Inspire Project, hosted once again by the MOMus-Museum of Modern Art, provided the opportunity to up-and-coming visual artists to attend a series of fascinating workshops, while offering the audience
the chance to visit a top-notch art exhibition. Making use of methodologies that draw inspiration from sciences of the future, Inspire Project 2023, titled “Intensity. Future scenarios and other stories”, focused on the future scenarios, as perceived by young artists from a wide artistic spectrum. The works that sprang out of the workshops, which were attended by 40 young visual artists, along with the ones created by the invited artists-heads of the workshops, Mikhail Karikis and Albert Barqué-Duran, were showcased in the titular exhibition.

Mikhail Karikis is a thinker of our times, who converses through his art with the fundamental contemporary problems of mankind. His work is endowed with a social dimension, embedded with a feeling of urgency. His career over the last decade is nothing less than impressive, featuring international exhibitions hosted all over the world. As for his contribution to this year’s Inspire Project, here’s what he has to say: “I presented an audiovisual installation (three videos with surround sound), titled The Meteorological Orchestra. It is an ode to the elements of nature, which portrays our profound relation and ties with the weather phenomena and addresses a prayer for our connection to the atmosphere and the Earth.”

“In this installation, space is transformed into an internal meteorological system produced through sound vibrations and singing. The projections depict musicians performing their instruments, as well as analog noise machines designed to imitate the sounds of the physical phenomena. A baroque wind machine, Latin American ritual rain wands, a drum that makes the sound of waves, a waterphone, a thunder pipe and metal parts inundate the space with a meteorological music, alluding to the forces and the grandeur of nature. In the very heart of the soundscape, human voices burst out in traditional songs that express joy, fear and admiration towards all the elements that surround us. The Meteorological Orchestra is part of a project that includes works collectively tuned to the timbres of sociopolitical change and ecology. Surging Seas is one of my works showcased here, consisting of a display of placards portraying maps that indicate the transformations bound to occur in Greece’s coastal geography within the next 80 to 200 years due to the rise of the sea level, while images from eco activists’ protests are interposed,” he explains.

“A large curtain is placed just opposite, illustrating a thermal image of the Earth, as well as a screen featuring a conversation between two people that takes part in the future but alludes to our current present, putting the spotlight on our moral responsibility to deliver a viable planet to future generations. In other words, the work points out that the reversal of climate change lies in our hands. This work was created in collaboration with performers from continental Portugal, Madera, Syria and Denmark, and continues to evolve and expand through the research for musical instruments that imitate meteorological sounds and folklore songs in different cultural contexts,” he adds.

Mikhail Karikis, born in Thessaloniki, is a renowned Greek-British artist, based in London and Lisbon. His work featuring moving images, sound, performances and other media has been showcased in the most distinguished biennales of modern art, museums and film festivals all around the globe. Among them stand out the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), Manifesta 9 (2012), the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014) and the 2nd Riga International Biennial (2020). Karikis has displayed his work in many individual exhibitions, hosted in prestigious venues such as Tate Liverpool (UK, 2020), MORI Art Museum (Japan, 2019), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Italy, 2019), Whitechapel Gallery (UK, 2018) Casino Luxembourg (Luxemburg, 2017) et al. He is the recipient of numerous international
awards and prizes, having appeared, among others, at London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Barbican Theatre.

His audio works have been presented by Björk, DJ Spooky, UNICEF and MIT, while having been broadcasted by the most acclaimed radio stations of Europe, such as BBC, Radio 3, RAI 3 and Radio France. He also has a significant academic work under his belt, having taught in prominent international institutions such as the Royal College of Art (London, UK), the Ruskin School of Art of the Oxford University (UK), the Nederlandse Filmacademie (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), the Aarhus School of Architecture (Denmark), the École Cantonale d’art du Valais, Sierre (Switzerland), the Goldsmiths College (London, UK), the Sandberg Institute (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), the UCL
Slade School of Fine Art (London, UK), the Central Saint Martins (London, UK), the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil). Moreover, he holds a teaching position at the MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) School of Art & Design (UK).