ARTiculAction Art Review - Special Issuue Aug. 2016 | Page 26

ICUL CTION C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t meets R e v i e w Thodoris Trampas An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general? [email protected] Multidisciplinary artist Thodoris Trampas' work ranges from installation to performance to explore the limits inside and outside the body. In his work Scorched Earth that we'll be discussing in the following pages his inquiry into the the concerns of our contemporary and unstable society allows him to draw the viewers into an immersive experience in which they are urged to rethink the elusive notions of time and space. One of the most convincing aspects of Trampas' practice is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of creating a deep and autonomous synergy between our limbic parameters and our rational categories to highlight a human condition as an endless effort to balance within an “area”, which is constantly cha nging in space and time: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his multifaceted artistic production. Hello Thodoris and welcome to ARTiculAction: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and after having graduated with honors from the Athens School of Fine Arts you started your career as a multidisciplinary artists, nurturing your education with experiences at ΜΑΙ (Marina Abramović Institute) and NEON (Culture and Development Agency): how do these experiences influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, 18 At first, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share some paths of my artistic journey with you. My embryonic relationship with performance art began in the third year of my studies in the School of Fine Arts, when my teacher, Aimilia Bouriti, trained me through physical and mental exercises. As a result, I was initiated in performance. Those exercises were directly influenced by butoh, yoga and meditation and they still help me in self-concentration, stamina and flow to this day, aiming at the better performance of each project. As regards my collaboration with MAI (Marina Abramović Institute) and NEON (Culture and Development Agency), they brought me into contact with the legacy of Marina Abramovic, namely long-lasting performance. It was the first time in my artistic career that I faced the limits of myself and my mental and physical strength to such an extent. The process of the long-lasting performance has got inside me, after 329 hours of performance at the As One exhibition, leaving me with a strong realization of the concept of present Time and the confrontation with our personal limits. Due to my education in visual education, visual terminology almost always accompanies my work, giving rise to matters about composition, light and shadow, colour and sculpture.