https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 20 Apr 2020 14:25:46 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/the-metaphysics-of-the-greek-crisis-visual-art-and-anthropology-at-the-crossroads/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:46 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-metaphysics-of-the-greek-crisis-visual-art-and-anthropology-at-the-crossroads/ Continued]]> During times of uncertainty and ‘crisis’, the religious and the metaphysical may acquire particular resonance and be employed to explain experiences of deprivation and insecurity which cannot be accounted for in rational terms. Using a montage of YouTube videos, the author together with a visual artist have drawn attention to “the metaphysics of the Greek crisis” and the power of its visual cultures. This article gives an account of the history of the montage’s making and of some of the issues that arise from a work such as this that stands at the crossroads of anthropology and contemporary art.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/to-see-and-be-seen-ethnographic-notes-on-cultural-work-in-contemporary-art-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:26 +0000 http://arc.local/items/to-see-and-be-seen-ethnographic-notes-on-cultural-work-in-contemporary-art-in-greece/ Continued]]> A key term in discussions on the nature of cultural work is the concept of ‘autonomy’, or ‘relative autonomy’, according to which cultural workers are capable of realizing themselves in the processes of work. This article wishes to problematize this idea by examining the quotidian reality of cultural workers in the field of contemporary art in Greece during the current economic crisis. The analysis is based on ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on how the positive characteristics of cultural work are inscribed in workers’ experiences through their participation in ReMap, a contemporary art event that takes places biannually in Athens and is tightly interwoven with processes of gentrification. I argue that relative autonomy is neither a given nor a state where the cultural worker linearly progresses. Within the context of the larger cultural and economic implications of neoliberalism and its crisis, it is rather an ideal they are striving for, often through highly alienating conditions, in a field dominated by competition, voluntarism, low salaries, precarity and absence of collective bargaining.

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