The Project
WHISTLE project
What is visual art? What would it be like to tell a story that evolves in space and time? A story that invites the viewer to participate creatively, to experience all its parts, to discover, to question and to give its personal shape to the final conclusion. What if a story didn't have just one ending? Is there democracy in the art world? How does modern man deal with the inexplicable? How is the metaphysical translated through different cultures and beliefs?
Using the magic of cinema, as a starting point, WHISTLE PROJECT invites us to experience "visual art" in a slightly different way, putting us in a world of ideal views, dark stories, art and creation. A utopia...
A story never told...
Once upon a time… an idea was born in the mind of a romantic filmmaker. His name, Thanasis. Thanasis assembled a small team of creatives who believed in the same idea and they all started work together. Their source of inspiration, the love for cinema and folklore. Specifically, the strange beliefs of Greek culture. Superstitions, ghosts, demons…
The old myth says that if you dare to whistle at night, evil demons will take your voice...
Talking about demons and past beliefs might be cool and exciting but there are also other elements incorporated inside this story. Elements that have a direct connection with the real world…
Beneath the lines, the real theme of this dark and ghostly story, lies in the question: is there democracy in the art world? The question is nothing new. It has been around for many years, almost centuries, yet it remains relevant and still a taboo subject. Something that is better left unmentioned. And there are several reasons for this. The most important of them, fear.
Fear is a basic human emotion that manifests itself through the concept of need. Need for more material goods, need for recognition, status, power, money. As the needs grow, so does the fear within us. The fear of losing what we have gained and by extension a person is deprived of his most precious right.
Freedom...
The work acts as a metaphor, between the imaginary: the belief in the voice lost when someone whistles after midnight, and the non-imaginary: the creative voice of an artist, lost under the prejudices of the art world.
In its entirety, the story communicates a message with which viewers from all over the world can identify with, since both the topic of superstitions and the topic of being heard as an artist in todays art-world are popular discussion topics, in many countries and cultures.
The idea, after an open call, attracted the interest of many artists from all over the world. These artists contributed to its development, submitting works with their own interpretations. Free and without interference. Some followed in the footsteps of the original story and others did not…
WHISTLE project in numbers
50 independent artists
Ayshia Taskin (Intermedia, Performance Artist, Scotland), Sara Garcia Delgado (Collage Artist, Spain), Victor Melistas (Illustrator, Greece), Georgia Aeraki (Painter, Greece), Zuzanna Kledzik (Illustrator, Poland), Konstantinos Xanthis (Sculptor, Greece), Melina Pena (Action Artist, Mexico), Shreya Suraj (Painter, India), Esra Açar (Visual Artist, Turkey), Eleni Kessisoglou (Mixed Media, Greece), Maria Bilbili (Painter, Greece), Allie Beer (Painter , USA), Evi Amnioti (Painter, Greece), Danyor Nevsta (Video Art, Bulgaria), Giorgos Tsouguzidis (Sculptor, Greece), Anna Maria Kasprzak (Illustrator, Spain), Lesli Bell (Painter, Australia), Natasha Heliotis (Sculptor , Greece), Catherine Vitebsky (Sculptor, England), Radosveta Zhelyazkova (Painter, Bulgaria), Dorrine Nasri (Painter, Tunisia), Evan Lawrence (Illustrator, Indonesia), Lita Poliakova (Illustrator, Germany), Catherine Vitebsky (Sculptor, England ), Helle Rask Crawford (Sculptor, Denmark), Jennifer Wester (Visual Artist, USA), Ala Leresteux (Visual Artist, Lithuania), Ali Poswal (Painter, Pakistan), Valia Lolidou (Photographer, Greece), Jana Danilovic (Street Artist , Serbia), Julija Rukanskaite (Collage Artist, Lithuania), Korina Papafragou (Painter, Greece), Lita Poliakova (Collage Artist, Russia), Marievi Mastoraki (Graphic Design, Greece), Unaiza Ismail (Video Art, Pakistan), Maria Papantoniou (Painter, Greece), Uttaran De (Photographer, India), Sebastian Jimenez Galindo (Video Artist, Mexico), Elena Stamatogianni (Artist, Greece), Diego Bernaschina (Graphic Designer, Chile), Eva Merendes (Illustrator, Greece), Angelos Mergies (Visual Artist, Greece), Desire Betty (Painter, Canada), Asna Mubashra (Painter, Pakistan), Tina Reizi (Photographer, Greece), Yang Shen (Video Artist, Taiwan), Seeta Muller (Video Artist, New Zealand) , Patrick Matthews (Painter, England), Muberra Bulbul (Mixed Media, Turkey), Svetlana Serikova (Illustrator, Russia), Charmaine de Heij (Photographer, Netherlands).
25 countries
Greece, Russia, Spain, India, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Germany, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, USA, Turkey, Denmark, Mexico, Pakistan, Chile, England, Scotland, Israel, Bulgaria, Canada, Netherlands, Tunisia, Indonesia , Serbia.
105 projects
22 Illustrations, 10 Video Art, 6 sculptures, 5 performances, 9 sketches, 7 collages, 44 paintings, 10 photographic works, 5 mini documentaries and a short film. In addition, many of the above projects have been converted into digital animations, acquiring a new dimension.
10 visual arts
Cinema, Painting, Sculpture, Video Art, Performance, Sketch, Illustration, Photography, Graphic Design, Documentary, Mixed Media.
What is the message of Whistle?
The message of Whistle is not one. Its translations are many and work on many levels. Thus, each "viewer" will receive different messages, depending on his/hers personal experiences.
For us, Whistle is...
A story that talks about superstitions, demons and the fear that lives inside us.
A story about what the art of the image is.
A story about the art world establishment.
A story about how one reality can hide multiple meanings.
A story about cooperation. Sociability and extroversion in art.
A story about female creativity (75% of the project's contributors are women).
A story about the power of many ideas.
A story about utopia…