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MATAROA AWARDS / PHOTOGRAPHY
EXHIBITIONS OF EMERGING ARTISTS
The MATAROA Awards join forces with the MOMus-Thessaloniki Museum of Photography to promote emerging Greek photographers, with the support of the Cultural Society, in the framework of the Thessaloniki PhotoBiennale 2023!
Consistent with its goal to be at the forefront of international debate on photography -alongside other forms of the visual arts- this year’s edition of the Thessaloniki PhotoBiennale reintroduces itself to the public (10 October 2023 until 11 February 2024), with a rich programme consisting of 25 exhibitions in 19 venues in Thessaloniki and Athens and the participation of more than 100 photographers and artists from 18 countries
Among them stand out the exhibitions of the two emerging photographers who emerged through the MATAROA AWARDS process for Photography. With the support of the Cultural Society, in the framework of the MATAROA project, and following an open invitation to the artistic community, two young photographers present their solo exhibitions in an effort to give a platform to remarkable photographic works by emerging artists.
Alexandra Riba’s exhibition “Between Cities and Skies”, captures the noise over the city in a unique photographic footprint, while Yannis Zindrilis’ exhibition “A Long Saturday”, traces stillness and our difficulty in defining and coming to terms with our surroundings.
A Long Saturday | Yiannis Zindrilis
- Venue/Collaboration: esp+ gallery / ΙΕΚ ESP
- Opening: 10th October 2023, 19:00 (duration until 15.01.24)
- Support: Fujifilm Inkjet Photo-paper
About the exhibition
In ‘A Long Saturday’, George Steiner borrows the Friday-Saturday-Sunday schema from the New Testament: the death of Christ on Friday, with the darkness descending on earth and the tearing of the veil of the Temple; then there is the uncertainty of Saturday, when nothing happened, nothing moved; finally, the Resurrection of Jesus on Sunday. During this long, motionless Saturday, people redefine their values, lose their formed identities and seek out new ones.
Following Steiner’s proposition, in this series of images, the self, like an actor on stage, “encounters its spectators at the exact moment when they meet him, creating a unique osmosis between them, as the self performs a role. The presence of spectators is etched in one’s consciousness and constitutes the self […] meanwhile, the self projects contents of the subconscious and memory onto spectators. The self, through role performance and assisted by the role’s contours, stages itself, designing a scene, articulating its own discourse, inventing a spectator, an entire audience or even an imaginary community, who bears witness to the self’s endeavour.”
The photographic series ‘Long Saturday’ depicts people who find themselves in crossroads, barren landscapes, inhospitable environments, where road signs underline prohibitions and the difficulty of defining and being in harmony with their surroundings.
Yiannis Zindrilis
About the artist
Yannis Zindrilis was born in Ioannina in 1982. He is a graduate of the Department of Surveying and the Department of Photography and Audiovisual Arts of the University of West Attica. He has attended the seminars “Theory Issues of Visual Arts and Photography” and “On Landscape: Images, Emotions, Politics” at the Athens School of Fine Arts. He is also a graduand of the Postgraduate Program “Photography: Research and Methodology” of the University of West Attica. He participated in the Athens Photo Festival in 2016 with the series Vague Landscapes for the exhibition “Young Greek Photographers”. He has collaborated with newspapers and magazines. Since May 2020, he has been teaching photography courses at the Hellenic Cancer Society. He lives and works in Athens as a feelance photographer.
Between cities and skies | Alexandra Riba
- Venue/Collaboration: Stereosis School of Photography (SSP)
- Opening: 10th October 2023, 21:00 (duration until 15.01.24)
- Curated by: Kosmas Pavlidis, Yiannis Manolis
- Support: Fujifilm Inkjet Photo-paper
About the exhibition
When the sun goes down, I raise my head as I hear the sound of birds flying between the apartment buildings. I had noticed that at this specific time, birds start talking. There is a lot of noise over the city. But something different happened the other day. I heard a noise from the opposite balcony. I saw that a bird was trapped and his friend was trying to save it.
It covered the voices of all the other birds in the sky. I tried to help them but I could not. Then I saw you through the window. My heart was beating fast, like a bird’s that has been caught by a human and it is very scared. I shouted at you but you did not hear. I left you a note. You are gone. I still have the note.
There is a place between cities and the skies. I like going there again and again. From this place the birds begin to fly over the cities. We are all so much the same and so different under the same sky. In the early days of radar, echoes of many, small targets were seen but poorly understood. These echoes were called “angels”. Now, we know that the angels were actually birds.
This project is dedicated to my “angels”.
Alexandra Riba
About the artist
Alexandra Riba is a photographer/cinematographer born (1997) in Thessaloniki, Greece. She is a graduate of the “School of Film Studies at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki”. She studied contemporary photography in “Stereosis school of photography” and exhibited her photographs in prestigious art spaces in Greece and abroad such as Teloglion Fine Arts Foundation, The Benaki Museum and Loosen art, Rome. She has worked also as a still photographer in movie sets, in theatre productions. Also as a cinematographer with directors Syllas Tzoumerkas and Nikos Kolioukos.
