware video poems among hundreds videos from the International Video Poetry archive.

The International Video Poetry Festival is an annual festival held by the Institute for Experimental Arts in Athens, Greece over the past seven years as a non-profit, free-entrance event. Approximately 1200 people attend the festival every year. The International Video Poetry Festival attempts to create an open public space for the creative expression of all tendencies and streams of contemporary visual poetry. Multimedia poetry nights and video poetry shows can bring new audiences in contact with visual art and contemporary poetry, to open new creative dimensions.

UK: Maciej Piatek. Helen Dewbery. Adrian Carter UK/ISRAEL: Yael Ozsinay. Nir Philosof. Maayan Moreno Erlich. Shimi Asresay. Noa Evron. Inbal Ochyon. Valery Yuzefovic. Dekel Oved. Sivan Kotek. Dan Berger. Inbal Breda. Adva Rodan. Tal Rachmin. Talia Randall FRANCE: Eric Sarner AUSTRALIA: Maria Craven. Radheya Jegatheva. Jason Lam USA: Dave Bonta. Hieu Gray. Liza Seidenberg. Jonathan Reyes. R. A. Villanueva RUSSIA: Inga Shepeleva GERMANY: Von Kuesti Fraun. Julian Weinert SPAIN: Igor Luna PORTUGAL: Manuel Vilarinho CANADA: James Pomeroy  ITALY: Francesca Bonfatti BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA: Amina Avdic ISLE OF MAN: Janet Lees TURKEY/UKRAINE: Lokal Anestezi IRAN/UK: Roxana Vilk COLOMBIA: Catalina Giraldo Velez UK/ZAMBIA: Fiona Melville

MORE INFO:  find bios, videos, photos, info about the participants and general programme of VIDEO POETRY Zone HERE.

Part C: Multimedia LIVE Performances

(duration: 4 1/2 hours – starts at 18:30)

Poets, musicians and visual artists create a vibrant atmosphere with multimedia poetry readings and live poetry performances. Spoken Poetry has been growing in popularity over the last few years. A collection of contemporary poets from countries faced by financial crises are taking on an important social role in our times. Poetry communities preserve the possibility of mutual understanding by reading and performing it.

Poetry responds to economical crisis, social exclusion and conflict — all the challenges society faces. Poetry has a special role under difficult financial and political conditions. Matthew Zapruder, in his essay “Poetry and Poets in a Time of Crisis“, finds guidance in the thought of Wallace Stevens:

Poets, according to Stevens, help us live our lives, not by telling us what to think, or by comforting us. They do so by creating spaces where one individual imagination can activate another, and those imaginations can be together. Poems are imaginative structures built out of words, ones that any reader can enter. They are places of freedom, enlivenment, true communion.

Poetry Performances Live Concerts

SISSY DOUTSIOU – GREECE
LUNA MONTENEGRO + ADRIAN FISHER – CHILE / UK
TASOS SAGRIS + WHODOES  – GREECE
LUCIA SELLARS – BOLIVIA
ULLI FREER – UK
POPPY DELTA – GREECE
NEFELI VOUTSINA PETSIMERI – GREECE
JUSTIN KATKO – USA
LARRY COOL – GREECE
GIZEM OKULU – TURKEY
ROBERT KIELY – IRELAND

The Poetry of Arab Spring

ELIZABETH TAPINI reads poems from a series of revolutionary, social uprisings that enveloped several Arab countries after 2010, including Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Bahrain.

See more photos/bios/info