July would normally be the month that the biennial festival of Video Art Miden would take place in open public spaces in Kalamata, Greece. Due to the recent implications with the coronavirus measures globally, the festival in physical spaces has been postponed, but Video Art Miden team started, already since April, during the strict quarantine in Greece, to present curated video art programs online on a monthly basis on Miden's youtube channel, continuing at the same time its collaborations with other organizations in Greece and abroad. The online screenings will continue over the next months, as, even if they were initiated due to a disturbing and unpleasant reason, they soon developed into a global meeting point between artists and the public and gave the opportunity to more art lovers in every corner of the globe to enjoy the work of well-known and young video artists from all around the world who participate in Miden's screenings.

The online program for July includes the following video art units, which will remain open and accessible to the public from 1 to 31 of July 2020: Ophelia (curated by Nikos Podias & Gioula Papadopoulou), What matters (curated by Margarita Stavraki), Eternal Return (curated by Olga Papadopoulou) and Post Quarantine II (curated by Maria Bourika). Also, Miden's youtube channel will be hosting "Forced Memories", an international collaborative tele-video-performance art project, conceived, coordinated and directed by Emmanouela Vogiatzaki Krukowski, starting from July 15 till August 31.

More specifically, the audience may watch online:

Ophelia // Curated by Nikos Podias & Gioula Papadopoulou What could be so powerful as to cause us lose touch with reality? How harmful can love be? Ophelia loves Hamlet, she learned to love him! She wishes to save him, to pull him back to life, to share his heavy burden. She is trapped in the unfulfilled, the impossible, between what she wants and what is to happen. What is to happen does not leave her much space. She experiences loss, despair and the ultimate pain. She is lost. An accident or a choice. Her ending seems sacred, reminiscent of a ceremony. In the water, where life begins. Among the beautiful, fragile, ephemeral flowers... Participant artists: Iwona Ogrodzka, Nuno Veiga, Tania Bohuslavska, Gianluca Capozzi, Anna Cecilia Seaward, CINTAADHESIVA (Jesus Andres & Silvia Penas), Tessa Ojala, Bene Malen, Isabel Perez del Pulgar, Tseng Yu Chin

What matters // Curated by Margarita Stavraki A video selection, where the body, space or object convey messages through a poetic aesthetic. Participant artists: Yossi Galanti, Mohamed Ismail, Daphna Mero, Nicholas Chin & Ernest Zacharevic, Ursula San Cristobal, Marcia Beatriz Granero, Barbara Brugola, Emnoyumno: Zhon-Zhon Sandyr & Kuchyran Yuri, Eta Dahlia & Iris Colomb, Stefano Croci / Maria Stella Andreacchio / Agata Torelli, Lorenzo Papanti, Matthew Henze, Louise Coetzer & Oscar O’Ryan, Vojtech Domlatil

Eternal Return // Curated by Olga Papadopoulou 10 video-artists explore the concept of an eternal ,“sisyphic” repeat, through surrealistic, philosophical, sarcastic or humorous  tales, in which the effort is often in vain and the distinction between beginnings and endings is rather inconclusive. Participant artists: Andrej Polukord, Lorenzo Papanti, Joacelio Batista, Deyan Clement, Emanuelle Dainotti, Guillaume Martial, Susanne Wiegner, Eleonora Roaro

Post Quarantine II // Curated by Maria Bourika Questioning on social distance: identity, environment, time. Participant artists: Gerard Freixes-Ribera, Anton Hecht, Jean-Michel Rolland, Gerald Habarth, Anji Taratuta, Geertrui De Vijlder, Leyla Rodriguez, ACCI BABA, Deborah Kelly, Sergey Valyaev (Voogie), Francesca Leoni & Davide Mastrangelo

The programs will be available till July 31 on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8ly7FIRWx2-fXyrAulY-DQ

Additionaly, from July 15 to August 31, Video Art Miden presents “Forced Memories”, an international domestic tele-video-performance art project, conceived, coordinated and directed by Emmanouela Vogiatzaki Krukowski (multidisciplinary artist and member of the teaching staff of the University of Peloponnese/ Theater Studies, in Greece). “Forced Memories” is a collaborative project created in order to unite the emotions and memories of locked down artists from around the world in the middle of the pandemic. Artists from Greece, Canada, Argentina, Sweden, UK, and France inspired by Samuel Beckett’s confined and socially disabled characters, each decided to perform the sentiments of their memories during Covid-19 trying all together to sculpture the One human of nowadays. The performance art event will take place on the 11th of July 2020 at 21.00 Greek time. The artists will stream their artwork via ZOOM Webinar platform and will be there for an open discussion with their audience. Audience may book their spot to the free event on http://arts.rfsat.com/pages/index.html.

After the first screening of the event, Video Art Miden will host the video of the collaborative performance on Miden’s youtube channel, from July 15 to August 30, 2020. Participant artists: Konstantinos. N. Alexiou, Anna Birch, Katerina Diareme, Yiouli Garofalaki, Kostis Georgakopoulos, Kathleen Irwin, Dorian Kristmanson, Kyrie Kristmanson, Pavlos Krukowski, Tina Memou, Natalia Patrineli, Eva Reichberg, Emmanouela Vogiatzaki Krukowski, Mariana Kutulas Vrsalovic

Also, during July Video Art Miden will be hosted for the first time at Dance Days Chania (dancedays.gr), an international festival on contemporary dance based in Chania, Crete. The 10th Dance Days Chania will be held 15- 28 of July 2020. In the video dance section, curated by Aliki Chiotaki, Video Art Miden will present the selection “Dancing for a reason”, curated by Margarita Stavraki, on July 28, 2020. Why does an artist use dance on screen as a mean of artistic expression? Is the story that he wants to tell us more expressive through movement? Is it the rhythm and the image of the moving bodies that activates him? Or is it the dance itself that tries to put it on the screen frame and see it as a spectator? Participant artists: Αnastasia Diga, Barbara Brugola, Daphna Mero, Marta Arjona & Alexia Pascual, Louise Coetzer & Oscar O’Ryan

Meanwhile, the video art exhibition "ARTificial Intelligence", by Video Art Miden at Jönköpings läns museum, in Jönköping, Sweden, continues till July 19, 2020. The selection, curated by Gioula Papadopoulou, presents 8 works that deal with various concepts concerning the “homo digitalis” era and artificial intelligence, exploring the physical detachment and the gradual digitalization and virtualization of our world, our societies and our minds. Participant artists: Juergen Trautwein & Silvia Nonnenmacher, Di Hu, Landia Art and Economy Foundation, Elliott Nicole J. Waller & Fabian Forban, Yvana Samandova & Borjan Zarevski, Katerina Athanasopoulou & Eleni Ikoniadou, Sven Windszus

More info: www.festivalmiden.gr Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8ly7FIRWx2-fXyrAulY-DQ