Letters from a Front

Letters from a Front

With commissioned works by:
Christodoulos Panayiotou (presented from August 25 – August 31)
Bik van der Pol (presented from September 1 – September 7)
Claire Fontaine (presented from September 8 – September 14)

Curated by: Stephanie Bertrand and Lydia Chatziiakovou

August 25 – September 14, 2008

Action Field Kodra, 8th edition
Former military camp Kodra, Kalamaria (Thessaloniki, Greece)


Presented within the framework of the 8th edition of Action Field Kodra, "Letters from a Front" is a billboard project that has been conceived to bridge the gap between the actual site of the contemporary art festival and the municipality of Kalamaria that hosts it every year. Specifically built for the project on the highest point of the abandoned military base, the billboard frame faces the municipality so that its content occupies the local community's public sphere while drawing upon the particular history and politics of the site.

The project borrows its title from the wartime expression 'letters from the front', which refers to the messages that soldiers stationed on the front lines sent home to those in waiting, disquietly following the battle from a safe distance. It acknowledges the historical significance of Kodra, which has alternatively served as an active military base and a refugee camp, while recognizing its current use as a temporary site of artistic production by playing upon the outdated notion of the avant-guarde. Shifting the original expression from "the front" to "a front", the title phonetically implies 'affront' or conflict, and suggests that Kodra is but one among many sites of creative production engaged in questioning socio-political distribution.

The artists Claire Fontaine, Christodoulos Panayiotou and Bik van der Pol have been specially commissioned to produce a work for the billboard. Presented sequentially over a period of three weeks, each work will individually occupy the loaded conjunction between Kodra and the residential municipality of Kalamaria, which has emerged as a result of early twentieth century conflicts following the demise of the Ottoman Empire.