PROJECTS
PLEASURE & DISOBEDIENCE
01-03/11.2
screening event
CYPHER’s inaugural event, PLEASURE & DISOBEDIENCE is the first installment of an ongoing film program on this subject jointly curated by Sofia Kouloukouri (RE-SISTERS) and Alexios Seilopoulos (APROPOS). The program emerged as an inquiry on the artistic practices of various subcultures and on their modes of filmmaking.
Sharing a background in cinema, artist and art historian Kouloukouri’s research centers on female artists and representations of sexwork, while Seilopoulos’s curation of talks (Highly Opinionated, Barbican, London) centers on queer resistance.
The first instalment of Pleasure & Disobedience focuses on shorts, features and art films from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s by female and queer directors. What links the two is the politics of pleasure and disobedience as well as tons of low budget DIY filming.
Liberty’s Booty, Variety, Born in Flames and Audience all made within 3 years of each other are exemplary pieces of New York’s No Wave film scene in the early 80’s when women filmakers such as Lizzie Borden, Bette Gordon, Vivienne Dick, Barbara Hammer as well as artists Nan Goldin and writer Kathy Acker collaborated in the making of low budget films portraying a no filter mix of their lives in the city from aimless wandering, to sex work, lesbian regroupings and feminist revolt.
Around the same time from New York to London and Berlin we observe the progressive emergence of queer cinema with filmmakers such as Rosa von Praunheim, Isaac Julien, Peter Strickland, Lawrence Elbert and others. Although I don’t know, City of Lost Souls and Days of Pentecost are each almost a decade apart, these rebellious, brutally honest queer gems employ popular formats from documentary to exploitation film and above all musical, to depict a time of sexual liberation, experimentation and rejection of the heteronomrative lifestyle.
CYANEAN
14.11-05.12
SOLO SHOW OF ATHINA PAVLOU BENAZI
CURATED BY ISAVELLA KLADAKI
Athina Pavlou Benazi creates CYANEAN, an installation/environment within the premises of CYPHER. CYANEAN is the environment that unfolds and spreads from the upper level to the basement, an
environment composed of and completed by three distinct works that stand both as independent objects and as points along a potential path. The emphasis is placed on the concept of initiation
through a passage, from the outside to the inside and from the top to the bottom, from one place to another, from one internal state to another. From the Cyanean Rocks installation to the crossing and
then to the hideaway, staying focused to the axes that run through her research and practice and drawing from the natural landscape, Pavlou-Benazi creates a multi-sensory environment that invites
the viewer to become part of it and interact with it, playing between opposing concepts, such as the element of water, the sea and the rock, the intensity or stability of flow, and the suffocation of
stagnation as well as dealing with the ambivalence towards the absence of boundaries. The concept of the trace through movement is studied within the space, a space that is fluid and maritime - with
all the possible connotations - under the lens of time, a time that at certain moments runs relentlessly
fast and at others stops and ceases to exist.
COLLABORATIVE PAINTING
11.10.24
Cypher is opened its doors on October 12th , organising an open art
studio. In a somehow experimental way, it invited guests to link up and connect with each other, while connecting with their own creativity. Deeply believing that every single human is creative and shifting the focus from an object-oriented artistic practice, to a process oriented one, it invites guests to experiment with materials
while working collectively in a single art piece.
Materials were provided freely and for the next 10 days this ongoing artwork was in display at the space of Cypher, prone to be transformed by its visitors.
This socially constructed, artistic situation, aimed to be the beginning of an ongoing project where: visitors, are welcomed to explore their own creativity, leave their gesture, participate, and interact with one another, becoming key stones to the creation of an art piece, while enjoying this shared process. Liberating oneself from the notions of failure, error, or damage, giving space to aesthetic impulse driven by materials. A symbolic transitional space is being built, to contemplate on how to shape collective experience together, deepening our understanding on how systems work and how to network between different groups and individuals, through creating an artwork that can be perceived as an open system which can be transformed and developed overtime.
Individual and collective stories could be contained and hold by this artwork, creating a non-linear narrative of personal perspectives as well as the bigger systems they exist within. Hopefully, reconfiguring social interactions within art spaces as
well as the communities they are part of.
duo show of Marilena Georgantzi and Nagore Chivite
11.12-05.01
The exhibition ALL OUR HORSES, derives from Marilena Georgantzi's text of the same name and is the material expression of her conversation with Nagore Chivite within the gallery’s space. Watercolours on paper, prints on paper, prints on textiles and sculptural forms revolve around words, opening slits and passages through space, stitches that map mnemonic traces, psychic paths and imprints around the absence of Horses, interrogating the absence of our animal nature. Where did the instinct go? They open windows in empty spaces, lest they see the horses pass by. They play with the hero motif in fairy tales, the journey of searching, of adventure and doubt, of reconciliation with Absence, and loss, of the safety of what is familiar. The acceptance of a world being torn down to build a new one. They leave marks, traces small in the corners of space, weaving paths across uncharted expanses of material, inviting us to search for the footprints of horse hooves in muddy valleys until we connect with the wild femininities of our cellular memory, searching within ourselves for pieces forcibly detached or silenced, patiently waiting to be unearthed and made ours again. Bits and pieces, life-giving parts, life-giving limbs that might be frightening, molds of what is called to reveal itself to us, fragmented horses, their parts detached from the whole that - always - exists and waits to be reconstituted. Personal histories and references, intertwined with the mythological and the archetypal, inviting us to unravel them, exploring and tracing our own path, negotiating our relationship both conceptually and materially with them.
Isavella Kladaki
all our horses
" Aaaaa,aa"
17.01- 28.02.25
Eleni Tomadaki's solo show
curated by Ioanna Gerakidi
CYPHER presents the first solo exhibition of Eleni Tomadaki, titled “Aaaaa,aa”, curated by Ioanna Gerakidi. Rooted in the primitive and instinctive yet tender gesture of the stroke, Tomadaki’s new body of work oscillates between chaos and hesitation, destruction and creation. Through her recent patterns—once figurative, currently broken, faded or willfully fainted—the artist questions the boundaries of form and existence. By occupying a space which lingers over the real and the speculative, the haptic and the dreamy, the exhibition “Aaaaa,aa” interprets breath as an alternative vocabulary and order as something ever-changing, inviting the audience to explore their own meanings, spiralities, and freedoms.
A few weeks back, in a note she wrote as a response to her practice or praxes on and nearby painting, Eleni Tomadaki says that: “Each stroke signifies decisions which reply to questions. Questions concerning the medium, the limits of the medium, the limits of the self.” I read it and I remember I was left thinking: Why a stroke? Who’s historically named this often rough and abrupt and unmeasured gesture a stroke? How can a movement almost instinctive or primitive be seen or uttered as something as tender and motherly and loving?
Yet, in this new body of work bringing together a series of paintings and other works, words and sounds, Tomadaki enacts the essence of the “stroke”. There’s something in her recent patterns, once figurative, currently broken, faded or willfully fainted, sharpened and darkened and paused, that was born through and by touch.
And through this exact touch, its pains or pleasures or both, she navigates us through her questions on limit. Her touch traces the idea or the connotations of that feared and fearless line in multiple and vexed ways. Her works speaks of hesitation and chaos, they grasp the gasp, follow the chasm, intensify when shielded, show and shine when safe. The limits of her medium extend following the rhythms of her self. The bodily gesture turns into a promise, a fractured yet performative engagement with a series of subversions and other schemes seemingly contradictory.
In this new body of work presented in her solo show “Aaaaa,aa”, Tomadaki creates a world, an omniverse where she can compulsively destroy what was once delimited or bounded, only to let it grow. And within such a process, she resists time and exceeds space; she fails the image as a whole, obeys to the impositions of her ruins. She gets lost and stubbornly occupies this space in between the real and the speculative, the haptic and the dreamy.
Vernaculars and screams and whispers, urban and other landscapes, diaristic elements, spirits, animals and woods and wounds, birds and their voices in high-pitched volumes, they all co-exist in her work. Nothing’s too frivolous to be excluded, nothing’s too precious to be praised either. Relics and dirty wipes, pinks and blacks, spiderwebs or the spectrum of light, the tensions between them all, non-defined and peripheral, form what will be brought to the center of attention.
In “Aaaaa,aa” breaths are intrinsic parts of an alternative vocabulary, supporting mechanisms are vessels for resisting the body’s restraints and images escape the structure of an internal or external depiction, allowing us audiences to become with our meanings, spiralities, freedoms. And over this constantly alternating or fighting states between the tamed and the disruptive, things find another order, a limitless, unending point where the lyrical exist only through the breaks of cacophony.
Ioanna Gerakidi
SOMETHING HOLDS ME
21/03-16/04/25
Billy Klotsa's solo show
cur. by A- - -Z
The exhibition reimagines the myth of Icarus, transforming it into a meditation on power dynamics, desire, loss and hope. Through th4e interplay of film and painting, Klotsa invites us to contemplate our own desires, our own fears and our own capacity for resilience. It is a testament to the enduring power of hope, even in the face of profound loss and a poignant reminder that the pursuit of freedom and love is a journey worth undertaking, no matter the cost. The works presented in the screening explore the ideas of loss, transformations, embracing darkness and light.
with a special ShowReel, Prayer for the Rain, throughout the exhibition feat:
Babeworld x Utopian Realism, Jordan Baseman, Tarek Lakhrissi, Marios Stamatis, Iria Vrettou
Αγριά
04/05/25
All day interactive project by Maria Konti
curatorial response by Ioanna Grakidi
Agria is a continuation of a series of interactive projects that I started in 2006. During the interaction, the goal is to share with the viewers/visitors, a series of paintings that, for various reasons, have been archived in my studio. During this particular interaction, I will share the paintings that I created while in individual or group Art Psychotherapy sessions from 2013 to 2020. This specific period of time corresponds to my training as an art psychotherapist. In the Agria interactive project, I wish to activate practices related to the cultural perspective of care while also proposing a political and feminist discourse into the work of art as an object that carries messages and symbols {...}
Maria Konti
" There's something about Agria that goes beyond the word's prominent meaning. It starts with its accentuation , which subverts the ways we speak the raw, the primitive, the instinctive. It all feels as if the name is an euphemism for something once uneven, yet currently tamed or smoothed. The effect of time on memories and smells, on spaces and conducts is what this project partially brings to the forefront. {...} Agria is project about being willfully wild whilst boundless affectionate, a gesture animating the politics and poetics of being wounded and healed and in their forever in-betweens."
Ioanna Gertakidi
05/06-29/06
BITING MY OWN FRIENDS
Solo show of Barba Dee
curated by Barba Dee & Isavella Kladaki
In the exhibition BITING MY OWN FRIENDS, the presented works were originally created within the framework of the Peramo Project,-that is, works produced by Barba Dee in a collective process. These works are now revisited and recontextualised by the artist,scaled down to reflect his current reality. Once large in scale, created as parts of a broader collective work, they are now transferred into smaller formats. From expansive wall surfaces where they engaged in dialogue with works by other artists, they now exist independently, framed, self-contained. Here we notice a reversal: whereas an artist usually begins with a small scale draft and moves to a larger piece, Barba Dee does the opposite- scaling down from the large to the small "so that they remain", as he states. This reflectsconscious decision to preserve something - traces of the ephimeral nature the collective process. A testimony- each work being one such proof- that it once existed.
Isavella Kladaki
08.05.12.16.
25/09/25 -12/10/25
solo show of Eliza Krikoni
curated by Elli Leventaki
How does danger look? Does it make a sound? Does it have a smell? Can you touch it?
For each person, the answers to these questions are different, shaping the lens through which they approach and experience this particular exhibition.
In the project 08.05.12.16., Eliza Krikoni focuses on the notion of danger, the need to call for help, and possible mechanisms of survival, intertwining her roles as a visual artist and performer. In the exhibition, all information is encoded from the very title, while the works themselves are activated and completed through audience interaction.
The body, sound, and narration hold both symbolic and essential roles in the individual works, inviting visitors to engage with them in order to explore the messages they carry and to confront the emotions they evoke. The instructions provided for decoding the visual, tactile, and sonic messages are intentionally schematic, referring to the immediacy and non-verbal signals used to communicate emergency situations at sea.
In this way, the exhibition presents works in which the element of danger is ever-present, through a tragicomic lens, reflecting the need for communication and the search for help—one that is often neither visible nor clearly expressed, but may instead be concealed behind the most unexpected or vivid persona.
Come closer and break the codes of communication!
Elli Leventaki
PLEASURE & DISOBEDIENCE II
19-21/12/25
curated by Sofia Kouloukouri & Alexios Seilopoulos
CYPHER welcomes, for the second consecutive year, *PLEASURE & DISOBEDIENCE*, a three-day film program that explores 100 years of resistance, pleasure, and desire through the lens of women and queer filmmakers. Following the success of its first edition, this year’s program returns from December 19 to 21, 2025, with an even broader thematic focus, centering on queer spaces—whether private or public—that emerge as both literal and metaphorical stages for viewing.
Whether these spaces are interior, such as the safe shelter sought by Eve Harrington in "Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers" and the sacred sites that allow the women of "Transit" to undergo bodily transformation; or exterior, like the streets occupied by *FIREFLIES* and Betty as cars speed past them—these spaces, safe or not, are often tied to performance. The performers in "SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS" are exposed on stage under harsh lights, seen by an absent audience. Meanwhile, the character in "Sore Throat" hides within queer bars in the Philippines, existing only through sound, while the characters in "MONSTERA" express their eroticism locked indoors, like animals in captivity.
A sense of rupture and deep loneliness seems to define the contours of this performance. The characters, however radiant and seductive, remain estranged. Like the iconic Sie in "Ticket of No Return", wandering through West Berlin drinking herself into oblivion-a kind of erasure that Betty also seeks as she works the streets, one block after another, one man after another, admitting that all she truly wants is to be loved for who she is. A search not unlike that expressed by many Black men in "Tongues Untied", who feel marginalized both within a homophobic Black community and within a white gay subculture poisoned by racism.
The eccentric, outrageous, and electrifying existences of these characters should not be mistaken for mere resilience. Their lives constitute an authentic and multifaceted form of resistance against a frequently harsh reality marked by intensified violence-economic, legislative, and social. Their performances are not simply a means of attracting attention, but an attempt to redirect it toward a much broader issue.
Sofia Kouloukouri & Alexios Seilopoulos
BLAME US
19/02/26- 29/03/26
Solo exhibition of Nabil Aniss
curated by Eva Vaslamatzi
BLAME US unfolds as a synchronized video installation across the gallery’s three levels, creating an immersive experience. For the first time, Aniss presents a site-specific montage on five screens, composed of excerpts from previous works alongside footage that has not been used before. The exhibition functions as an idiosyncratic retrospective of his research and of the themes that have preoccupied him in recent years.
At the core of Aniss’s practice lies the human and non-human body, and the rituals to which it is subjected or to which it subjects itself; specifically, the trance tradition of Jebda, encountered in mystical brotherhoods in Morocco, and particularly in Meknes, the artist’s city of origin. Through archival footage, alongside his own contemporary recordings or choreographed reenactments, Aniss traces the genealogy and significance of these rituals, deliberately distancing them from the constraints of a Western gaze.
Concepts such as ecstasy and catharsis give way to processes in which violence, exhaustion, and pain function as intermediate stages toward transformation. Through a choreographed and disciplined system, the individual body becomes a collective organ. The historical depth of these traditions-dating back to the 12th century and linked to practices of resistance and insubordination by enslaved bodies against hegemonic forms of power-intersects with the present moment, which seeks alternative systems of knowledge and justice in the codes and symbols of the past.
Eva Vaslamatzi
