Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: This is the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens.
This is the student edition. Listen to the exciting story of the american community schools of Athens.
Check out what drives all the members of our international community of learners as we create the education of the future.
Here's John Papadakis.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Welcome to the Owlcast. It's one thing to visit and enjoy an art exhibition, seeing the artwork and the installations, and it's quite another to listen to. The artists sometimes are apprehensive, describing their art for an audience rather than a viewer. But when they start, a whole different world comes alive. The inner artist craves to speak out on top of the visual representation of the art, explaining and exploring their own creative process.
Today we're visiting the 2024 IB art exhibit that took place, as every year, in the lobby of the Aces Athens theater. So many themes this year, so much observation of our world, so much reflection on modern life and its challenges. Welcome to the captivating world of art, where the canvases are imbued with a plethora of emotions, themes, and experiences. The exhibition, featuring works by international baccalaureate students, serves as a kaleidoscope of human existence. Diving into the depths of the psyche and the intricacies of modern society. The exhibition showcases a fusion of elements where traditional canvases are transformed into dynamic spaces through the incorporation of sculptural elements and multimedia projections. Artists experiment with etchings and stylized photography to capture fleeting moments of beauty and introspection, while acrylics and oils breathe life into vivid landscapes and abstract compositions. Paper, stencil and cutouts add a layer of depth and texture to the artworks, allowing for intricate patterns and shapes to emerge from the surface. Charcoal, with its rich tones and expressive lines, lends a sense of rawness and immediacy to the pieces, while wood, plaster, paper, and wire are sculpted into intricate forms that evoke both fragility and strength. Monoprints with ink offer a unique blend of spontaneity and precision, capturing the fluidity of motion and emotion in a single moment. The exhibitions multi layer and multi level layout create a sense of discovery and exploration, with each new vista offering fresh insights and perspectives. But perhaps most striking are the immersive experiences. Crafted through tactile and haptic elements. Visitors were encouraged to touch, feel, and interact with the artworks, blurring the boundaries between observer and creator. From the gentle caress of textured surfaces to the rhythmic pulse of projected light, the exhibition engages the senses in the symphony of sight, sound, and sensation.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Today, we celebrate the hard work of our art students, ib visual arts seniors that they showcase in the theatre lobby.
It's two year work, which they showcase it in different media. Everybody with a different theme based on their own interests. After a lot of work, how do.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: You guide them for their work before they come to exhibit?
[00:04:17] Speaker C: It's a two year work. So in first year, at the beginning, as advised by IB, we always try to make sure that they have. Have certain skills, so they have some guided projects. And then after that, slowly they start creating their own work. I always give them the freedom, I always listen to what they want to do, and I somehow guide them to make sure that they are on the correct track, to make sure that they have concepts behind. And I think you can see that all of their work are very meaningful and coherent. The beauty about this exhibition every year, the success of this exhibition is that every section, every student have unique ideas. They have a very coherent body of work that is very different from each other.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Anything that sticks out in your eye.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: It's just that something different which I have experienced in this exhibition in relation to previous one, which is very interesting to notice, is that we do have political stance, a voice, and I've seen it in many of their work. I never realized that it was going to turn out like that, but eventually it did. So whatever is happening around the world, it does influence them. And war is one of those.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:05:39] Speaker D: I think what I like about the IB art exhibition is it's one of the few times that the students articulate the thought process behind what they're doing in the program. Obviously, it's a physical representation, but when they walk us through the inspiration or even the meaning and things that we can't know, I feel like I understand them better, and I really feel like that that's what the program is built for.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Anything that actually impressed you in the themes or a particular artwork that you saw.
[00:06:09] Speaker D: I think what I really enjoyed this time is that there's a few things, but this year there's a lot of cultural attachment, and I like to see that here, that this.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: And some political statements, political as well.
[00:06:24] Speaker D: So they're so young, but they're aware, but they're tied to their culture. They're proud of it, and they're using some of the IB concepts, such as identity and representation, which I'm really happy to see.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Do you see any difference from last year? I mean, last year we had a lot of talented artists also. Do you see a difference?
[00:06:46] Speaker D: As I said, I do think that this year there's much more of a focus on cultural aspects. And as you said, some social issues, and that might be sign of our times. And I'm happy to see that because I think that they're latching on to things that are important.
[00:07:01] Speaker E: Hi, I'm Barry Liadi, and I'm doing the art exhibition. So the first piece I'm going to talk about is called spill your guts. And it's basically a huge mouth, wide open.
And coming out of it in 3d is a bunch of newspapers.
So basically what I try to say with this piece is that how the media, like, overstimulates us and feeds us with a lot of information and how kind of like, our system rejects it most of the time because we don't want to hear the truth or we're too scared to hear the truth. So it's mixed media.
In order to have the newspaper as three d, I use a lot chicken wire. So it's this, like, very flexible wire in the back to create the shape. And then glued the newspaper on top of it. Here there's a sculpture based on a canvas, and on the canvas, there's a lot of pieces of newspapers glued together.
And then on them I wrote with a red marker multiple headlines from when journalists were killed while on duty. And on top of it is, again, a sculpture made out of chicken wire with a bust looking to the side. And for example, one of the headlines that are on the canvas says, like, who killed journalist? And then the name or journalist killed in Haiti. And it basically talks about journalism and how it's like a dangerous career.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: What's the title of this piece?
[00:08:26] Speaker E: Oh, the title is in memory.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:29] Speaker E: And then moving on, in the center of my exhibition, there's a table, and it's all black, and the title is the last meal. And there's six. There's six sets, and they're made up of one paper plate, one wooden knife, and one wooden fork. And in the center of the table, there's a huge hole. And this basically symbolizes the last meal of families before they leave for war and before the destruction of the house. And it kind of, I took inspiration from the photos that you see in the news and the media of houses being left as they were when the families left to. To seek asylum for war. And the last piece I'm going to talk about is war and beauty. And it's six faces. No, it's twelve faces. Six are from plastic surgery wounds. They're made out of plaster, and they're 3d coming out of the wall. Six of them are black and white, and they symbolize plastic surgery wounds, while the other ones are white and red, and they symbolize war wounds. And, for example, one of them has a lot of nails sticking out of the face with red, which signifies war. And for another example, I have a white face with a nose cast, which is colored black to symbolize a nose job. And this shows the difference that. The different priorities that people have in their lives. And how some people inflict the pain on themselves, but others take it unwillingly.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Which of these faces expresses you the most?
[00:09:57] Speaker E: I think I'm not. I don't really know. I haven't thought about it. But I think all of them collectively kind of show this, like, pain and, like, this agony, but in different ways. And for me, it also symbolized, like, the different pains that you go through life. Some of them you self inflicted, like, anxiety. Like, oh, you're working on a paper. You left it to last minute. It's self inflicted, but other times you can't control it. Maybe you're sick and you've left it to last minute. So I think it's just, like, contrast in the pains.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Great exhibit.
[00:10:24] Speaker E: Thank you so much. Thank you.
[00:10:26] Speaker F: I'm Kay satins, and this is my exhibition.
So the first picture I have is a self portrait.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: What medium is this?
[00:10:37] Speaker F: It's just charcoal on paper. I wanted it to kind of be, like, warped, to be faded. And so it looks like there's my face with, like, kind of motion blur. And so there's, like, lighter shades of my outline.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: What's the title of this painting?
[00:10:53] Speaker F: The title of this painting, warped identities.
My exhibition. It's about how people perceive you, kind of the social, societal standards we have. And how these perceptions can make it confusing to find ourselves, to make it harder to see who we truly are. And so myself portrait. It has these different figures of myself. It has, like, three different of myself.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Did you look at the mirror, or were you looking at a photo of yourself?
[00:11:25] Speaker F: A photo of myself. For it was motion blur. It was just motion blur. And. And I selected it. I selected it from, like, multiple photos. And I saw this one. And I don't know. I just saw the motion blur. And I thought it was something special. This one, it's a.
It's an etching. It's. It's supposed to signify the. The individual's, like, kind of hatred of themselves.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Okay, what do we see?
[00:11:51] Speaker F: So we see this. This skull with their, like, appendages, their eyes, ears, noses, and everything kind of falling out of this picture frame that frames the skull. And what this is supposed to signify is the. This individual they're so alone. They feel so worthless that they feel that their own, like, selves, that their own body parts shouldn't be worth it to be on themselves. Like, it's. It's too worthless. They're they're. They're too kind of like scum, almost. And, uh, this one is a. Is a picture of a drawing I did on charcoal. And I repeated it to make a nice, like, repeated pattern. And this is supposed to signify the repetitions, the. The kind of boringness on mundaneness of.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: So these are digital photos printed.
[00:12:38] Speaker F: Yeah, it's a. It's a digital photo that I repeated in a, like, a program and. Yeah, made the nice pattern. It's supposed to be. The mundane is of, like, society and.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Quite complicated for being mundane.
[00:12:52] Speaker F: Yeah, but it's mundane because it's this repeated pattern. And then you have this one orange, like, colorful, tiny little bit. Yeah. Because it's hard to find these, like, special little, like, pieces in society, these special little, like, individuals who break from the mold, who kind of change things. So this is a bench I made.
I feel it's more powerful with this message because it's. There's two sides to the bench. There's a side where it's sculpted beautifully. It's like waves. And then there's another side that's, like, boring, normal bench, just normal slats of wood.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: And why there is a piece missing in the middle.
[00:13:32] Speaker F: The thing with this bench is that the normal slats, the slats that have been carved, they're bent up. They're trying to move away from these different pieces, from these different side. They're repulsed from this other side. And so they're trying to move away. Even though this side, I would say, is more beautiful, it's more alluring. It's still different. And so they don't like the different.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: How did you warp the wood?
[00:13:57] Speaker F: The wood? It's pretty simple. All you have to do is soak them for maybe, like, 24 hours. And then you put them onto a, like, a piece of wood. And then you try and make it bent with, like, clamps in a raised area. And it just takes time.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Excellent. Thank you.
[00:14:13] Speaker F: Of course.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: I'm Cielo Celani, and my exhibition consists of the human body and its relation to emotions. So my first artwork is called tension within muscles.
Basically, it consists of a back. So what I wanted to do with this is create liquidity between the muscles and bring them to life, as you can see, with the shading between each muscle, which creates this contrast that differentiates each muscle. By itself. So you can tell, even if it's not the anatomy of the body, you can tell which muscle is which. The next one is a hand, which I basically focus on only the palm of the hand and the fingers. Since the fingers speak the story, basically, it's the motion, the action of reaching out. But the thread is what creates the tension between within the story. So the thread is pulling back the handle. And that's why it relates to the title of desperation. So always coming back for more. So what I wanted to do with this, not show any brushstrokes. As you can see, it's blurred in to make a 3d appearance.
The next one is a 3d piece.
It's of a statue where I wanted to link it to war. So other situations, we see a lady who is bent backwards once being shot. So the wounds, the holes created in the plaster create the effect of being shot. And her leaning back is creating the action of what she felt that moment. So we can tell from her body posture, how she felt, and the emotions again. Once again, created from the body.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: And this is a two piece sculpture.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: It's a two piece joint connected with wire. I wanted to focus on the chest and the head, so if I created the neck, the focus would lose. So here's a sculpture made out of clay.
It's of a stomach. The stomach is a body type where there's more weight. And the turning of the stomach indicates the insecurity and lack of self control, confidence. The individual has the right part. This is the front part, and it's turning to the right. It's bent.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Very conceptual, right?
[00:16:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
This is a charcoal, a self portrait, and it consists of me.
But I wrapped my hand around a measuring tape. So the measuring tape in this artwork, it differentiates from the other artworks because it symbolizes an eating disorder. So I'm using a measuring tape to symbolize, but my motions symbolize something else. So in this case, it's fear, but also being fierce, so fighting against it.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Did you choose charcoal on purpose for this one?
[00:17:23] Speaker C: Yes. Charcoal creates a lot of contrast. Also, once again, plays with emotions. So it's a much more fierce piece when it's darker colors. So black and white creates much more contrast than other paintings.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
[00:17:39] Speaker C: Thank you.
So my name is Wen Chen, and this is an oil painting. It's titled Mo ni san in China. And this is a preparation of Edward Corpus painting. So I replaced the view with chinese temple, and I changed the face of the woman to my own face. So this really shows the homesickness I feel that I can only sit on the bed and looking at the china, like, through a window, but not actually be in the temple.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: Is this an actual place?
[00:18:12] Speaker C: Yeah, it's an actual temple. I was sort of homesick that I cannot really be in China and be in with my culture, so because I'm in Greece, and, like, I cannot really have the same feeling when I'm in China, you know?
[00:18:25] Speaker B: How long have you been in Greece?
[00:18:27] Speaker C: I came here since 7th grade. So it's, like, six years. Yeah, six years.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: This one is to myself. This is my, like, myself, and this is my cultural self. It was, like, profile of my face with fabric with, like, chinese patterns.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: This is also a face?
[00:18:47] Speaker C: Yeah, the side profile of my face, and they're sort of, like, staring at each other.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: So this is what, oil?
[00:18:53] Speaker C: It's acrylic on canvas. And also with the fabric on the canvas.
It's titled confronting my cultural self.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:03] Speaker C: And this also showing my connection with my culture.
So this is a drawing titled bloom. It's a watercolor.
So, like, I depict four flowers, and I choose a moment when the flowers are full, like, full blown, which is, like, most beautiful period. So, like, I want to convey that, like, I am being my most beautiful period in my life. And the face behind my face and also, like, the flower is, like, a chinese dance, which is, like, a very iconic and, like, a representation of chinese culture. And again, I'm sure, like, more closer, like, relationship with chinese culture, which, like, I am behind the flower, kind of behind the culture.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: And this one with the looks or what kind of things to. What is this?
[00:20:00] Speaker C: It's called pipa. It's, like, a chinese traditional instrument.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Do you play this instrument?
[00:20:06] Speaker C: No, I play another.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Which one do you play?
[00:20:09] Speaker C: Gu zheng?
Yeah.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: What do we see here?
[00:20:15] Speaker C: So this is an oil painting. It's called flying, like an apsara. So there is apsara standing in the middle of the canvas.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: What does apsara mean?
[00:20:27] Speaker C: Like, God nest, but, like, flying God ness. I don't know how to explain. So, like, she's, like, flying in the sky, and I changed the face into mine, and so which means, like, I became part of my culture.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: Like, so is there a reason your face is black and white?
[00:20:48] Speaker C: Because I really want to, like, shows a contrast with, like, a traditional stuff, and with my face, which is modern, like.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: So what do we have here?
[00:20:59] Speaker C: So this is a charcoal drawing. It's called looking back. So it has, like, two meaning. It's like. It's like my body is physically looking back, and also, like, my mind is looking back and asking myself, like, who I am, like, what culture I'm from, like, where I'm from. So it's sort of also showing, like, homesickness and, like, remembering, like, what culture you are from.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:21:27] Speaker C: So this is very colorful. Yeah, true. It's acrylic on canvas. It's called inner world. So I picked, like, two myself. Again, it's one with, like is representing rationality with this, like, front face facing the audience. And I have a side profile, which is more colorful, showing the sensibility. So I try to depict the duality between myself, like, my inner world.
So this is etching. It's called internal pains.
So I try to convey my pain or spiral I feel, and trying to, like, showing my more size of my, like, more emotions.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: And this is the last one.
[00:22:15] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the last one. It's called under the reins. Pen on paper.
It was like, I've been a period with which I'm so stressful. And this painting, this drawing is trying to show the feeling of I want to, like, freedom. I want to dance under the rain.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: A lot of variety. Congratulations.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: You are listening to the owlcast, the official podcast of ACs Athens.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: As one wanders through the exhibition hall, they are confronted with a spectrum of emotions. Loneliness, discontent, and anguish echo through the strokes of paint, the creativity marks in sculptures, and the pixelated images of digital art. These pieces reflect the inner turmoil and struggles that individuals grapple with in their daily lives, whether it be the stress of academia, the fear of the unknown, or the overwhelming sense of homesickness. Yet amidst the darkness, there is a glimmer of light. The artworks also exude fierceness, hopefulness, and a sense of direction. They speak of resilience in the face of adversity, of unwavering determination, and the potential for growth and transformation. Themes of environmental responsibility and self consciousness intertwine with expressions of passion and ethnicity, pride, highlighting the interconnectedness of humanity and the natural world. The human body emerges as a focal point of exploration, both as a vessel for contemplation and a canvas for artistic expression. Through the mundane and the exciting, artists delve into the complexities of identity and the duality of self, inviting viewers to ponder the intricate relationship between the outer Persona and the inner self.
[00:24:28] Speaker G: My name is Samuel Papacosta, and I am in front of the piece of merging sensations, and overall, my theme is about going into the light.
And this piece uses both photography and sculpture.
So I have four images where each one depicts a different emotion.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: So we see a cube.
[00:24:54] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: And outside the cube, on the perimeter of the cube, we have what?
[00:24:59] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:25:00] Speaker G: And in front of the photos, I have long slabs of clay, where I try to convert the emotion that the image depicts into a textual emotion.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: So what do we see in, let's say this?
[00:25:13] Speaker G: In the main side, we see two hands reaching out from an area of a lot of bubbles. So the body is hidden? Yeah, all of them are underwater.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Underwater photography.
[00:25:25] Speaker G: The body is hidden and all we see is the hands. And when I took this photo, and in general, when I'm looking at it, I get feelings of unease, which is what I try to recreate with the holes that I placed in the slab of clay, because all of these tiny holes make me kind of uncomfortable to look at. The second side is a picture of me floating in the water.
And the pieces of clay in front show the wave ripples and how those shapes are very organic and give a sense of calmness.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: And all around we have pictures of sea and swimming.
[00:26:05] Speaker G: And I have another tool, pieces of underwater.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: This is not photography, though.
[00:26:11] Speaker G: It's a painting of two figures. It's only the outline of the bodies. No faces or anything. And the light source is coming from behind them. So we have the shine on the top, and the canvas is filled with small bubbles.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Okay, what's the title?
[00:26:27] Speaker G: Trapped within the dark blue.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: I don't think you like swimming.
[00:26:33] Speaker G: I don't know when I really like taking underwater photos.
I think they're very interesting.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: And the next is, again, underwater.
[00:26:43] Speaker G: This is a bit more realistic. It's a body of a woman, but her head is on top of the surface, but the surface is seen in the painting. And we see how the light shines upon her body.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: What's the name of it?
[00:26:58] Speaker G: Gasping for air. And then my last piece is a sculpture where I used a magnetic field as a base.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: What do we see?
[00:27:09] Speaker G: We see a square sculpture with wire around the sides. And I placed the wood on top, where I have suspended pieces of metal, which I painted red to create more contrast. And in the center, I have placed a strong magnet that attracts those pieces, and it looks like they're floating in the air.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: That is interesting. And what's the name of it?
[00:27:31] Speaker G: The magnetic equilibrium of life. And this is how I end my exhibition, basically saying that there is no way one can go completely into the light and that we have to find an equilibrium and balance between the darkness.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Well, I have to ask you about these photos. I don't know if you want to talk about it.
[00:27:49] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: What is this. There is a line of photographs from the wall to the floor. So what is.
[00:27:55] Speaker G: I use the shutter speed photography to show the movement with photographs of hands. And I start. I have placed two on the wall and three on the floor. And as we start looking from the top down, they get more and more abstract.
And it shows how one can spiral into anxiety and distress.
And I really placed them on the floor to really show how one can, like, hit rock bottom, basically, and how we are looking down at them.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: And what's the name of this?
[00:28:32] Speaker G: Distressed.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Distressed. Thank you so much.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:28:36] Speaker E: Hi.
[00:28:36] Speaker C: My name is Angelina, and the piece we'll be focusing on in my exhibition is distorted reality. So in the boil and acrylic on canvas painting, you can see a figure looking into a mirror that's made out of a checkerboard pattern. This pattern represents a distortion within reality, as it is often seen in optical illusions. Emerging from the pattern, you can see a figure. And this is the figure. This is the reflection of the figure staring into the mirror in the background. You can see a lot of brain cells. And this represents, like, the reality. And it creates a connection between reality and how one's mind is able to perceive reality. So it's the overall focus of this painting is disassociation and derealization. How can that be observed through a painting?
This one also connects the. It's called web of anatomy, and it also connects to the previous piece. It focuses on a human being trapped in its own body, much like a coma like state. They are aware with their mind, but they are unable to move their body. So it shows, like, the restrictions that can come with your mental awareness and your physical awareness.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Can you talk a little bit about the color composition? It's very unique.
[00:29:53] Speaker C: I use a lot of cool tones, such as purple, blue and green. And this represents sort of like an asphyxation, like, you can't breathe, like, in relation to the being trapped in one skin body.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: And that's called web of anatomy.
[00:30:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
So this is mainly a self portrait of myself. It's, like, made out of various shades of charcoal.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: And why did you choose charcoal?
[00:30:17] Speaker C: We were all practicing different mediums, and one of the mediums we were practicing was charcoal. So all of us did a self portrait, and I made mine facing up towards, like, a source of light to represent, like, hope, in a way. And this is, like, the begin, the ending of my exhibition, where everything's, like, wrapped up. All of the mental awareness has been, like, discovered. And this is, like, sort of the last stage where people find hope in the end.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Would you use any of these pieces in your house?
[00:30:49] Speaker C: Probably.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Which one?
[00:30:51] Speaker C: I guess this one. It's a linocut. It's a linocut of, like, women shaped in trees. It's called women rebirth, and it's supposed to represent the rebirth of oneself within nature, as it, like, explores the idea that one is always connected to nature in a way, as we all stem from nature and we all die within nature. So it's like, remnants of your body are still within nature once you've passed, in a way, and you can, like, be reborn.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: Can you describe it? What's the medium?
[00:31:23] Speaker C: It's ink on paper, and we used a strategy called linocut, where you, like, dig into a piece of silicone, kind of, and we put the ink on top of that, and then we print it on some paper.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Excellent work. Thank you.
[00:31:39] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:31:40] Speaker H: My name is Lina, and the first artwork that is shown here is artwork that is made out of pencil and charcoal, and it's basically a self portrait of myself. And I'm looking to a distance while a microphone is pointed near my mouth. And I decided to portray myself in this way because singing has always been one of my passions. And I see this artwork as a way to really, if you have a dream, if you work hard for it, I think there's lots of possibilities that can happen.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Why did you choose charcoal?
[00:32:17] Speaker H: I chose charcoal because, first of all, I've never experimented with it before. I think charcoal is a medium that's easy to blend, so it would work well when it comes to doing realism. So, next is, since my theme is basically diversity and gender behaviors, what I'm trying to show here is male vulnerability, because I think, stereotypically, people perceive men to be more powerful, dominant, more active, because I think most males have a vulnerable side to them. And I'm trying to show that through this.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: So what do we see here? Can you describe?
[00:33:00] Speaker H: Okay, so there's a man here, and he's holding his head, and his head is tilted down, and he's closing his eyes. It's because I wanted to show that he's in distraught, and he's feeling very stressed, very vulnerable, and has more than just one side to him.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: And what do we see around him?
[00:33:21] Speaker H: So, basically, around him are his thoughts of a woman treating him more coldly. Because what I'm trying to showcase is that there's a lot of factors struggling to process about the relationship between him and her. So next is basically myself.
I showcased myself in the first photo. One of my hands is put forward. And I actually have many strands of hair on my hand. I'm trying to show that, like, many people also suffer with hair loss. And that might be because of multiple factors, but really depends. But sometimes it could be because of stress.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: This is a composition of many different photos that you put together.
What's the composition about?
[00:34:08] Speaker H: It made the composition this way because if you see the lines, it kind of makes it look like a jail cell. And there's a reason, because usually for women, their hair is a symbol of protection. I wanted to put it this way because I feel like cutting hair for most is quite an important thing because it also affects how people feel about you visually.
[00:34:33] Speaker B: That's great. Now we have a different style here.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: What do we have here?
[00:34:37] Speaker B: We have two different compositions of five. What kind of images are these? How did you make them?
[00:34:45] Speaker H: Okay, so I made them by using a technique called monoprint. And these are basically black ink all around.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: What did we see?
[00:34:55] Speaker H: Because I focused on males. On this one, there are five males, and I arranged them based on their ages. And the reason is because I wanted to show a variety of generations, a variety of cultures, and I wanted to also showcase the beauty and how all of us look so different. And even wrinkles, for me, is a sign of human development, human growth. It's also really precious.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: And were you looking at a model of different photographs? How did you pick up these faces? How did you make them?
[00:35:30] Speaker H: I did search for photographs online. I wanted to find photographs that were strong in terms of their cultural identity. It's meant to be separate pieces because this piece is trying to show these are females. Females, yes.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: Ink on paper again, different ages and different personalities.
[00:35:50] Speaker H: I guess basically the same concept as the one that I was describing for males, that it's like an evolution of how different individuals age and a variety of generations, a variety of cultures. And I think that's what makes everyone beautiful, because they are excellent.
[00:36:10] Speaker C: Excellent.
[00:36:11] Speaker H: This one is.
I put a my lino cut work on a canvas, and it's surrounded by. On the left, it's surrounded by three hands, and on the right, but they're showcased in different colors. On the left, it's orange because.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: So we have three sculpted hands. Right. Not just the wrist.
[00:36:31] Speaker H: For me, the hands are the main thing, because if you see the linocut, the left side of the face shows anger. It shows more of, like, a frustrating expression. But on the right, it's more calm and peaceful.
And the reason why I use orange and blue is because I would associate orange. It reminds me of flames like, it feels more angry, and blue feels like a more calm color because we see it also on the ocean, which also gives us. It's a calm feeling. So basically, the hands also symbolize. There are types of people who tend to be controlling. And these hands, since they're touching her face, there are people who might say, you have to act this way.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: You have to.
[00:37:17] Speaker H: Your expressions have to be this way. And I'm trying to show that in society there are people who are more controlling. And that's why her facial expressions are different on both sides.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Last one.
[00:37:29] Speaker H: Yes, this one.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: So what do we see here? It's a sculpture of three faces.
[00:37:33] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: Is it?
[00:37:34] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:37:34] Speaker H: It's with clay on top, but it's under is plaster, cardboard and wire. So there's many layers to make it strong. So basically, the three faces, in terms of expressions, they're all quite similar. But the main thing that I'm trying to show is the cracks in the clay.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: So these are intentional?
[00:37:53] Speaker H: Yes, intentional.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: And the name of the title of.
[00:37:56] Speaker H: This is shattered emotions.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: This is all very beautiful.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: And it's a very emotional exhibition.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: So congratulations.
Thank you. Hi.
[00:38:09] Speaker D: I was just looking at the rationale for the student's work, and she's tracing.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Her.
[00:38:15] Speaker D: Pathway as she finds her identity as it was Ubekistan and Kazakhstan in a foreign world. And I think it just reflects so many things. Another student just came up to me and said, I can relate to this because it's just I don't know which culture or what culture is my home, and I have three homes.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: And someone said that there is some political statements in this exhibit in general. Do you see this here?
[00:38:40] Speaker D: Well, in this particular one for this student, I don't think it was based on what she was reading, more of a personal statement about her discovering what she's most proud of and what's part of her identity and trying to make sense of what she wants to continue to take with her in her journey. She seems to me a very independent minded, very thought provoking, but more for herself. She's provoking her own inner thoughts with her art. It's really impressive. I've only seen three of the exhibits so far. I'll see if the other ones.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:39:13] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks.
[00:39:14] Speaker C: So my general kind of stylistic relationship between the works is a cultural exploration. So as we move along, we understand more about my personal culture, which is Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which is often underrepresented in western media. So I wanted to bring more attention through my exhibition. So in the first work, I constructed kind of two of my faces. This is me currently, and this is me when I was a child.
[00:39:44] Speaker B: Can you describe what we're looking at?
[00:39:47] Speaker C: Okay, so we see maps as the background, and then a big blue river, which is the eternal river of Rome, river Tiber. And then on two opposite sides of it, we see me at different ages. And basically, this symbolizes how kind of little me is looking up to the new me and how my identity was formed by the maps and the experiences I encountered during my travels.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: And how do you title this work?
[00:40:14] Speaker C: My journey?
This work is titled Dissolving identity.
And here we see me and my mom, my mom wearing the cultural robe from my home country, and me kind of ingrained into it, showing that I'm kind of part of her identity, but at the same time detached because I assimilated more into western culture, but she kind of kept her true roots.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: What kind of material did you use?
[00:40:41] Speaker C: Oil on canvas.
So this work is a chiaroscuro portrait made out of charcoal titled the feeble light of my cultural roots. And here I'm looking through a cultural hat, which is traditional, and it's worn in, like, weddings and birthdays. And I'm looking through to rediscover my cultural identity.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: Why did you choose charcoal?
[00:41:05] Speaker C: Because I thought it was very powerful to show the light and dark areas, and it's very dramatic. Moving on, we have a triptych of three photographs. The central one is the focal point, and it's made out of. Basically, the eagle is an etching that I did, and I wanted to extend the project and show how I'm reconnecting to my cultural roots, because the eagle is the traditional symbol in my home country. It symbolizes the nomadic type of lifestyle and freedom and hope.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: What's the significance of the yellow rose?
[00:41:41] Speaker C: The yellow and the blue are actually colors of my flag, so I wanted to put them, those two together.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: And you have the eye of the eagle on top of your.
[00:41:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Showing how it's part of my identity now. So I'm reconnecting more and more as we go along.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: And the other two.
[00:41:57] Speaker C: The other two around just sort of showcase my appreciation of my culture, because I took photographs of architecture when I went back to my home country, showing different muslim calligraphy and text styling and detailing. And I put those two kind of beside the central one. So this is a fashion piece showing the dual identity of muslim women. So on the one hand, we have the identity of a typical household duties, for example, embroidery and having long hair, which is like a beauty stereotype. But then on the other hand, we have the more kind of sexualized version of the oriental female. So like belly dancers. Yeah. So this work is actually showing my cultural memories kind of ingrained into me. We have this corset type of. Yeah, made out of yellow string which symbolizes childhood. And then on the inside of the torso I glued my journals and diaries and faded them into the background to show how kind of like my cultural memories are forgotten.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
[00:43:07] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: Nature, with its breathtaking beauty and regenerative power, serves as a source of inspiration for rebirth and renewal. The art exhibition celebrates the splendor of the natural world while also prompting reflection on humanitys role in preserving its delicate balance. Themes of sexual diversity, cultural identity and societal expectations are tackled head on, challenging media stereotypes and discrimination. The artworks serve as a platform for dialogue and introspection, urging viewers to confront the biases and injustices that pervade our society. In a world fraught with political and social upheaval, the exhibition does not shy away from addressing pressing issues such as homelessness, workers strife and women trafficking. Through powerful imagery and thought provoking narratives, the artists shine a light on the harsh realities faced by marginalized communities calling for empathy, understanding and action. In essence, the IB student exhibition is not merely a showcase of artistic talent, but a testament to the power of art to evoke emotion, provoke thought, and inspire change. It is a celebration of diversity, resilience and the boundless potential of the human spirit. In this captivating exploration of human experience, the artists utilize a diverse array of mediums to convey the messages with depth and nuance. Multimodal art takes center stage, seamlessly blending various forms such as painting, sculpture and digital media to create immersive and thought provoking installations. Visitors are invited to engage with the artworks on multiple levels, from the tactile sensations of 3d sculptures to the dynamic interplay of light and shadow in video projections.
[00:45:13] Speaker C: So my name is Mia Vasaki and my theme is different perceptions and the stereotypes faced by arab people, by western media, and self empowerment. As an arab person dealing with all.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: This, can you start describing what we're looking at?
[00:45:32] Speaker C: So the first artwork is one of, it's called textures of life. Basically it's about different textures. For example, here we have like a wooden texture, which shows the idea of us staying grounded, which relates to this, which is like a poem that's in English and in Arabic, which is about having a carefree life.
[00:45:55] Speaker B: What is the background?
[00:45:57] Speaker C: So it's just different sections. This is like a paper. This is a wall. This is a different type of artwork that I had seen somewhere, and basically, this is a focal point of the artwork, like a crumbled up piece of paper, which has this poem on it, which is about having a carefree life.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: Would you like to read it?
[00:46:17] Speaker C: Sure. It's very, like, it's cut off, so.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: I can't really do just one piece.
[00:46:21] Speaker C: Throw all the shame and analyze these days that are sad and follow them around with, I don't know, whatever.
So it's basically about us not thinking this is realistic to have a carefree life as arab people and crumbling up this piece of paper. My next artwork is called veiled hopes. So the veil is this curtain, which, with red string, represents the violence that people think arab people are tied with, and the braided arab fabrics very tightly, because we're all very tightly knit together, and we all kind of share the same trauma bond.
And when you pull back the curtain, you see a charcoal drawing self portrait of me, which is a person basically reflecting and hoping for a better future.
The third artwork here is called the bond. It's mixed media used out of stitching and cardboard. And these are all the arab nations in the red stitching. It's the shape of two hands, kind of shaking hands.
And so it's like a trauma bond, or like, we're together in this. We understand each other more than anyone will.
This artwork reflects the lebanese revolution. So the background, I guess, is supposed to look like a dirty wall that you'd see. And I just wanted to show the importance of graffiti and street art and saying, using your voice as somebody who's voiceless and helpless in this revolution. So this says an arabic revolution. Revolution, revolution.
[00:48:01] Speaker H: Three times.
[00:48:02] Speaker C: And behind this so called graffiti is the lebanese currency, which now, at this point of the economic crisis, has no value. So this is really behind the revolution.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: So this is definitely a political item. What were you thinking when you were making this?
[00:48:22] Speaker C: I'm lebanese myself, and by the time I left to Greece, I had to face with a lot of kind of pain, internal pain, because the year before was this revolution, and then the downhill of Lebanon as the economy and just a country in general. And I just had to watch that from away.
And so seeing the struggle of my home, I really thought that I should depict this and make it easier for somebody to understand it.
[00:48:50] Speaker B: And the title is behind the revolution?
[00:48:52] Speaker C: Yes. Okay. So my fifth artwork is one of a collage of many different eyes, which, as you can see, they're kind of facing towards you. So it's kind of like an all eyes on you thing.
[00:49:06] Speaker H: And if you look closely, you could.
[00:49:07] Speaker C: See it says in Arabic, on this earth deserves life.
It's about self reflection and about how western media basically thinks that arab people are always the oppressors, not the oppressed. So this kind of depicts that, but it has, like, a dual theme to it.
My final artwork is, like, the shape of the canvases together is like a beacon of hope. It's like wings, and it's called the windows of truth. So above each traditional arabic window, which is made out of lino art is a word that could describe arab people as a community. So here we have an iman, which means, just, like, many things, to empower people. So purity, faith, everything.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: So if you had to choose one of these artworks that really expresses you as a person, which one would that be?
[00:50:04] Speaker C: I think a lot of them do. Like, personally to me, maybe my self portrait, personally to me as well, about my heritage and my country, this one. But also these two really resonate with me, and that's why I created them. So the whole exhibit, all of them.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: Thank you. Great job.
[00:50:21] Speaker C: Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Danai McGowan, and for my art exhibition, I based it on. On. Well, the title of it is cracks in our society. So it's based on topics that we don't really talk about and mostly social issues in our world.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: Okay, so what gets to it?
[00:50:42] Speaker C: So in the first art piece, it's a self portrait of me, and it's called contemplation, which is supposed to represent how young people can feel when they contemplate the unknown future. Like, a lot of us, as teenagers at a very young age, have to pick a career path that we want to pursue and do, and that can be a big struggle at such young.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: Why did you choose charcoal?
[00:51:07] Speaker C: I don't know. I thought it was more expressive, and with the light, I thought it, like, brought out, like, my facial expressions, because I'm looking out to the distance and, like, almost to avoid, like, I don't know what I'm looking at. Almost, like, you know, the unknown future, really. And then the second piece is called trapped in my body. It's a textural piece where I photograph different types of textures and combine them together, and it's composed as a dress where the leaf is the skirt, and the. These weaves on top are like a corset, almost. It's supposed to represent, like, women, how they try and accentuate their bodies and their beauty a lot to try and attract people and be more attractive. And then the third piece is called the immigrant's dream. It's about immigration, and it's a layered piece. Like, behind there's an etching of two hands pulling on a barbed wire where they're trying to hold on to their cultural identity because they're always moving to different countries.
And they almost. I have a loss of identity because of it. And it's more of a personal piece for me because I've moved, like, in the past five years, I've lived in three different countries and moved around.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: So what are the rest of the layers?
[00:52:23] Speaker C: The other layers? Then there's chicken wire on top of the etching to show entrapment.
And then top layer. The first layer is a pencil stencil, paper stencil, cutout of the world to represent movement around different countries and globalization. Then my fourth piece, it's called the forgotten people. And this again is based on a personal experience, based on workers, like construction workers in the UAE. And because I lived in Dubai, so I witnessed, like, these construction workers that were like, they're almost like modern day slaves where they're treated very badly and they live in poor conditions and they're working to provide for their families back in their home countries. So I wanted to shine a light on this because it's a topic that not many people know about. And it's not talked about a lot either.
[00:53:21] Speaker B: What kind of technique are you using here?
[00:53:24] Speaker C: Oh, this one is a monoprint. So it's like ink. I put ink on a plate and I drew them on that plate with the ink. And then on top, once I printed, I put a piece of paper and printed it. I went over it with some charcoal to bring some shadow and make it more realistic.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: It's very dramatic.
How about this?
[00:53:46] Speaker C: This one is a bit different. The fifth piece is called the pain of the streets. It's about homelessness in Athens.
[00:53:54] Speaker B: So what are we looking? Looking at?
[00:53:55] Speaker C: So these are photographs that I've taken around Athens. And I projected them in a film and I zoomed into different sections. I made them all black and white, the photographs first of all. And then I accented some colors in from the photographs to make it more bold and highlight specific things. And I noticed how in a lot of my photographs, there was the color blue that was present. That also symbolizes sadness.
So I try to highlight the blue colors around each image. Then the last piece is a sculpture, and it's about anxiety. So this is more. It's something that everybody can relate to because a lot of people experience anxiety.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: Can you describe it? For us.
[00:54:40] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's four faces, and I made them out of plaster, and it's supposed to start from a resting face. And then each one increases, be into more of a scream, almost. And the resting face is, let's say, what people show in the exterior. And then the scream is what they feel inside, like interior, like this explosion of anxiety and how it overwhelms them and overpowers them. And then on the base, I have broken mirror where the viewer can look into, and they can see their faces on multiple pieces of the mirror. And it represents the explosion, the destruction that anxiety can cause in somebody's mental state.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: So if you had to choose one of all these artworks that expresses you the most, which one would be.
[00:55:27] Speaker C: I feel the immigrants dream represents me the most. Cause I feel like I come from. Like, I come from America and Greece, and I've never lived in those countries before, but I've lived in many different other countries. So I feel like I don't have one cultural identity that I relate to. I've been all over the world and experienced many different cultures and religions.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: Great job. Thank you so much.
[00:55:52] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:55:54] Speaker A: I'm Izumir, and this is my exhibition. So my theme is the loss of innocence through the societal gentrification of women and over sexualization of young girls. And I show this to through kind of more, like abstract and then focused pieces as well. My first piece is of videos of myself as a child that are then reflected on a piece of a woman's back to kind of represent the contrast between my child herself and, like, an older woman, like, between innocence and then growing up and kind of losing a sense of yourself because of expectations a society puts in, because a lot of times, society take advantage of women.
[00:56:34] Speaker B: What kind of technique are you using for the background?
[00:56:36] Speaker C: Oil paint.
[00:56:37] Speaker A: And then on the oil pan. Then I projected the video as well. My second piece here, this piece is plastered with photography that I took of these models. This kind of represents a physical manifestation of losing yourself again. Because the pictures are going from more colorful to translucent. They're kind of vanishing to, again, represent.
[00:57:02] Speaker C: Loss of yourself through.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: What's the title of this piece?
[00:57:05] Speaker A: So, the title of this piece is forever objectified. And this is because I use a female body that's through plaster, objectify the female body itself to create this piece, and then adding on the innocence. So it kind of shows how we sometimes get very much objectified by society's view and size opinions. My second piece was my piece of my grandma. And again, it's oil paint. And then I added some of her lace, and I incorporated within the piece with, like, its colors and stuff.
[00:57:35] Speaker B: What do you mean with a lace? Explain to me. Describe it.
[00:57:38] Speaker A: The lace here. I added it to different corners of the piece. So some of it is, like, in the edges. Some of it's within her clothing, her hair. And then I painted over to match, but also kind of show because I didn't want to completely disappear within the art. And this is meant to kind of show how timeless this issue is. Something that's a so fine. And the lace itself, again, kind of has this more innocent feel to it.
[00:58:00] Speaker B: What's the title of it?
[00:58:02] Speaker A: So the title of this piece is the past innocence. So this is aging past. This is, again, photography. And then I used wood coloring to stain it, to kind of make it look as if. If it's resting. Again, there's an older woman and a younger girl. It's kind of translucent, one into the other, to kind of have this disappearing innocence into something older, wanting to keep an older part of yourself still alive while it's also kind of vanishing into something older. So, yeah.
My fourth piece is to saturated loss of expression. Here I wanted to represent emotions that many times young women don't feel that they can express.
[00:58:42] Speaker C: Like.
[00:58:42] Speaker A: And this is done by having the image of my two models, and they're kind of looking more. Don't show much emotion. But then the colors itself kind of helps express that through kind of, like a manifestation of it, like, with vibrant splatters. And I also added some salt to create more texture as well. And then these are the three last ones, the ones that are hybrid pictures. So they incorporate different techniques on images. This one is a cracking down of one's true identity. Here I used plaster and I covered a photograph, and then I cracked it. So she's that girl in the image is kind of not showing fully to represent, again, wanting to kind of keep a part of yourself, but at the same time kind of losing it or feeling suppressed by different worldviews and different opinions and in general, kind of self exploitation. Here I'm showcasing more, like, specific global topics. This one represents female trafficking specifically.
[00:59:37] Speaker B: What are we looking at?
[00:59:38] Speaker A: This is a. Okay, this is a black box. And in the black box of hanged barbies that I melted myself, these are, like, all my childhood barbies. So I melted them. And it's called melted pieces of meat because it's meant to resemble kind of like a butcher's. And it's meant to represent, like, how people who traffic women view them as pieces of meat that they can manipulate and explain, exploit for their gain.
This piece is a glass box. It's, like, hanging off the wall to kind of, like, grab your attention as, like, you're walking past.
This uses, like, a plastic doll within, which is covered in, like, statistics on the information. This is called religious mutilation. It's about countries where they mutilate female genitalia for religious practices. It's meant to represent, like, a coffin, and within the coffin, we have this young girl who is mutilated, and the countries that are covering the box are the countries that most prevalently do this to their young girls for religious reasons. And it's made to kind of look within kids. It's trying to say that many times, like, we don't observe these things. We don't talk about it. We try to hide it because we may be uncomfortable by it. But I think it's important that we see and that we discuss it. My last piece, this is objectification, is this piece with cardboard and fabrics. These are overly exaggerated female bodies to kind of represent how media itself overly sexualizes young girls. The fabrics on the pieces themselves are childhood fabrics. So these, like, bed sheets from when I was younger. And I've added them all on the different bodies with the one in the center kind of representing a more innocent piece while connecting it all together.
[01:01:14] Speaker B: What's the title of this piece?
[01:01:15] Speaker C: So the title of this piece is.
[01:01:17] Speaker A: Growing, but still young. So it's kind of just this kind of contrast between wanting to be young, but also being overly sexualized with the female bodies.
[01:01:27] Speaker B: So if you had to choose one from your pieces that expresses you the most, which one is it?
[01:01:34] Speaker A: I think the second one, for sure. I think the objectification piece is my favorite piece.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: The one with the plaster and the plaster. The pink ribbons?
[01:01:42] Speaker A: Yeah, the pink ribbons. Yeah, yeah. I think that's my favorite one. That one. And I also really love the two pieces that are about trafficking and that because I think it truly shows topics that we don't discuss a lot in our society.
[01:01:54] Speaker B: Great job. Thank you.
[01:01:56] Speaker C: My name is Laman, and my main interest in creating art are nature and people and how they connect to each other and how nature can assist people feel empowered and pure and feel joy in some sense.
The first artwork that I have is named human features enclosed by flames of the wings, where a self portrait of mine is illustrated, made out of charcoal black.
[01:02:26] Speaker B: Why did you choose charcoal?
[01:02:28] Speaker C: Well, charcoal is really easy to use in the sense of shading, and I feel like with self portraits, it's necessary to add a lot of shading. And with this art piece, we also have butterflies on my face, which are made of a pink color, which contrasts the rest of the art piece.
The next art piece is called Kharebilbulun ahemiati, which translates to the significance of.
And Kharabil bil is a national symbol of Azerbaijan, and it's a flower that grows in Shosha, which is a region that is located in Azerbaijan.
[01:03:10] Speaker B: Why did you choose copper?
[01:03:12] Speaker C: Well, copper is quite hard to press down, and it shows the struggles that can be faced.
[01:03:24] Speaker B: How did you press it? Did you have to heat it?
How are you working on it?
[01:03:28] Speaker C: No, I did not have to heat it. There is a tool which looks like a pen with a ball on the tip of it, and you just press. And there are different sizes of this pen, and you just press it. So the third art piece of mine is called beauty within cultural contrast.
This art piece basically intends to show how different cultures and different ethnicities can have their own values. And no matter how people from different countries look, they're all beautiful in their own way, which is represented through the different colored flowers.
[01:04:06] Speaker B: So what are we looking at here?
[01:04:08] Speaker C: We're looking at two girls that are facing each other, and they're making eye contact.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: These are photographs, right?
[01:04:15] Speaker C: Yes, it is a photograph. Photograph.
And they're facing each other, and they're outlined by stitching, which is colorful, in contrast to the rest of the photograph, which is black and white.
And the flowers are also colorful. They're made out of different colors, which represents the different cultures.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: What kind of material are the flowers from?
[01:04:39] Speaker C: The flowers are made out of colored paper, and I also added some acrylic paint on top of it to add dimension to it. And the next piece, which was actually the first piece that I created in ab visual arts, is the charcoal pattern art piece, which is named man made nature. The whole point of this art piece is to illustrate how things made out of that are artificially made can be inspired by nature, because, as you can see, these are inspired by fishnet tights, which I believe could have been inspired from spider webs. And you can kind of see on the art piece the pattern used from the fishnet tights, and the flowers are used in order to decorate the art piece as a whole.
[01:05:35] Speaker B: It's like a white charcoal, right?
[01:05:36] Speaker C: Yes, it is.
The next is a painting. It's the only painting that I have in my collection. It's called encircled freedoms, which it portrays how some women might feel trapped within themselves as they feel like they have to follow social standards, be a certain way and act a certain way. And by creating this art piece and surrounding the person, the woman with flowers in nature, I'm empowering women to feel free to express themselves however they want, however they would like, however they feel comfortable.
This piece is called freedom of land and flowers. This, again is. I used flowers named kharebilvul, which, again, they grow in Azerbaijan. And these flowers, they actually look like birds. And I used a fence around the canvas, and on the canvas, you can see a painting of mountains, which actually are made in such a way to seem like waves, which also shows, since flowers, they represent peace and freedom.
The flow of the waves just shows illustrates how people can feel free within.
[01:07:05] Speaker B: Themselves and why the flowers are on the wire.
[01:07:09] Speaker C: Well, the wire is there in order to show that some lands, some natural elements, can be entrapped enclosed with wires. Not necessarily wires, but it's the material I decided to use. And the last piece I have is called see through vision. With this art piece, I try to show how everything in life has a beginning and an end. And I believe that even nature, just like humans, can have an end. And which is why I placed a clock in the middle of a flower. And as you can see, there are also flames that are in between the leaves of the flowers, which represent their death as time goes by.
[01:08:04] Speaker B: Great job. Thank you so much.
[01:08:06] Speaker C: Thank you.
My general theme is the complexities and the structures of life.
We're starting off with the built environment with my two pieces. The first one is called athenian cityscape. It's a neoclassical greek building that I photographed and then repainted it with acrylics on a canvas. I tried to capture the more destructive parts. For example, I added the graffiti, I added the red line, and I tried to make it look destructive.
[01:08:41] Speaker B: Is the torn, convinced part of the design?
[01:08:43] Speaker E: Of course.
[01:08:43] Speaker C: Of course.
Basically, what I wanted to pass with this, the message I wanted to pass with this painting is that this building was once beautiful and that now it's destroyed.
Moving on. I have the shades of urbanity. This is a medley of many buildings from my travels from England to Paris to even my home country, Greece, where I wanted to convey the message of complex cultures and how their history is still standing through architecture.
[01:09:21] Speaker B: So what's the medium here? What's the technique?
[01:09:23] Speaker C: It's all done with pen. It's individual pieces of papers which I combined in order to create a uniform look, a collage.
Moving on, we have the dwelling structures. This is the actual 3d piece combined with photography. In the background. I have the same piece photographed in different ways with different lighting.
[01:09:48] Speaker B: So what are we looking at here? What is this?
[01:09:50] Speaker C: This is a structure. It's a very organic structure.
My point was, I wanted to convey that this can be looked from every different side, but it's still gonna be the same structure at the end.
[01:10:04] Speaker B: So what's the material?
[01:10:06] Speaker C: It's made out of wire. And then I put newspaper. And then it's plaster.
[01:10:11] Speaker H: Plaster strips.
[01:10:13] Speaker C: My next, it's a charcoal drawing. It's called organic beauty. It shows the abstraction of paper turning into a flower. So it's the lifelessness of the paper, because a flower, we see the organic folds, which is a part of my theme as well. And right now, the monochromatic scale is also a sub theme of my exhibition.
[01:10:36] Speaker B: Did you look into cubism with this one?
[01:10:40] Speaker C: Not necessarily. It's more still life, I would say, because I actually had the paper in front of me when I was drawing it.
One is called heart mapping. It's a continuation of the bone skip fusion, because instead of taking the bones or any part of the body, here we have the heart and the veins.
The heart and the veins are the most essential organs of our body because they pump blood into the whole body.
And I wanted to show that our veins are like the maps of our body.
[01:11:15] Speaker B: So what's that? The computer. You took a digital photography for it, right?
[01:11:19] Speaker C: Basically, I made many sketches of hearts with using different colors. I photographed them, and I used illustrator, it's called, and photoshop. In order to blend the photographs together, I played with the colors, the contrast, the hues, and I made, like, double exposure and triple exposure in order to create this more complex structure. Because for me, even though the heart is an organ itself, it's much more complex than it seems, both its structure, its function, and the way it looks. This is a dress inspired by Alexander McQueen and the story of Atlantis, which is a story of a lost country, which is lost thunder sea. I tried to use the waves as a form of transformation. I used the patterns, which are from the same hearts that I used there.
Yeah, they're inspired by Alexander McQueen because I got inspired by his mirroring look and his geomagic shapes.
This.
[01:12:32] Speaker B: I would say this is the biggest one.
[01:12:34] Speaker C: Yeah, it is the biggest one. And I'd say that it's also one of my favorite artworks as well. Basically, this canvas was at my dad's and my mom's wedding.
It's where people wrote notes. And I've kept, like, for example, the 2005 and the Zoe, which means life in Greek. And it's basically me building off of their memories, which is why I layered the pieces all together.
[01:12:59] Speaker B: So you mean to tell me this was a canvas that people were writing wishes?
[01:13:03] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[01:13:04] Speaker B: In the wedding.
[01:13:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:13:05] Speaker B: And you took it and you created something completely new?
[01:13:07] Speaker C: Yeah. I layered over their memories.
[01:13:10] Speaker B: And they let you do it?
[01:13:11] Speaker C: They did. They didn't have storage space.
So this is okay.
[01:13:19] Speaker B: If we see it, we see a myriad of colors.
[01:13:23] Speaker C: Of course we see.
[01:13:24] Speaker B: And we also see different. Different maps, materials, and different ways of drawing. Right.
[01:13:31] Speaker C: So these are maps from all the places I've been to and the places I want to go to. For example, I have the road for my house. I have my village. I have London, where I want to study. It's not only maps. It's also, like roads. It's also landscape view and things like that. Some of them are collaged as well from real maps.
[01:13:53] Speaker B: What's the title of this?
[01:13:54] Speaker C: The title of this is entanglement, because it shows how all of my memories are. These are the places where my memories are from. The colors represent my good memories. The bright and fluorescent colors. The more dark colors are more of my bad memories. That's why we see more fluids, fluorescent colors than dark colors, because it shows that, like, I'm happy the way I live. And it has a dual meaning. The second meaning of this painting is urban planning and how the urban planning in Athens is horrific. The traffic is horrible, and the roads are also horrible. And that's why we see the complexities and their pathways going into each other. Other and. Yeah, that's it.
[01:14:47] Speaker B: So, from your artwork, you're either gonna become a city planner or a doctor, an architect.
Very close. Thank you. Excellent job. Thank you.
[01:14:59] Speaker C: Thank you.
[01:15:05] Speaker B: In this dynamic fusion of mediums and messages, the IB student exhibition transcended the traditional boundaries of art, inviting viewers on a journey of discovery and introspection. It is always a testament to the power of creativity to transcend language and culture, forging connections and sparking conversations that resonate far beyond the walls of the gallery.
[01:15:33] Speaker A: You are listening to the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. Make sure you subscribe to the Allcast on Google Podcast, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. This has been a production of the ACS Athens Media studio.
