Valinia Svoronou
Work exhibited at School of Waters
︎ Endymion on Google Play
︎ Endymion on App Store
This app is meant to be an artwork part of a story referring to other already existing narratives and drawing from practices similar to tributes and fan fiction. Artist Valinia Svoronou has developed this astronomy/ stargazing app, with the technical support of Aias Kokkalis as a platform to deploy a story that will take place within celestial events in 2020, starting with the penumbral lunar eclipse taking place on the 10th of January. The app is informed by several concepts around the construction of myths surrounding zodiac constellations and their utility as means of navigation across the centuries. The underlying narrative of the app takes the ancient Greek myth of Endymion and some contemporary iterations as a point of departure to explore and dismantle romantic ideas now rendered obsolete around historical exchanges between the east and the west in relationship to the contemporary world.
About the artist
Valinia Svoronou (1991, Greece) recently presented her solo project titled Endymion / Chapter 1: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, in the form of app launch and solo show curated by Panos Giannakopoulos at the B & M Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts and Music, and is now sharing new research with the TBA21- The Ocean Archive. In 2019 she was awarded with the Stavros Niarhos Foundation Artworks Fellowship for young artists and participated in the group show ‘The Same River Twice’, in the Benaki museum in Athens, curated by Natalie Bell and Margot Norton co-organised by the New Museum and DESTE foundation. She participated in the Artist Self Publishers Fair 4 in the ICA with her latest publication. In 2018 f her work was shown in the Open Screening series in Whitechapel gallery led by Gareth Evans, she participated in a publication and group show in Futura Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague titled A guiding Dog for a Blind Dog. In 2017 she took part in the Political Animal reading group and contributed with a sculpture in one of their events which took place at The Showroom in London. In the same year she also created her first artist publication in the form of a modular graphic novel in collaboration with SPACE studios. In collaboration with Sarai Kirshner from 2015 they launched a platform for inquiring contemporary art practices titled Ambiguity and implemented a series of conversations that took place at the Slade and The Showroom.
web / ig
Fig. 1.
Valinia Svoronou, installation view, Endymion / Chapter 1: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse (2020), bench1&2, tarmac, fibreglass weave, LED strips, metallic frames. Outdoor Landscape/ Salvage Plan I, unique digital print, aluminium frame, photo by Elpida Frageskidou,
Courtesy the artist.
Fig. 2.
Valinia Svoronou, Resilient Heart Same Story (2020),
digital print, silicone flowers, 3dprinted cigarette bud, Frank Gehry corrugated carbon stools.
Fig. 3.
Valinia Svoronou, Endymion, A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever (2019-20), stargazing AR application, screengrab.
Courtesy the artist
Valinia Svoronou, installation view, Endymion / Chapter 1: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse (2020), bench1&2, tarmac, fibreglass weave, LED strips, metallic frames. Outdoor Landscape/ Salvage Plan I, unique digital print, aluminium frame, photo by Elpida Frageskidou,
Courtesy the artist.
Fig. 2.
Valinia Svoronou, Resilient Heart Same Story (2020),
digital print, silicone flowers, 3dprinted cigarette bud, Frank Gehry corrugated carbon stools.
Fig. 3.
Valinia Svoronou, Endymion, A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever (2019-20), stargazing AR application, screengrab.
Courtesy the artist