ATLANTROPA X, by Klitsa Antoniou, explores a 1920s project by a German architect that proposed the partial draining of the Mediterranean to form a supercontinent. Here the artist hovers between past and contemporary conditions, of surviving displacement and discontinuity amid conflict, migrations within the current context of fluid topographies and challenged expectations.
“Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari suggest that the sea is a ‘smooth space’ a ‘space of emotions more than properties’. (598)
Antoniou’s work invites the visitor to participate in the emotions of the sea, and offers an embodied, affectual and immersive experience to the lives of those who traversed the shores of the Mediterranean from East to the West and South to North. The traumatic experiences of the refugees who fled conflict and destruction are not however objectified or sentimentalised. On the contrary, the visitor is invited through empathy rather than sympathy to witness their experiences. Antoniou’s own lived experience of becoming a refugee at the age five and witnessing and experiencing the trauma of war has informed her artistic production.’’
Klitsa Antoniou a multidisciplinary artist educated at Wimbledon School of Art and St. Martin’s School of Art and Design London (B.F.A.), Pratt Institute (M.F.A.), New York University, USA (D.A. Program), and Cyprus University of Technology (PhD). As an artist, she has exhibited in major museums and art galleries worldwide. She has been an artist-in-residence in many countries and participated in numerous workshops and seminars. In 2019 she represented Malta at Venice Biennale with the work Atlantropa-X. Her work has been exhibited in Herzliya Museum, Israel; Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid; Palais du Rhin/Drac Alsace, Strasbourg; Arte Contemporanea Pinerolo, Torino; Sandström Andersson Gallery, Sweden; Exhibit Gallery, London; Antrepo, Istanbul; Espace Commines Paris; Pulchri Studio, Hague; Macedonian Museum, Thessaloniki; Wonderland Lotte Square, Quanzhou, China; Bozar Expo, Belgium; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sarajevo; Skånes konstförening, Malmö, Sweden; Petach Tikva Museum, Israel; Museum of Nanjing University of the Art, China; and The Museum of the Arts of the 20th and 21st Century, St Petersburg, Russia. She has won numerous awards. She is a Professor of Fine Arts at Cyprus University of Technology.
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