Past Residents Vassilis Vlastaras
As a researcher I am interested in public and private memory which leads me to the archive using reports and journalistic sources from the media acting sometimes as an “activist” and others as an “ethnographer”, practices that often highlight forms of documentation, narrative and focus that broaden the artistic research. Creating files and documentaries, getting ownership of publicity mechanisms, conducting interviews, statistical studies and online activity are some of the forms of growth and structure of my artistic identity. Statistical surveys, public records, social criticism, surveys of economic and cultural operation marked the beginning of many of my activities, forming my personal view-position in my practice as an active artist and as a professor.
In my visual practice I create large-scale site-specific installations and I experiment with various media in painting, drawing, photography, video, real time video and sound performances and computer interactive installations. My artistic practice examines the relationship between artwork and urban space, the notion of the ephemeral, and the interrelation between spatial movement, material and sound. My work often investigates the personal and social implications of loss, oblivion, history, memory and the subsequent acts of remembrance/memorialization and the relationships between the appetite for life and the frenzy of death.
Vassilis Vlastaras has been invited to the Resident Fellow Programme by the Academy of Fine Arts of Uniarts Helsinki. The programme is funded by the Saastamoinen Foundation and implemented in co-operation with HIAP.