The Eternal Cycle | Kissos Pelion Zig Zag Festival 2024
“Disruption is true nature of life and not the exception."
Kissos Pelion/ Zig Zag Festival 2024, contemporary artists from Greece and abroad meet in a summer art exploration, presenting artworks, on-site visual installations and performances while indulging in the rich history and cultural heritage of Kissos. The "Cultural Zig Zag" explores a combination of art and nature with experiences from the environment, local architecture and gastronomy.
Kissos Pelion/ Zig Zag Festival 2024 takes place from July 24 - 30, in the village of Kissos on the east side of Pelion. The destination is particularly significant as it is the single event in East Pelion devoted to contemporary art. Engaging and interacting with contemporary art, artistic coexistence and exploration reframes one's perspective and is a powerful means of expression for those who wish to connect with art and the natural and historical landscape of Pelion.
Zig Zag Festival 2024 and themed exhibition "The Eternal Cycle" take place at the Old Primary School of Kissos and multiple locations in and around the historic Kissos Square, with the financial support and under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, and the auspices of the Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi.
“The Eternal Cycle”
The artistic program and theme of Zig Zag Festival 2024 focuses on the continuous and eternal cycle of life. "The Eternal Cycle" is a direct metaphor for the changes we experience in our daily lives and in modern culture. Often, unexpected cataclysmic events overturn our daily lives and alter the course of human activity. Absorbed in the present moment, we interpret such disruptions as anomalies rather than as the true nature of life.
Life is a continuous series of events, when something emerges, transforms, disappears, at the same time something new transpires, creating an endless cycle. Eternal cyclic movement identifies with the cycle of life, with the virtues and vices of human nature: love, violence, prosperity, war, discoveries, revenge, torment, joy, a loop of agonizing efforts of mankind to cope with everyday challenges.
Eternal is that which flows continuously, endlessly. It was there before your existence. It will survive you. It grew with your parents, your grandparents, and it breeds our generation in a primordial circular path of evolution and knowledge. Severe weather phenomena, sudden climate changes and their consequences lead us to act on our fixed habits and preconceptions.
In Kissos, Pelion, a region that still feeling the aftermath of the climate change impact, artists meet in a creative dialogue that aims to highlight not destruction but rather rebirth and knowledge gained from the eternal cycle of life.
Participating artists: Matina Alexiou, Nikolas Bliatkas, Vasilis Botoulas (Curated by: Chara Dimitropoulou), Sebastian Boulter, Nikos Dimeas, Panos Georgopoulos, Athina Kanela, Evelina Kehagia, Ioulia Ladogianni, Valentino Marengo, Despoina Pantazi, Antonis Papadopoulos, Nicholas Stavropoulos, George Striftaris, Eleni Tsamadia & George Karoumbis, Vasilis Vasilakakis.
“Chiron and Nessus, the two faces of the world”, visual notes
In Greek mythology, the Centaurs as hybrid creatures, half human and half animal, symbolized the eternal battle between the beast and the dangers of the natural world, while at the same time, of the knowledge and nobility of research and wisdom.
Among a plethora of brutal Centaurs personified in the wild Nessus, dominates the unique figure of the wise and noble Chiron. While Nessus engages in wars and battles with the other Centaurs, Chiron conveys his knowledge by teaching the heroes of mythology the noble strength of the natural world.
Both Centaurs however, are killed, one deliberately and the other accidentally by none other than Heracles, in a final confrontation between the two worlds; that of brutality and that of civilization. At the end, the world in which blessing, good, and nobility overpowers the animalistic, evil, and the brutal, is ultimately grinded and crushed between the millstones of the eternal cycle of life.
Through the camera lens, artists, curators, and visitors portray opposing ideas in a photographic realm. They take an individual approach to explore, reveal and interpret the excerpts of nature. The images screened daily in the exhibition space.
Program, July 22 - 28
Monday, July 22
Opening of Kissos Pelion/ Zig Zag Festival 2024
July 22 - 28
daily 19:00 - 21:00
Former Primary School of Kissos
“The Eternal Cycle” Group exhibition
“Chiron and Nessus, the two faces of the world” visual notes
Tuesday, July 23
21:00, Kissos square
“ME.THEY.US”, Eleni Tsamadia, Kinetic composition-performance & George Karoumbis, Music composition-improvisation
Wednesday, July 24
16:00, Kissos square
Cyanotype Worskshop with materials from the nature of Pelion
Ioulia Ladogianni, Bleach Kollektiv
21:00, Kissos square
“Nest 05”, Athina Kanela, Performance
Thursday, July 25
19:00, Tour to the Church of Agia Marina Kissos, Father Michael
20:00, Visit to traditional restaurants, taverns, cafes and local cuisines.
Friday, July 26 & Saturday, July 27
18:00 - 20:00, Visit to traditional restaurants, taverns, cafes and local cuisines.
Sunday, July 28
21:00, End of exhibition and events
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 held in the Tinos village of Isternia in Tinos, moving to the rich natural environment of Kissos, east Pelion in 2023 and 2024.
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 660 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.
Kissos Pelion / Zig Zag Festival 2024
Organised by CHEAPART, with the financial support and auspices of the Ministry of Culture («The Eternal Cycle»)
Under the auspices of the Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi.
Coordinated by, APART Art Research and Applications.
Program directors: Georg Georgakopoulos, Fotini Kapiris
