Local History Room
Derek Liddington, Eleni Papadimitriou & Stefanos Ziras
Billboard September and October, 2015
in partnership with 8eleven
Together Liddington, Papadimitriou & Ziras practices connect through the idea of the ‘monument’. Through his early research into his upcoming exhibition at AKA, It wasn’t until we closed our eyes that we could finally see what was there all along, Liddington sourced an early image from the Saskatoon Public Library of a protest against a public monument and incorporated this local history into his considerations of the meaning behind representation and the ambiguous nature of memory.
Papadimitriou & Ziras’ images are looking to ‘connect’ and manipulate objects to create a new visual memory through the photograph (public) as well as a personal memory (private). Similarly, Liddington identifies a similarity in photos of a sculpture of his son created through memory. Together the artists explore personal memory and shared memory within a public space that is foreign to each of them.
The objects depicted in Papadimitriou & Ziras’ images are part of a national narrative, not of the official, established construct, but items of a collective memory. They constitute monuments of everyday encounters, souvenirs of the state of things. The relation of the body and objects is seen through an ambiguous close up image, a detail of the two, in an effort to remove any mnemonic familiarity of the viewer towards the nature of the object or the topography of the body. The close up records untraceable parts merely agents of a now personal memory.
In combination we see images depicting a sculpture Liddington created of his son from memory. The staid clay stands in what seems to be a contrast with images of the fleshy body, but in its subject matter reveals a similar personal, private and potentially vulnerable state. Papadimitriou & Ziras’ depictions of the body come under pressure – it ripples, twists, folds, stretches, connecting it to the malleable visual nature of clay in Liddington’s work.
Flesh, Marble, Leaf & Twig is on view at 8eleven August 12 to September 1 and features the work of Derek Liddington, Eleni Papadimitriou & Stefanos Ziras. The publication Flesh, Marble, Leaf & Twig details the exhibition Open Archive: Art from the Centre of Athens, commissioned by ISET, Contemporary Greek Art Institute also featuring an intervention by Derek Liddington is printed to order by 8eleven.
8eleven is a collectively run art gallery, sculpture garden, performance space and commissioning body located in
Toronto. It is committed to presenting and disseminating new contemporary art projects across disciplines, nationally and internationally. 8eleven is currently Simon Schlesinger, Sarah Kilpack, Xenia Benivolski, Stephanie Fielding, Sona Safei-Sooreh, and Brandon A. Dalmer. https://8eleven.org/
Derek Liddington obtained his MFA from Western University (2007) and BFA from NSCAD University (2004). Liddington’s work has been exhibited in numerous public settings, including his intervention at the Art Gallery of Ontario The Sun has Always Set From East to West (Toronto, ON). Recent solo exhibitions include Every moment can be traced back to the first time the sun touched my face (Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, Canada, 2013), Modern Love (Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto, ON, 2013) and It wasn’t until we closed our eyes that we could finally see what was there all along (AKA Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada, 2015). Liddington’s work has shown internationally at Art Berlin Contemporary (2013), Onagawa AIR, Japan (2013) as well as NADA New York (2014). In the fall of 2014 Liddington staged a 12-hour ballet electric guitar ballad in collaboration with Zev Farber and Cara Spooner as part of Denise Markonish’s curatorial project at Toronto’s Nuit Blanche. Liddington has been the recipient of numerous grants, including support from the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts as well as being a finalist for the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts, Artist Prize in 2011. Liddington currently practices in Toronto, ON.
Eleni Papadimitriou has graduated from the School of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and holds an MA in Scenography from Birmingham City University. She has collaborated with architectural practices in Athens, Istanbul and Milan, has participated in architectural competitions and has exhibited her work in Athens, Thessaloniki, Birmingham, Florence, Bergamo and Milan. Projects of hers have been presented in the international architectural press, both publications and electronic journals. She has worked alongside architects and directors designing exhibitions and curating, in terms of architecture, theatre shows. Eleni has also collaborated with Interaction Design Institute Ivrea as designer of interactive architectural applications. She is a collaborator of the L.A. based architectural firm X | Atelier and has taught at workshops, organized by X | Atelier, held at the Benaki Museum and the National Technical University of Athens. Recently she has collaborated with the Tokyo based Atelier Bow Wow. She is the co-editor of ANANAS e-fanzine.
Stefanos Ziras is an Architect and as of 2014 holds an MA in Architectural Design from the University of Thessaly. He has collaborated with architects and artists from Greece and abroad, has participated in international architectural competitions and some of his works have been presented at the twenty-fifth International Union of Architects World Congress (Durban 2014). His works have been awarded by the Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE) and have been presented in international publications and electronic journals. He is a collaborator of the L.A. based architectural firm X | Atelier and on the jury of the workshops run by X | Atelier at the Benaki Museum. He is an invited lecturer of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. He is the Head Architect and designer of the Greek Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale, presenting the work of Maria Papadimitriou «Why look at Animals» AGRIMIKA. As an intermedia artist, he has participated in numerous group exhibitions – BABEL FRAGMENTS: REVISITED, Default 2015, MC Redux- other, next to important artists and architects. He is the co-editor of ANANAS e-fanzine.
