I/O has been the main producer and Dutch partner in this large-scale adventurous residency, fully funded and supported by Onassis Culture & Onassis Stegi. The Margaroni Residency (2022-2023) was initiated and directed by Thanasis Deligiannis and Yannis Michalopoulos (Onassis Culture Fellows / Onassis AiR), who assembled a team to explore the potential of recomposing the world of the Greek countryside’s musical culture.

photo credit: Thanos Tsantas

Thanasis and Yannis, together with their team, roamed the countryside recording, interviewing and filming musicians, sound engineers, farmers, dancers and members of the public, churches and public squares, rural and industrial landscapes – all part of the agricultural culture that brings to life the Greek traditional feast known as the panighíri.

The residency takes its title from the legendary singer Kiki Margaroni, whose voice proved to be as inspiring as it was moving, bringing tears to both the two directors and the people who testified in numerous interviews, remembering her voice in the panighíria of the 70s and 80s.

// A brief story of the Margaroni Residency //

The field recordings (July-August 2022)
Working primarily in Thessaly (Central Greece) and Xirómero (Western Greece), the team visited and recorded various panighíria, as well as agricultural fields. The car journeys – by day and well into the night – became a world of their own, worth documenting. About 40 interviews were conducted.

photo credits: 1-4 & 6 Thanasis Deligiannis / 5 Yorgos Kyvernitis

The two directors gathered all material into a studio in Athens, provided by Onassis Stegi – the residency’s headquarters – filled with maps, books, notes, hard drives with video and audio footage, and a growing digital collection of 3D scanned objects.

photo credits: 1-2 Thanasis Deligiannis

Workshop A | Legaki building (November-December 2022)
The Onassis Stegi offered one of its temporarily unused spaces to host the next phase of the residency: a crucial stage of artistic testing, using the fieldwork experience, the documented material (audio, video, transcribed texts), musicians and raw materials in place of scenography, as well being in a dialogue with invited artistic consultants. The workshop took place in the Legaki building in Athens, a 2.000 m². industrial space awaiting renovation. After a month of testing and a round-table on the challenges of a transdisciplinary creative processes, a private tryout took place on November 27th: a two-hour, peripatetic experience throughout the entire building. The tryout was repeated for professionals and programmers on December 11th.

photo credits: 1, 3, 5, 8 Pinelopi Gerasimou / 2, 4, 7 Yorgos Kyvernitis / 6 Thanasis Deligiannis

Workshop B | Ydras building (April-May 2023)
After additional countryside trips during carnival season, and a month of desk-based work at Onassis Stegi building, the second workshop began at the Ydras building – a multi-level, vacant ex-shoe factory in Athens. The entire research was re-composed across the building’s many floors. Some material was reconfigured, while new material was introduced – only a fraction of the gigabytes hibernating in our hard drives. The workshop culminated in a final private tryout on May 28th: another two-hour peripatetic experience with performative elements woven throughout the 2.000 m² complex.

photo credits: Pinelopi Gerasimou

Presentation at the Onassis AiR Open Days & Workshop for professionals (October 2023)
After the summer of 2023, when Thanasis and Yannis revisited most of the residency’s fieldwork locations, they were invited to present the residency to the Onassis AiR community during the Open Day of October 20th. A two-day workshop for professional artists followed, diving into the research themes and sharing artistic tools and outcomes.

A way to the Venice Biennale 2024
During the second phase of the residency (March-May 2023), Thanasis and Yannis began discussions with Onassis Stegi and visual arts professionals about the potential of proposing their work as Greece’s national participation at the Venice Art Biennale. After extensive research into format, team, and curatorial narrative, an application was submitted to the Greek Ministry of Culture – adapting the residency’s outcomes into an immersive installation for the Greek Pavilion in the Giardini, under the title Xirómero/Dryland. The result was announced in late July 2023: the application was selected by the national committee. Xirómero/Dryland have been presented at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, from April to November 2024, and has been among the most praised pavilions by both public and critics.

The Margaroni Residency workforce
Thanasis Deligiannis & Yannis Michalopoulos – directors
Elia Kalogianni, Yorgos Kyvernitis, Kostas Chaikalis, Fotini Papachristopoulou – artistic collaborators
Natasa Tsakiridou, Lina Alatzidou, Dafni Nikolaou, Christina Kemanetzidou – singers
Spyros Rakis Nikolaou – clarinet, Yannis Zarias, Christos Dalianis – violin, Dimitris Tigkas – double bass, Stamatis Passopoulos – keyboard
Sofia Karakantza, Miranda Terzopoulou, Tasos Koukoutas, Jeph Vanger – artistic consultants
Stavros Nikolakopoulos – technical director
Konstantinos Margkas – lighting engineer
Danai Belosinof – production assistant for I/O

Production companies in Greece collaborated with I/O
Lefou productions (Legaki workshop)
TooFarEast (Ydras workshop)

An enormous thank-you to Onassis Stegi, their amazing crew, and the Onassis AiR team.

Links
Onassis AiR | Margaroni Residengy
Thanasis Deligiannis | Margaroni Residency
Onassis AiR | Workshop
Lifo | article on the residency and its connection to the Venice Biennale work [in Greek]