Who has the Right to Speak and Act in the Public Space?

Who has the right to speak and act in public space? Reflecting on a series of public artworks commissioned by Counterpoints Arts in Greece, the artists Tamara Al Mashouk, Eirini Linardaki and Adrian Paci engage in a conversation with the co-curators Almir Koldzic and Niovi Zarampouka-Chatzimanou. The artists and curators share insights and experiences relating to the process of artistic practice in the public space; community engagement; implications of the lack of transparent public art policy and strategy; and the social and political reactions generated when contemporary art comes into the urban landscape.

This conversation will also reflect on the questions arising through the public programme that accompanied the commissions. Why is it so difficult to negotiate an artwork’s right to exist? What are the artistic and curatorial responsibilities, and do we need a public policy for the arts in Greece?

Counterpoints Arts is an international arts organization focusing on exploring the experiences of displacement and migration.

About Almir Koldzic
Almir Koldzic is Director and Co-Founder of Counterpoints Arts. The main focus of his work so far has been on developing creative strategies and national networks for arts and refugees; building long term collaborations with leading inter/national arts, cultural, advocacy and philanthropic organisations; and curating and producing a wide range of commissions and programmes relating to displacement, diversity and social justice.

About Niovi Zarampouka-Chatzimanou
Niovi Zarampouka-Chatzimanou, is an independent curator and Co-Director of Counterpoints Arts in Greece, working on socially and politically engaged art projects relating to themes like national identity, citizenship, memory and reclaiming public space. Her curatorial work revolves around the question “Who is the Contemporary Athenian?”, a project that she initiated as the Director of Victoria Square Project in Athens.

About Adrian Paci
Adrian Paci was born in Shkodër, Albania in 1969. Paci lives and works between Milan and Shkodër. Using his own experience of immigration from Albania to Italy, and stories of family and friends, Paci addresses issues such as exile, identity, memory and collective history. Paci’s body of work looks back on those tumultuous times, addressing the radical political shifts of his homeland as it transitioned away from communism to a chaotic free market economy and his subsequent experiences as an artist in exile.

About Eirini Linardaki
Eirini Linardaki is a visual artist based in New York and Crete. Linardaki is also known for her community-based art projects, particularly through workshops on accessibility and multiculturalism in several different countries like Liberia and France, where she lived for more than 20 years. In 2019, she initiated the “Occupy Art Project,” a collaborative art research group that involves artists and curators from the US, France and Greece. Linardaki’s activist work was recognised with the Sing For Hope Artivist Award in 2022. She is mother to two children.

About Tamara Al-Mashouk
Tamara Al-Mashouk is a London based Palestinian/Saudi artist and organizer. Through multi-channel video, performance, and architectural installation, her work negotiates the relationship between home (both physical and metaphysical); the movement of people across societal and geographic borders; and memory, with specific focus on the expansion of epigenetics beyond the body into place and matter. As a socially engaged practitioner in her organisational capacity, she has been producing events for the past ten years. These have included: a BLM poetry night where the stage was the roof of a boat, a fundraiser for the Lebanese thawra, and most recently, gatherings that feature food, poetry, music and discussion and carve vital space for connection within the diasporic Arabic communities in London.