Art initiative supporting mental health charities to offer a lifeline to people devastated emotionally and financially by Covid-19.
When we attend concerts, shows and festivals, we’re caught up in the experience of the music: the sound, the lights, the performers ... the whole joyous event. What we’re not aware of, is the army of people working backstage to create those mesmerizing performances – the sound engineers, the set designers and builders, the make-up artists and countless other behind-the-scenes professionals who contribute, invisibly, to our lasting memories. With live performance venues and spaces standing silent during 2020, those same people, many thousands of them, who should be pulling together to create the infrastructure for world-class performances, have lost, or are about to lose their jobs. With no likelihood of work for the foreseeable future, they are anxious and frightened. Many don’t know where to turn for help. Stunning images Enter #MakeItBlue: a group of live events professionals who came together at the start of lockdown. The group’s first campaign, #LightItBlue, used its collective network of contacts to prompt thousands of landmarks and iconic buildings around the world to light up blue every Thursday night, in a gesture of gratitude to all healthcare and frontline workers. The stunning images of landmarks bathed in blue light - from the London Eye to Niagara Falls - drew huge international media interest. Since then, the original group of like-minded associates formalised into a community interest company (CIC), dedicated to raising funds and awareness for relevant mental health charities and initiatives. Artists, designers, illustrators and photographers #MakeItBlue’s mission is to support live events industry colleagues who are in need, and also to promote public mental health awareness through arts, entertainment and cultural projects. The group is now reaching out to artists, designers, illustrators and photographers to ask for their help. The simple request is for creatives to:
The #MakeItBlue team will auction the artworks in the run-up to Christmas. Proceeds will be donated to Samaritans and to Stagehand – the Production Services Association Welfare and Benevolent Fund, so that people in need can receive financial, emotional or therapeutic support. The full story of #MakeItBlue, together with information on the charities it supports, can be found here. Next steps If you are willing and able to donate an artwork, Sarah Webster at #MakeItBlue would be delighted to hear from you, so please email her at: info@makeitblue.uk, or phone 07950 035897 for further details.
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"In Connection"/ Group Exhibition curated by Mary Stefanou at Domatio
Duration : 11th September - 20th September 2020 Domatio art space invites you to its Group Exhibition " In Connection" curated and conceptualised by one of its artist members, Mary Stefanou. Artists were invited, through an International Open Call, to get inspired by her theme : " In Connection " 'Connection' : Which other word more fully captures the function of art in terms of the vital contact between artist and viewer? What does an artist seek through the descent into his inner universe other than connection? What does the viewer seek other than the affinity of the beholding of his world with that of the artist? Both of them made from the same cosmic material , just as all humans, they vibrate to the same oscillations that move everything else in our known and unknown universe, exactly as revealed to us by science and evoked by the poets’ imagination! Every element of the world, every creation, every creature of the microcosm and the megacosm of our infinite universe, floats in an orbit of connection with the other, until the moment of their complete convergence. And so the artist and the viewer, themselves suspended in the realm of the cosmic whole that surrounds them, explore the essence of their existence, simultaneously asking questions and receiving answers from each other. The redemptive quality of art, emerges through the process of our self-exploration, functioning as a vital means of connection with the past, the present, the future, and as a wandering through a ceaselessly changing journey of life. The lambencies and the explosions of the soul, the nuanced array of our emotional palette, the labyrinthian mosaic of our existence, our inner-most truth, find a ‘voice’ through the raw material by means of which we choose to express ourselves. It is a descent that beckons us to let go, to accept, το set ourselves free: a descent that strips one of the cloaks and facades that conceal our essence from ourselves and others. The cathartic sensation of this denuding opens the way to us forming a deeply meaningful connection with our self and our fellow human beings. The creator, stands before the blank ‘canvas’, guided by the deep source of his being and, gradually, the borders between the conscious and the unconscious world are blurred. In a place where ones hand balances between rational and irrational forces, between the beats of the heart and the neural glimmerings of the mind, between the inner….darkness and light, between the masquerade and the denuding, between the burning and salvation, in a perpetual creative flow! Art Historian Ifigenia Stefanou Participating artists: Dorothea Ameda Paulo Amsel Jerry Chan Arietta Chandris Georgia Chatziioannou Alex Charisis Eleni Damopoulou Giannis Gigourtakis Giorgos Guizaris Susana Kalemou sarcophagus_maskara Paulius Sliaupa Evdoxia Stafylaraki Mary Stefanou Natalia Szewczyk Guest : Fenia Zia age 9. 11th September - 20th September Opening Friday 11th September 17:00-22:00 Mon-Sat : 18:00-22:00 Sunday : 12:00-17:00 Location: Domatio Solomou 55 7th floor Athens Facebook link for event : https://facebook.com/events/s/in-connection-group-exhibition/2703321496651762/?ti=as Contacts for exhibition : +30 6944182897 +30 6909112582 mari.ferdinand@yahoo.com https://www.facebook.com/mary.stefanou.10/ https://Instagram.com/marystefanouart domatio.info@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/Art.and.more.domatio/ https://instagram.com/domatio.team * Special thanks to Graphic Designer : George Kastanakis Art Historian : Ifigenia Stefanou * In Connection open call was widely embraced by artists abroad. So Domatio aims to keep Mary Stefanou's theme of "In Connection" for future exhibitions. Connecting us with artists from abroad who wish to showcase their art in Greece. |