Kissos Pelion/ Zig Zag Festival 2023
3rd Zig Zag Festival at Kissos, Pelion 》One week of Contemporary Culture 》30+ Greek and international artists, musicians - performances
Revisiting history and nature through contemporary art
July 24 – 30, 2023
The Kissos Pelion/ Zig Zag Festival takes place from July 24 - 30, in the village of Kissos on the east side of Pelion. This year’s destination is particularly important; for the first time a dedicated contemporary art event opens at Pelion. 30+ contemporary artists from Greece and abroad create artworks, on-site visual installations, performances and unique musical collaborations while indulging in the rich history and cultural heritage of Kissos. The "Cultural Zig Zag" explores a combination of art and nature through local experiences with the landscape, architecture and gastronomy.
Kissos Pelion/ Zig Zag Festival 2023 will host the group exhibition of Greek and international artists «The cabinet of knowledge and nature» daily photologue «Following the Centaurs to paths of knowledge», at the Old Primary school of Kissos. The amalgam of culture and nature is the basis of this artistic exploration. The principles and ideological framework of the Greek Enlightenment as represented by the revolutionary Rigas Feraios and his teachings in the natural setting.
«The cabinet of knowledge and nature»
Group exhibition at the Old Primary school of Kissos.
Artistic frame:
The Enlightenment committed to rationality and faith in human progress, calling for radical changes in all aspects of human activity, in political and social establishments, in economy, education and religion. The Enlightenment supported individual freedom and opposed tyrannical rule and oppression. Greek expression of the Age of Enlightenment is an ideological, literary, verbal and philosophical attempt to convey the ideas and values of the European Enlightenment of which it is an extension, to the ethnic Greeks who lived in the Ottoman Empire.
Inspired, on the one hand, by the revolutionary Rigas Feraios who originated from the wider region of Thessaly and later practiced teaching, among other places in Kissos, and on the other hand, the natural environment itself, 30+ artists from Greece and abroad are invited to present their works. In the Old Primary school of Kissos, artists create new dialogue on the harmony between nature and humanity.
Artists: Vasilis Alexandrou, Fani Arapi, Polyanna Vrelianaki, Michael Goldgruber, Nikos Kryonidis, Ioulia Ladogianni, Elli Lampadaridou, Jens Lange, Dimitris Lioliopoulos, Hector Mavridis, Ioannis Monogios, Fotios Ballas, Evaggelia Boulaki, Despoina Pantazi, Dimitris Palantzas, Panagiotis Ploumis, Christian Rupp, Elio Samaras, Stratos Sterianos, Iordanis Stylidis, Chryssa Tzelepi & Akis Kersanidis, Theodora Tsiatsiou, Filippos Tsitsopoulos, Harris Chilitsis, Thanasis Chondros & Alexandra Katsiani, Lampros Psyrrakis, Themis Zidrou.
Music performances: Thodoris Giannopoulos, Seyh Su, Nefeli Stam, Stratos Sterianos.
Curators: Georg Georgakopoulos, Fotini Kapiris, Nikos Kryonidis, Antigoni Kapsali.
«Following the Centaurs to paths of knowledge»
Daily photologue
We tame the temperament of the Centaurs, who’ s legacy was more animal than human, while their existence, symbolic of the infinity and erratic qualities of the natural world.
Participants and visitors present photographs from their excursions that are screened within the exhibition space and updated daily.
Kissos Pelion / Zig Zag Festival 2023
Program Directors: Georg Georgakopoulos, Fotini Kapiris
Visit the Zig Zag Festival Blog 🌿
zigzagfestivalgreece.blogspot.com
☱ Program and Locations ☱
The daily event program of Kissos Pelion/ Zig Zag Festival 2023 includes guided tours, excursions, musical performances, workshops, visits to traditional restaurants, taverns, cafes and local cuisines.
«The cabinet of knowledge and nature»
Group exhibition at the Old Primary School of Kissos
«Following the Centaurs to paths of knowledge»
Screening of daily photologue
Duration: July 24 – 30, 2023
Hours: 19:00-21:00, daily
Monday, 24/7
19:00 Greetings, introduction to exhibitions and events.
Tuesday, 25/7
16:00 Ioulia Ladogianni, Cyanotype Worskshop with materials from the nature of Pelion.
21:30 Seyh Su, music performance, Kissos Square.
Wednesday, 26/7
19:30 Tour to the 18th-century Church of Agia Marina, the iconostasis (templum) and iconography.
21:30 Stratos Sterianos, music performance, Kissos Square.
Thursday, 27/7, 21:30
A water story by Nefeli Stam, music performance, Kissos Square.
Friday, 28/7
21:30 Nefeli Stam, Stratos Sterianos, music performance, Kissos Square.
Saturday, 29/7
21:30 Thodoris Giannopoulos, music performance, Kissos Square.
Sunday, 30/7, 21:00
End of exhibition and events.
Kissos, Pelion
Kissos is located in Pelion, in the eastern part of Magnesia, Greece. Pelion, the mountain of the Centaurs, is a natural green landscape and a protected habitat of the Natura network. The entire area is an inexhaustible treasure of myths, legends, historical and cultural traditions.
Kissos is a mountain village situated at 500 meters altitude. It is distanced 48 km from Volos, 8 km from the beach of Ag. Ioannis and 12 km from the ski resort. The name of the village may refer to the homonymous plant or, according to the historian G. Kordatou, from the word gold pronounced as (k'sos). Kissos is well known for its local architecture, the sea view, the rich beech and chestnut forest. The church of Agia Marina, a three-aisled basilica from 1650, has been declared a historic monument. The church is adorned with a rare wooden carved iconostasis from 1700 – 1720 and frescoes by the popular painter Giannis Pagonis from 1802. The frescoes are unique, as they combine themes from the New Version of the Old Testament and the Apocalypse, but also of Natural History and geography. During the economic and intellectual prosperity of the 18th century, grey a number of schools operating in almost all villages. Rigas Velestinlis or Feraios, an influential writer, politician, thinker and forerunner of the Greek Revolution of 1821, also taught in Kissos.
About Zig Zag Festival
The first Zig Zag Festival was introduced by CHEAPART in 2021 as a way of connecting Greek and international artists and their work, locals and visitors with the unknown features of the Greek landscapes. Every two years the Zig Zag Festival commutes to a new destination, offering new insight to the hidden parts of Greece, the culture and topography. Sculptors, painters, new media artists, performance artists, musicians, present works and installations indoor and in public spaces. Artists, the local community and visitors meet and connect through a collaborative exhibition and event program. Zig Zag Festival transforms its hosting village into a living visual canvas for the period of one week. In 2021 and 2022, Zig Zag Festival was realized in the village Isternia in Tinos, this year’s 3rd edition travels from the sea to the mountains of Kissos, on the east side of Pelion.
Isternia Tinos / Zig Zag Festival 2021 - 2022: https://youtu.be/OE3Cy4b-L8k
Isternia Tinos/ Zig Zag Festival "Dialogues on Change": https://youtu.be/SNIfyzerHmE
Kissos Pelion / Zig Zag Festival 2023
CHEAPART, Organizer
With the financial support and Auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports («The cabinet of knowledge and nature», contemporary art exhibition and event program)
Under the auspices of the Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi, APART, Coordination
