Koumaria Residency 2016

Since 2009 the artist collective Medea Electronique has organized annually a 10-day experimental artist residency, Koumaria, near Sparta in Greece, focusing on improvisation and new media practices. Avant-garde artists from all over the world, inspired by the Greek natural landscape, come together to create a multicultural and cross-media ‘dialogue’ culminating in a collective presentation in Athens at the end of the residency.

The goal of the residency is the creation of an educational experience for the participants that will inspire and exalt their future work. The cross-cultural dialogues that the residency engenders both create new artistic speculations and smelt older assumptions. Past residents have formed lasting friendships and new artistic partnerships. Medea Electronique, being an eclectic art collective, is interested in people from diverse cultural and artistic backgrounds. For us the residency serves as a model for future creative endeavors.

For our 2016 residency the theme concerns cross-cultural collaborations, migration and borders, culminating in a performance/presentation of the residency artistic outputs as part of a conference/performance series at a major venue in Athens on this theme.