Return2Ithaca

IMAGE NATION

22 AUGUST - 12 SEPTEMBER

22-DAYS CURATORS
AND ARTISTS RESIDENCY
IN ITHACA.

IMAGE NATION

THE RESIDENCY

An international Artist in Residency Program in Ithaca that results in the production of original work regarding the island and its history. 

10 international Artists will meet in Ithaca, will work on the meanings of Odyssey, will be curated by 3 international Curators, will exhibit their work on Return2Ithaca 2024.


2024 Theme
Somewhere Called Home

Our program embraces the concept of hope for return that Home(r) mentions in many ways in the Odyssey.

Here Home and can be expressed through a critical and contemporary point of view concerning political, social, (displacement, economic migration, war trauma) racial and environmental issues (natural catastrophes, devaluation of living surrounding).

The participating artists connect intimate experience of the returning subject to multiple locations, historical experiences, inter-subjective relations, and cultural interactions. Through the wide variety of multiple photographic narratives of the artists the program raises questions about the need to return as a journey to untouched roots and Home that the ethnic subject left behind. 

Their diacritical approach combines, on the one hand, a sensitivity to the context and structural elements of modern diaspora and wandering and on the other, an analysis of the individual psychological processes inherent to the experience of displacement and return such as nostalgia, memory and belonging.

Exposing the realities of this modern-day odyssey as well as the moral shortcomings evident in our own indifference, the program is a critical call for participation and an unprecedented exploration of a world we often choose not to know. 

Home(r) explores the human Odyssey
not only in the past or present but in eternity.

Selection Process
The selection of the participant artists 2024 has been completed.

Participants
They will present their work, design and propose installations, set up exhibitions and screenings. They will discuss contemporary reflections on the artistic practices they follow. They will donate part of their produced work to a permanent collection of the Municipality of Ithaca.

Residency Venue
The renovated Environmental Education Centre in Vathi looking at the sea, will be the ideal host center for artists. The Program covers accommodation for 22 days with breakfast.

The founders of the R2I Program, Dr. Nina Kassianou (Curator and Historian of Photography) and Costas Ordolis (Photographer) will be your fellow-voyagers on this journey.

residency residency residency

THE CURATORS

WE HANDPICK OUR CURATORS. BE CURATED FROM THE BESTS.

Moritz Neumüller

Moritz Neumüller

Curator

Austria

Moritz Neumüller is a curator, educator and writer in the field of Photography and New Media, with a special interest in accessibility to the arts. He is currently Chief Curator of the Photobook Week Aarhus (Denmark) and runs a platform for the visual art fieldcalled The Curator Ship. Neumüller is a regular contributor to journals on photography and visual culture, and author of several books. In his latest publications, he questions the roles and contexts of photography in the 21st century, by exploring the current debates surrounding post-colonial thinking, empowerment, identity, diversity in the arts, Artificial Intelligence, visual mechanisms for control and manipulation, and the role of imagery in the times of crisis, such as pandemics, wars and climate change. 


In his 20 years of practice, Moritz Neumüller has been responsible for exhibitions, conversations and publications on and with Edward Burtynsky, Yuki Kihara, Cristina de Middel, Joan Fontcuberta, Azu Nwagbogu, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Fred Ritchin, Ricardo Cases, Yamamoto Masao, Martin Parr, Boris Eldagsen, Stephen Gill, Chris Jordan, Gabriel Orozco, Mireia Sallarès, Oliver Sieber & Katja Stuke, Marcel Duchamp, Gloria Oyarzabal, Erik Kessels, and Ad van Denderen.

Arianna Rinaldo

Arianna Rinaldo

Independent curator, Photography Consultant, Freelance photo editor

Barcelona, Spain

Arianna Rinaldo, a freelance professional in the world of photography, has made significant contributions to the field. As the former artistic director of Cortona On The Move, an international festival of visual narrative, she played a vital role from 2012 to 2021. Since 2016, Arianna has been the photography curator at PhEST, a festival showcasing contemporary photography and arts in Puglia.

Arianna's journey in photography began in 1998 as the archive director at Magnum Photos in New York. She later served as a photo editor for Colors magazine in Italy, further deepening her understanding of visual storytelling. During her time in Milan from 2004 to 2011, Arianna worked as a freelance curator and photo consultant, including a remarkable four years at D, the weekend supplement of La Repubblica (2008-2011). Additionally, she held the position of editorial director for eight years at OjodePez, a bilingual documentary photo magazine published by La Fabrica in Madrid.

Since relocating to Barcelona in 2012, Arianna has continued to engage in photography projects on an international scale. Alongside her curatorial work, she dedicates herself to leading workshops, masterclasses, and private mentorship sessions. Arianna's expertise is highly valued, and she serves on the selection committees of esteemed institutions such as the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the British Journal of Photography's "Ones to Watch," and the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Arianna Rinaldo is a sought-after speaker and portfolio reviewer, frequently invited to significant photo events worldwide. Some notable appearances include Houston Fotofest in the USA, Photolucida in Portland, USA, Format Festival in Derby, UK, Daegu Photo Biennale in Korea, and Paris Photo Lensculture Meeting Place in France, among others. She regularly participates in esteemed jury panels, including World Press Photo (2009), Hamburg Portfolio Review, Czech Press Photo, FNAC Talento Fotografico, PHMuseum Grant, Lensculture Awards, Photolucida Critical Mass, and 6 Mois International Photojournalism Prize, among many others.

Sandra

Sandra

Maunac

Spain

Sandra Maunac is an independent curator and director since 2017 of the Trobades & Premis Mediterranis Albert Camus in Menorca (Spain). She is also the president of the Plataform for a Center of Photography in Spain with today 8.600 members. 

Majored in History with a DEA in International and African Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), she has been coordinator of cultural activities at the Three Cultures Foundation in Seville (Spain). She has worked in Cairo, Egypt, as representative of artists at the Egyptian Center for Culture and Art abroad. She was part of the organization of the African Film Festival of Tarifa (Spain) and in charge of artistic direction and lateral activities from 2005 until 2010. Until February 2016, she has been co-director with Mónica Santos of Masasam, a platform created in 2007 specialized in curatorial proposals and in the photographic image.

During this last fifteen years, Sandra Maunac has tried to defend and promote, as a mediator, projects that have revolved around issues related to the image.

As a specialist in postcolonial issues and cultural studies, her main objective during the first years of her career was to promote artists from the non-Western orbit, in order to provide other views, change the hegemony of the predominant Western image and enlarge our perceptions of the world.

Currently, she is focused from local to international. Always from an international, global, multiple and varied perspective, she is convinced that our responsibility is to erase cultural borders. This means, among other things, to defend creators who are aware that the image is no longer enough, critics of the media and whose languages are transversal and multiple, defending projects that explore the possibilities of telling stories in another way.

www.sandramaunac.com

Nina Kassianou

Nina Kassianou

Historian, Curator of Photography

R2I, Athens, Greece

Dr. Nina Kassianou holds a PhD in History and Theory of Photography from Panteion University of Athens and gained a scholarship from Princeton University in the USA, to research photographic archives relating to the Greek Civil War and the Greek Resistance against Nazi.

She has worked for a decade as a photo book critic for the Sunday edition of the prestigious Greek newspaper "To Vima" . She has participated as a portfolio reviewer in many important festivals in Europe.

She has curated more than 100 exhibitions of renowned artists in Greece and abroad and edited a significant number of photo book publications. She has collaborated with the Photographic Center of Skopelos, the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography (for more than 10 years). She was the artistic director of the M55projects gallery in Athens, a space aiming in inviting photographers and curators from all over Europe to exchange works and ideas with Greek Artists.

She has collaborated with various galleries based in Athens. She has authored numerous academic essays, and articles on the Greek and European Photography History as well as contributed to Cyclopedia “The History of European Photography 1900-2000” by writing the Greek History of Photography from 1900-1969.
The last four years she is the Photography Director at DL Gallery in Piraeus Greece, having curated international group and solo exhibitions.

She is the founder of R2I Curating Art & Artists Cultural Program, held every summer in her home island Ithaca. 

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