How do we develop agency and awareness of our own presence?
What stays with us?
we want to be safe, not brave in the streets
// arts based research
“We want to be safe, not brave in the streets” is a slogan painted on the walls of Athens.
Sometimes it appears torn apart from layers of paint; other times it is freshly repainted. Yet each time I see it, I feel it as a reminder of where I stand and where I am heading. It gives me strength, and at times, hope.
This arts based research focuses on people’s healing processes in relation to gender-based violence events in the public space. In addition, the project aims to develop practices that help affected people reclaim presence in public spaces.
To reclaim public space, I believe it is essential to develop different knowledge systems and vocabularies that allow us to make sense of what we have experienced and how we have learned to navigate it. The methodology guiding this research includes mapping, storytelling and narration, and Participatory Action Research (PAR). My theoretical framework draws inspiration from feminist geographies, trauma and resilience practices, healing practices, decolonizing theories, and critical pedagogies.
I began this research in the Netherlands, where I co-organized and co-facilitated two workshops exploring the feeling of safety in public space and how art methods can support healing. The workshops took place in Utrecht in January and February 2026. Their titles were: “Masks of Anger & Reclaiming Space” with Danique Waarle, and “Safe(r) Bodies: A space for FLINTA+ to explore embodied practices of safety and agency in public spaces” with Clem Mondot and Kai Hazelwood.
In the second phase, I continued the research in Tangier, Morocco. There, I organized and facilitated mapping and embroidery workshops, which took place at Darna’s Women’s House.
Across these two phases—shaped by distinct cultural and social contexts—I tried to understand how artistic practices can contribute to healing for people affected by gender-based violence in public spaces. I observed both similarities and differences in the outcomes of the workshops. I also created the booklet, “What Makes Us Women?”, aiming to connect these experiences and, through that connection, raise awareness of GBV in public spaces.
This research was made possible with the support of:
Consultation and tutoring: Sabina Mikelic
Proof reading: Berend Bombarius, Dana Wait
With the contributions of: Association Darna (Tangier)
Clem Mondot, Danique Waarle, Habiba Bouzerda
Hajar Wardy, Hanae Seddiki, Houda Boudkik
Imane Ouazni, Kai Hazelwood, Malika Chentouf
participants of the workshops (anonymised)
The zine printing shop at the Cinematheque Rif
The project concludes a three-month artisteducator residency in Tangier, carried out within the framework of the International Master Artisteducator (iMAE) program at ArtEZ University of the Arts, in collaboration with the Darna Association (Tangier), and supported by the educational, research, and dissemination activities of the UNESCO Chair’s Centre for Arts and Learning (UCAL).
see here
Project Description
Our Love Began Here, and Here It Will End is a music theatre piece for an 8-speaker surround setup, two performers, and a video projection.
Transforming the stage into a bedroom in Athens, it invites the audience to become part of the unfolding narrative. Surrounded by action and sound, the audience experiences a music composition in an unusual setup. Inspired by a protest sign in Athens that read, ‘We are not all here, the murdered are missing’, the piece addresses the rising number of femicides (gender-related crimes) in recent years—a troubling phenomenon that has received significantly more attention during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. At the heart of this journey is the story of a missing woman—a ‘love story’, a song of grief. The title, Our Love Began Here, and Here It Will End, comes from a handwritten note found in the home of a 56-year-old man who murdered his wife, Anna, in September 2022 in Kavala, Greece.
2025/ 05
Our Love Began Here, and Here It Will End*
work in progress
Dimitra Sofroniou: concept, composition
Vasilia Sofroniou: concept, visual artist
Aurelie van de Walle Koczuk: scenography, light design
Elias Klark: movement director
Gyuhyeong Yoo: performer
Christina Zaka: performer
Dimitra Sofroniou was nominated with the 3PackageDeal 2026–2027 from the Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst.
Selected Installations
I consider my practice as having a collaborative and diverse nature, because I often work with composers, choreographers, writers and performers.
In my work, I frequently incorporate organic and inorganic materials, combining them with literary and poetic passages, which together weave my process.
My background as a visual artist means that within my evolving practice on installation, the screen is always present.
Film becomes both material and medium, through which the conceptual realisation of my work takes shape and form.
Printing & Embroidery on fabric, 80×90 cm
Photos A3,
fabric to be embroided, Installation view/ photos taken from Katerina Markoulaki
During the exhibition, visitors were invited to embroider the second fabric using the children’s drawings created during the workshop. In addition, a table with clay and step-by-step instructions was available, encouraging visitors to make talismans and gift them to the people they hold in their hearts and want to protect.
2026/ 05
A talisman for the children
& the Earth
ENTOPOLOGIO at Anafi,2026
in collaboration with Anaffif
Starting from the creative workshop in which children from Anáfi, aged 4–8, participated, with the theme “Talisman of the Earth,” the first thread of this work was born.
During the workshop, the children were asked to depict Anáfi’s map, to recall their favorite places, paths, and routes.
From these memories and records, the embroidery began.
In the work, the rebuilding of the place happens through the composition of the children’s imprints and the crossing of the threads.
The thread takes on a symbolic character; it becomes a carrier of the complexity of the relationships and stories of those who were, those who are, and those who will continue to be bound to the place of Anáfi
Project Description
The sound piece is based on greek moiroloia (laments)
which are lyrical songs of a mournful and laudatory
character that express sorrow and pain at the death
of a loved one.
This audio visual installation wants to draw attention
to the ongoing femicides.
2024/ 11
No Number
with original music by Dimitra & AEZ.
The work serves as a tribute to those who are not
here anymore,
those whose bodies were claimed by someone else
those that media has killed over and over again
those
whose bodies were repeatedly dismantled
The caretakers and the wives
the lovely sisters and beloved friends
the sex workers and the girlfriends
the witches and the cursed.
Those who live next door
those who we will never forget.
2024/05
What is Left
Project Description
Based on Ariana Harwich's
text 'Kill, Love', the artwork examines the boundaries between sacrifice and
self-determination in a love relationship and what is ultimately left when you give yourself completely.
Earth, water and fire are elements that could be read differently but in this piece they become the ingredients in the process of healing and nourishment.
Every time he fucks me
I blink
And it’s like cutting down a tree.
I look at him staring at me and I know I’m gonna puke in the woods.
I look at him and I know I’ll have beak, claws, bird plumage.
I’m talking loud, I’m drooling, I’m still cute.
I seek to belong to him.
I give him my skull, scraped off.
Take it.
I give him my brain.
I give him my stretched skin. Pull it.
I give him my eyelids, I don’t care if I lose them.
Let my eyes dry with a blink, I don’t care if I lose them
I fall on the side of the road
I fall apart and they offer me a glass of water.
ART DIRECTION
ASTRO
ASTRO was conceptualised in 2019, with the aim of documenting through art the complex relationship migrating people have with the idea of home.
ASTRO is an archive of people’s experiences of a home away from home and the documentation of those experiences through artistic practices. Its aim is twofold:
Firstly, ASTRO is looking to collect and showcase creative works around the subjects it studies such as: Home as Origin or Choice, Identities (Physical or Mental) in Relation to the ones Homeland, Migratory Localities and other similar themes but also other themes from this discipline, in order to create a substantial archive that can be used to examine the subject and contribute to the ongoing dialogue.
Secondly, it hopes to create a space, both digital and physical, where creatives, whose work is concerned with similar themes, can connect through workshops, talks, events and online or physical exhibitions.
Poster & Logo created by Kanella Petropoulou.
You can find more of our work here.
Project Description
I am this body/ this rupture came about as a result of our collective’s Intimate Collaboration series.
Through this series, ASTRO invites artists to work, expand, and explore a specific theme related to their practice through close collaboration with us.
2024
I am this body/this rapture*
Using Maddi Fuente Ubani’s work as a starting point, we began exploring:
What is memory if not a form of survival?
We wanted to understand the relationship between memory and identity and how these are preserved and expressed through physical and emotional means.
Text by: Raisa Desypri
Concept/ Design: Vasilia So
The whole text and the documentation of the exhibition you can check here.
Project Description
Care is a tangible thing.
Care is everything that is done,
rather than everything that we do,
to maintain, continue and repair the world;
so we can all live in it as well as possible.
2023
OBJECTS OF CARE
Collapsing the distinction
between human and non-human,
practice and experience, self and nature, care is the core of our world.
Both material and immaterial.
The collected artists’ work examines the theme of how care relates to the tangible, exploring the physical as a means to demonstrate the conceptual.
In this group show, even the purely visual evokes a sense of contact.
The artworks are in search
of how the haptic, sensory, embodied knowledge of caring and being cared for, is demonstrated within our lives
through experiences of touch; being “touched by” or “getting in touch” with something human or inhuman.
Text by: Raisa Desypri
Concept/ Design: Vasilia So
Poster Layout: Kanella Petropoulou
The whole text and the documentation of the exhibition you can check here.