ATHENS PRINTMAKING ART CENTER – PANDOLFINI & SIATERLI C.N.P.P. presents the international printmaking exhibition ID-ENTITIES: Imprints of personal data with works of Greek and international artists, at the ETCH INK art space from 9 May until 7 June 2025.

Following an open call to the artistic community, ATHENS PRINTMAKING ART CENTER invited visual artists and printmakers from all over the world to critically examine the general and widespread digitisation of human interactions and the impact of personal data processing systems in human lives, through the lens of contemporary printmaking. The exhibition brings together 48 contemporary printmakers from Greece, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden, Finland, China, Vietnam, Argentina, Canada, and the USA, featuring works created with the techniques of etching, woodcut, silkscreen, linoleum, and mixed media.

Encouraging connections between printmaking and visual arts, in the context of the exhibition ID-ENTITIES: imprints of personal data, Michalis Arfaras’ sculptures are presented in the gallery space in dialogue with the print works of the exhibition, while lawyer and art critic Dimitris Sarafianos offers a conceptual framework for the theme with his theoretical text accompanying the show.

Using the language of printmaking as a vehicle, ID-ENTITIES: Imprints of personal data exhibition welcomes scenarios of resistance, fictional identities, subversive data flows, experimental profiles, creative “hacks” and improvised codes. It highlights original visual falsifications and unconventional paths of escape towards futures yet to be mapped-out, reconsidering our relationship with technology and the digital world.

The theme is inspired by the critical reflection of the writer, columnist and lawyer Francesco Carraro, who draws attention to the risks of a complete digitisation of personal information, addressing the right to remain “analog”, i.e. not to be fully and irrevocably digitized in regards to identity and profiling. A compulsory digitisation of human relationships is synonymous with ultimate control over all aspects of life. It also heralds a future of humanity regulated and guided in directions over which people have no authority or impact. Likewise, it means that society is being subjected to increasingly intrusive systems of control over the privacy of citizens, to the extent that they also even run the risk of being erased or “deactivated” by the same System at a single click of the mouse.

Where are personal data collected, how are they distributed, who are they shared with and how do they eventually determine our identities, our choices and decisions? Is it possible that art can outsmart the system? Could it constitute a source of resistance against the predetermined objectives and decisions of automated systems and softwares?

Artists renegotiate the notions of democracy, privacy, freedom and identity through their own scenarios of resistance. The works illustrate a critical stance on the problematic parameters and risks associated with an information-based society, data diffusion, technology and the digitalisation of identity and human life. The artistic proposals depart from the personal profile to extend beyond the surface of the screen, encompassing wider quests guided by imagination and ellipticity, invoking the mystery of the universe, relativity and infinity as ways of navigating in the present and the future to come.

Participating artists:

Mirela Adam, Theodoti Aggelaki, Andrianos Angelopoulos, Lenia Beltsou, Michele Bernardini, Eleni Chamakou, Sofia Charoni,  COM.ODD.OR, Bernhard Cociancig, Sonia Cumerlato, Cécilia D’Alessandro, Myrto Ferentinou, Floki Gauvry, Ella Georgiou, Beverley Hayes, Katerina Kalitsounaki, Marializa Kambi, Magda Karampournioti, Vani Koronaki, Vassiliki Koskiniotou, Janne Laine, Peter de Leur, Ariadna Abadal Lloret, Rodica Lomnãşan, Miao Ma, Thanos Magoulas, Julia Maj, Dimitrios Mallios, Monique Martin, Michela Mascarucci, Jonathan McFadden, Lena Mitsolidou, Olga Monachou, Iz Nettere, Thy Nguyen, Maria Panagiotou, Hanna Popruha, Panos Pristouris, Efi Seitanidou, Stathis Sotirchos, Christina Stathopoulou, Marietta Stoumpi, Marie Theofilou, Giorgos Tselios, Jocelyn Tsui, Stella Vardaki, Prokopis Violakis, Maryam Zomorodian.

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ETCH INK art space

Argyroupoleos 16, Lycabettus, 114 71, Athens

Opening

Friday 9th May 2025, 6:30pm – 10:30pm

Duration

9  May – 7 June 2025

Opening days & hours

Wednesday – Thursday – Friday 17.00 – 21.00 & Saturday 11.00 – 15.00

Info | [email protected] | www.athens-printmaking.com