Aiming to turn utopias into reality, Sharing Perama highlights the diversity of the suburb of Perama in Athens, Greece, by promoting the values of culture and art, poetry in shared environments,  sustainability and human ecology, with the objective to create links between the local community, public space and contemporary art.

During the opening week of the exhibition in Venice, the ECC Italy curatorial team had the pleasure to talk with the curators Barbara Polla and Dominique Fiat, and discover and learn more about the profound narratives behind the project's concept as well as the reflections that brought them to participate in the Personal Structures exhibition.

The project ‘Sharing Perama’ aims to create a link between contemporary art and the public space of Perama. How does the local community respond to this concept and purpose?

The people from Perama, from Athens and even sometimes from abroad attend the events we organise but we still have to do more research to be able to answer this question on a sound basis. The concept now is to go to Terma, where the two big works of Robert Montgomery are installed, and to interrogate the people who pass by: “Did you look at these sculptures?”, “What do these light poems mean to you, if anything?”. Once we have asked these questions to a few hundreds of people, we will know better, I Believe.

Why did you decide to participate in the exhibition of Personal Structures?

When I heard about the exhibition from the European Cultural Centre and discussed about it together with ECC representative Katerina Zachou, I really got the impression to fit perfectly in the concept. Sharing Perama is indeed a "personal structure". A person started the structure – soon joined by many local and international artists and personalities. It is about art and culture, on a small scale. It is about trying to get people together around art and poetry in the public space. It is about ecology: an ecology of images and an ecology of the environment. It is utopia on the wide scale but with small concrete actions on the field.

How does the artists' work relate to the concept of the 2022 edition of Personal Structures, that is ‘reflections’?

First of all, art is always a reflection, as it reflects the deepest visions of the artists, isn’t it?. Secondly, all artists shown at the European Cultural Centre are members of the team of Sharing Perama and all have ongoing projects that need to be funded. When I asked them whether they would be willing to contribute to the Personal Structures exhibition, they all, at first, “reflected” about the opportunity and then came to the conclusion that it was indeed worthwhile trying and that this exhibition in Venice might help develop their own projects and the global Sharing Perama project. And thirdly, the works they proposed are a clear result of their own personal reflections, about Perama, about the future, about possible dreams.

What do you envision for the Sharing Perama initiative?

We envisage an ongoing future, with many small stones on the way, including: a book about Perama with Marios Fournaris’ photographs and a fiction I am working on; a new light poem in the public space by Robert Montgomery called “A love song”; the competition and premiere of the film ‘Dreaming Perama’ in CinePerama; more exhibitions in the Museum, notably linked to women’s issues; a project about planting trees like a “Beuys 0.2” art project on the hills of Perama; cleaning in some magical sci-fi way the only tiny accessible beach to make it suitable for the children; taking advantage of these actions to sensitise young people to the ecological issues of their hometown; organising free access theatre plays at the Mikis Theodorakis open air theatre in Perama; a poetry night with all the poets of Perama, teens and older ones, many of whom are living here – and, very importantly, being invited again to ECC in a few years!.

You can visit Sharing Perama's exhibition at Palazzo Mora until the 27th of November or discover their work by exploring the virtual tours online. Discover more about the project on their profile online and their website.