Team 4, Art Cloud Greece 2021

Guide to Hive

(Iris Bournazou and Kyriakos Papadopoulos)

Iris Bournazou and Kyriakos Papadopoulos are based in the emerging arts scene between Greece and abroad. Coming from a contemporary and architectural background, our aim is to highlight the importance of culture, arts and society; through diverse tools and forms (experiential learning, workshops etc.), we channel creativity to empower multifarious communities. Motivated by creating a space for social discourse and solidarity, our goal is to reinterpret art through society into new contexts.

Η Ίρις Μπουρνάζου και ο Κυριάκος Παπαδόπουλος είναι καλλιτέχνες που δραστηριοποιούνται τόσο στην Ελλάδα, όσο και στο εξωτερικό. Ερχόμενοι από διαφορετικά πεδία (εικαστικές τέχνες, αρχιτεκτονική), εστιάζουμε στον κοινωνικό ρόλο της τέχνης. Με εναλλακτικές μορφές και μέσα (βιωματική μάθηση, σεμινάρια κ.α.) σκοπός μας είναι η έκφραση, η δημιουργία και η ενδυνάμωση πολυμορφικών ομάδων. Στόχος μας είναι η δημιουργία ενός χώρου τέχνης και αλληλεγγύης, όπου οι διαφορετικές προσεγγίσεις επαναπροσδιορίζονται σε νέα πλαίσια.

What is walking? Does walking mean more than a simple method of getting from one place to another? An intuitive and self-evident act that comes to be the means of perceiving the world. It is also expressed as an ever-expanding condition of exploration and experience, where space is defined by walking and walking by space. The practice of walking itself, reaches the realities in order to understand them, but also to rediscover them – to comment on their coherent system.
In the contemporary urban environments, wandering and walking create an  intangible connection with the city. The walkers, in a subconscious and discontinuous act, compose and transform the space. The performance of walking through the urban realities, transcends the dividing lines, and becomes the most humanistic process. The moving body reflects the diversity of the ground, documents the route, and therefore walking turns into a whole experience.
The fields of walking, disorderly in between the cityscapes, result in a different sense of space, where the most inherent point is the expression of new practices of creation.

As you make your way through the Hive, ask yourself:
What is walking?

Project Life Line

Area of interest > Kypseli, a neighborhood in central Athens, Greece.
Many people call Kypseli “the most multicultural neighborhood in Athens” and it is true that can be seen as a complete microcosm. During the years of crisis Kypseli, a densely populated area had been associated with images of abandonment, neglect and indifference. Lately however the area is described by a constant mobility, developing new dynamics. Kypseli in Greek means beehive. An article about Kypseli mentions that “although it does not have the homogeneity of the beehive, as its name suggest, it has a unique diversity and an endless energy.”

Map of Kypseli and South broader area

The map indicates highlighted spaces that display increased mobility. Victoria Square with the underground metro station and the bus station near Pedion Tou Areos Park. The National Archeological Museum, as well as, National Technical University of Athens. Squares such as Agiou Georgiou Square and Exarcheia Square. Walkaways, parks, hills and open spaces. The Fokionos Negri Street stands out. It is a long-pedestrianized street, which hosts Kypseli Square and connects people with the city center. The street provides one of the few open and green spaces amongst the mixed use and dense neighborhood. These spaces can work as set-off points for the “sharing tracing” phase and can be involved to the principal route according to the “processing and layering” phase.

The Ties of Walking: An introductory essay of walking as a mode of artistic practice and medium.

Walking is, and always will be, our most intuitive form of travel. Looking into the various aspects of a contemporary concept through the re-representing space, walking means more than a simple method of getting from one place to another. So, is walking art? Through centuries of culture and exploration, people developed beyond simply transporting their bodies through space and changed walking into an investigative art form. The Situationists developed an artistic practice of wandering through urban environment, in the dérive; the walk depicts the psychogeography of an area in much the same way as a painting might depict a relationship between two lovers. This idea of exploration and representation makes the walk itself an artwork. Through different interpretations and ways of understanding, the concept of walking has been addressed by many thinkers, artists and philosophers as an aesthetic, social or spiritual practice. In between the multiple pathways of practices, walking can be an exercise in awareness, a dialogue between inner self and outer landscape.

  •       Aitchison, B. (2014) ‘The Walking Encyclopaedia’, airspace projects. Available at: http://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/projects/the_walking_encyclopaedia
  • Careri, F. (2002) Walkscapes: Walking as an aesthetic practice = El andar como practica estetica. Barcelona: Editorial Gustava Gili, GG.
  • Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking. Verso. London, 2011.
  • Guenther, H. V. and Trungpa, C. R. (1975) The dawn of Tantra, MA: Shambhala Publications.
  • Guy Debord, The Theory of the Dérive, 1956
  • Hancox, S. (2012) ‘Contemporary Walking Practices and the Situationist International: The Politics of Perambulating the Boundaries Between Art and Life’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 22(2), pp. 237–250.
  • Interartive (2018).  A platform of contemporary art and thought. Available at: https://walkingart.interartive.org/
  • O’Rourke, K. (2013) Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers. Boston: MIT Press.
  • Smith, P. (2010). The contemporary dérive: a partial review of issues concerning the contemporary practice of psychogeography. Cultural Geographies 17(1), 103–122.
  • Ziogas Yannis, the feeling of Art and experience (… when we discover Pessoa or 22.246 pieces of paper), Global Landscapes/Παγκόσμια Τοπία, collective volume for the Visual March to Prespes, 24-47, Egokeros, Athens, 2009.

Team 4 includes:

  • Iris Bournazou
         -New Media/Visual Artist – MFA&BFA Fine and Applied Arts
         -Involved in Erasmus+ Projects & NGOs
  • Kyriakos Papadopoulos
         -Architect, MArch
         -Involved in Erasmus+ Project & ESC Program


With support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), the Siena Art Institute (SART) is launching Art Cloud Greece, a new Athens-based project during 2021 that sees the direct involvement of our former students as cultural entrepreneurs. The aim is to engage the international art community that rotates around the Siena Art Institute; to provide professional experience for young artists beginning their careers; to enrich the cultural activities of local communities in Greece with particular attention to marginalized communities. Participants are organized in small teams to work on specific project goals to be completed within December 2021.