UNGUARDED

UNGUARDED is a platform addressing the issues of displacement, marginalization and inclusion, that employs art as a tool for discourse and transdisciplinary methods to explore the performative of the refugee in everyday life. The objective is to celebrate immigrants/refugees’ human rights and acknowledge the circumstances that dislocated persons face in their movement for survival.

The collaborative team of Adonis Volanakis – a constant nomad living in NYC- extensive work on collaborative platforms, performance, visual and academic work worldwide combined with Sara Galassini’s work on theater, performance and music – which began in Italy and migrated to NYC fourteen years ago-, together with native New Yorker Kristina Colovic’s /HR visual art/film experience and comprehensive research on refugee migration unites the vision of UNGUARDED.

As performance makers the collaborative goal of the UNGUARDED project aims to explore transdisciplinary modes of representation and participation as the apparatus in the emancipation of the spectator.

The intention and the action of the advocacy device in the UNGUARDED narrative and performative projects connect the crisis of refugees in movement for survival by expanding the banal to the sublime.

We stand on the certainty that refugees in movement for survival today are the true pioneers of social change, challenging all the boundaries of marginalization and directly carrying the task of inclusion for all in society. We acknowledge their courage to survive as the social force that must be supported, validated and ‘rigorously investigated’ with the highest esteem. UNGUARDED pays homage to migration, and the immigrants/refugees in movement for survival. More importantly, we stand side-by-side with the immigrant/refugees as our future for understanding human development on all levels.

At this point we successfully staged a collaborative work-in-progress performance at Dixon Place/ NYC this March 2014 with the support of LaMama Theater, titled The Sacred Way: Protagonist and Hero?

The hope for living with dignity carries millions of people into the sea without knowing even how to swim. What and where is a better life? The story of Aris (Varis Miahel) an Afghani refugee currently living in Greece generously offered his story via Activist Paola Revenioti, to retell his journey of survival and invited the public/audience to question their knowledge about immigrant status. The journey of Aris can be viewed on YouTube here.

Kristina Colovic is a native New Yorker of Serbo-Croatian descent. Kristina has studied at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and completed her graduate studies with State University of New York in Social Policy and is perusing graduate studies in Applied Psychology, which began at the American College in Greece. Some accolades have included a fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation for photography, Fine Art World Image from Kodak and Parson School of Fine-Art. In addition she has lived and participated in Exhibitions in NY, Sydney Australia, Athens Greece and Croatia. Ms. Colovic’s internships have included working with Social Policy and Economic Analyses (SPEA) at UNICEF’s, Division of Policy & Practice (DPP) Headquarters in New York. Her task included preparing an analyzed MDG’s-Post 2015 Migration Agenda and extensive literature review for the Division. In addition Ms. Colovic has collaborated with the UNHCR in Athens, Greece, as a photographer contributing to the Anti-Racist Campaign: 1 Against Racism. A recent work in the Crisis and Paganism, Biennale in Mykonos, Greece was a video work incorporating both image, content and the concept of ‘self’, under the premise of ‘what survives and what does not?’ Kristina currently lives between Athens, NYC and Croatia.

Sara Galassini is from Italy, where she started dancing at the age of 5 and acting in her teenage years. In 2000 she met Ellen Stewart and played the main role in her Italian production of The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter. She has been working in NYC ever since as a member of the Great Jones Rep. Company with which she has performed in Ellen Stewart's Seven, Trojan Women, Romeo and Juliet, Seven against Thebes, Herakles Via Phaedra, Mythos Oedipus, Dionysus Filius Dei and Fragments of Seven. In Great Jones Variations she has appeared in Narcissus directed by Elizabeth Swados and An Appointment in time directed by Ozzie Rodriguez. She played the Spirit in the revival of The Angels of Swedenborg directed by Ping Chong & Co. with which she is currently collaborating for a new production. Sara is also a member of Loco 7 Puppet Theater Company. With them she has performed in 9 Windows, Open Door, Room to Panic and In Retrospect. Other theater favorites include: VentoForza5 by Teatro@Benzina, Expiration Date by director Abla Khoury, Caravaggio Chiaroscuro by Pioneers go east Collective, Hoplite Diary directed by Tom Lee, the Tokyo Kid Brothers' Hitohira 2010 The last golden bat, Urban Research Theater'sTheatricale, NuDance Theater' Si Seulement Si, Yoshiko Chuma's Love Story, Palestine and Susana Cook's The funeral of the cow. Sara has been seen on stage in the U.S. as well as UK, Italy, Poland, Austria and Taiwan. As a singer and songwriter she has been collaborating with composer musician Yukio Tsuji for many years. Together they have founded the Sara Galas Band and have created three shows that involve original music and text, movement and lyrical imagery: Waves of all times, Origin a Performance art Installation and most recently The Unmeasurable Picture. They have performed their original music in venues in NYC, Perugia, Florence and the Spoleto54 Festival (www.SaraGalasBand.org).

Adonis Volanakis was born in Athens, Greece in 1976. His practice is the collaborative amalgam of human relations and aesthetics, poetry and politics, fine art and theatre and his work has been shown in: United States, Canada, England, Greece, Sweden, Czech Republic, Norway, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain. Adonis studied at the Wimbledon College of Art /University of Arts of London BA(Hons) / Valedictorian, Central Saint Martins College of Art MA- University of Arts of London, and the Aalto University in Helsinki. He has been commissioned for, curated or participated in more than 60 exhibitions (video performances, installations, photography) in: National Theatre London, Greek State Museum of Contemporary Art, European Cultural Centre of Delphi, Athens Biennale etc. His work in performance designing and/or directing consists of 60 productions (Royal Opera House-Covent Garden, Athens & Epidaurus Festival, National Greek Theatre, National Greek Opera, Onassis Cultural Centre, etc.). Since 2004 till today he has been teaching at the University of Nafplio, the University of Patras, the Art Therapy Graduate Program/Athens, the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs / Paris. For the academic year 2012-2013 he was a Fulbright Artist/ Visiting Scholar at the Arts Politics Department, Tisch/ NYU where he teaches now. He curates blinddate12.blogspot.com, an interdisciplinary collaborative platform between artists, writers, philosophers. He has received distinctions from institutions such as the Arts and Humanities Research Board/ UK, University of Surrey, London Institute and the Linbury Prize at the National Theatre/UK. He has been awarded scholarships from foundations such as the: Fulbright, A.S. Onassis, Vardinoyannis, A.G.Leventis, Propontis, Spyropoulos, B&E Goulandris. A co-curator for international artists for the first Mykonos Biennale – http://mykonosbiennale.com he directed various public poet and singing performances and a blind date/ residency between 7 Americans and 7 Greek poets with the residents of the island of Ithaca / Greece.

Find out more at unguarded2014.wordpress.com/

Donate to UNGUARDED