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Since 2009 the artist collective Medea Electronique has organized annually a 10-day experimental artist residency, Koumaria, near Sparta in Greece, focusing on improvisation and new media practices. Avant-garde artists from all over the world, inspired by the Greek natural landscape, come together to create a multicultural and cross-media ‘dialogue’ culminating in a collective presentation in Athens at the end of the residency.

The goal of the residency is the creation of an educational experience for the participants that will inspire and exalt their future work. The cross-cultural dialogues that the residency engenders both create new artistic speculations and smelt older assumptions. Past residents have formed lasting friendships and new artistic partnerships. Medea Electronique, being an eclectic art collective, is interested in people from diverse cultural and artistic backgrounds. For us the residency serves as a model for future creative endeavors.

 

MedeaElectronique 

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Koumaria: Improvising Across Boundaries in New Media Art and Community, traces the history and development of the Koumaria Arts Residency via interviews, performance footage, animation and in situ footage. Run by the Athens-based new media art collective Medea Electronique, the annual Koumaria residency draws an international group of new media artists to an isolated olive oil farm in Southern Greece for the creation of collective cross-arts projects grounded in an improvisatory philosophy. This film documents the artistic, social and personal aspects of the residency, exploring how community forms around the creation of new media art.

View full production credits here.

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The goal of the residency is the creation of an educational experience for the participants that will inspire and exalt their future work

Nature

In an old olive grove artists are detached from their everyday activities to: Our remote and beautiful location allows you to detach from your everyday routines and focus on artistic creation.

Organic Food

The food at the residency is produced from organically grown vegetables grown on our land, and nearby farms.

Breathtaking Views

The surrounding hills, mountains, villages and the not too distant sea, coupled with a vast expanse of sky, stars, and ever-changing mountain vistas, afford the residents amble space and opportunity for creative work.

A Lifetime Experience

The cross-cultural dialogues that the residency engenders both create new artistic speculations and smelt older assumptions. Past residents have formed lasting friendships and new artistic partnerships. For us the residency serves as a model for future creative endeavors.

1. Open Call

Read carefully the open call and find out if this residency meets your artistic expectations.

2. Read rules and regulations

Please read carefully about what we do and don’t provide as well as our regulations.

3. Koumaria FAQ

Frequently asked questions can be found here.

HOW TO APPLY

Apply to the Residency

We are MedeaElectronique

Comprised of a collective formed in 2006 in Athens, Greece, inspired by a play on words between Medea and Media. Comprising of a wide range of individual artists working collectively under the Medea Electronique name, we share a predisposition for innovation in the performing arts.

 

Learn more about MedeaElectronique

168
Participating Residents (since 2009)
100
Projects Initiated (since 2009)
20
Live events (since 2009)

Marili Pizarro
(Puerto Rico)

Dancer Performer, 2015

Robert Jedrzejewski

Improviser, 2022

Koumaria residents

Read more about previous residents to Koumaria.

Find information about their art projects and links to their works

Click here to see the complete list of past residents.

Meeting experimental artists that question and re-evaluate their work and their position towards technology, the Koumaria experience made me grasp into the sensitivity and curiosities of a group of diverse and vibrant artists and expand my interests and artistic horizons and my attitude towards a mature yet brutal way of dealing with experimentation.

Ioanna PaunKoumaria 2010 resident

The olive factory for me was an immediate inspiration even from the outdoor first meeting at the very first day of the residency. Walking by the big door outside made me want to “play” and reshape my body and movement according to the door and environment, and according to the light that was shadowing the door in an interesting way the moment I passed there. All this made me very curious realizing how they responded and what they thought and felt about all the happenings that were making this old factory so much alive.

Thanks for the experience and memories!

Nirit RegaviKoumaria 2014 resident

During Koumaria residency a collaborative community has been created among resident artists, the members of Medea Electronique collective and the people of Selassia village. The overall experience has been rewarding offering a chance to meet great people and places, share experiences and knowledge, to collaborate with professionals from various disciplines and to develop interesting projects.

Katerina AndonopoulouKoumaria 2014 resident

Koumaria 2014 in the village of Sellasia (Greece) was a wonderful experience for 10 days with artists from different artistic fields and countries, from the sound or video to sculpture or performance. There is very easy to develop a project in a matter of days, either by the ease in which other artists are involved in the project, or simply because the place inspires and offers a new sphere for each of us. Koumaria 2014 was a residence of friends, of people interested and responsible with the field of art; willing to work and create a warm atmosphere for inspiration.

Alfredo PechuanKoumaria 2014 resident

The Koumaria residency was a unique opportunity to connect with a very different way of working. The communal nature of the residency opened me to examine how and why I create music. Not only did I play music, explore the Mad Scientist Machine conducting software I have created with the musicians and program custom software for them, I also picked olives and nettles, ate the most fantastic meals from food gathered from the area, and drank Ouzo.

Stefan SmulovichKoumaria 2010 resident

I’ve been along for the ride with the residency since the beginning – not on the planning and organization side, that is, just on the turning up and joining in. All of the different visits have blurred into one now, and to a surprising extent the creative work each time has become intermingled in my memory, so I’m not sure exactly what happened one year and what happened in a different year.

Tim WardMedeaelectronique Member and frequent resident

My experiences from this residency are unique, as I have never before lived in such a situation, surrounded by so many creative artists. In every residency new relationships are being formed and new art is created. Art that is on one hand ephemeral, as the pieces created might not see another performance, but on the other hand permanent, as it influences one's artistic overall output.

Alex DrymonitisMedeaelectronique Member and Organiser

To wake up, see the mountains, stroll through the olive groves, only to perhaps find yourself playing trumpet while being videoed for part of an improvised play, itself animated and then forming part of a video projection, or perhaps a graphic score, is a way of opening yourself up to the new, the contingent, the unknown.

Eric LewisMedeaelectronique Member and organiser

Observing from a distance can sometimes be a very clarifying and rewarding experience. In the couple of days I was there, I watched the dynamics of the Koumaria Residency change multiple times, which I won't go into because it would take too long, and perhaps you just had to be there.

Delaney StockleyKoumaria Visitor 2011

The residency reinforced my beliefs that sound, light & art are mediums for entrainment of the mind, body & collective energy.

Gaynor OflynnKoumaria 2010 resident

Get ready for a unique experience

This is not an ordinary artist residency