at the Beach 2

The videos “at the Beach 2” were shot during my summer holidays in Crete and Athens. Composed of interviews by three LGBTQI parents and a video shot by five-year-old German tourist Sophie Stapels, the work refers to notions of parenthood and childhood, family configurations and relational politics.

The starting point of the work is the question of how and where does a LGBTQI parent spend their holidays with their children. The answers and the questions further risen revolve around the prevailing conceptualizations of motherhood and fatherhood, society’s exclusion and inclusion mechanisms and the family structures -biological or not- of LGBTQI couples in a social and legal context. Considering tourism as a normative factor of summer holidays, I create a frame for rethinking “different parenthood” as a matrix where roles and identities become subjects of open and constant negotiation.

The idea for the second video of the installation, shot in its entirety by a five-year-old child, came about when I started filming a German family on holidays in the beach of Sougia in Crete, while I was there on vacation myself. Having already filmed children for that same work in various tourist destinations, I decided to give my camera over Sophie. In the context of a conceptual research and process of experimentation regarding the ambiguous power structures of the camera as a recording mechanism, and the respective positions of the observed and the observer, I attempt to indicate the shift taking place when a child stops being the “object” of filming and becomes the observer operating a camera.

  • Eva Giannakopoulou
    Director
  • Eva Giannakopoulou
    Producer
  • Anna A.
    Key Cast
  • Xarhs Scocozza
    Key Cast
  • Stella Belia
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    27 minutes 37 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 30, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    450 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Greece
  • Country of Filming:
    Greece
  • Language:
    Modern Greek (1453-)
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital, 1920×1080 px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • The Symptom Projects, the symptom 8
    Amfissa
    Greece
    October 21, 2017
    European Premiere
  • The Same River Twice, Benaki Museum
    Athens
    Greece
    June 20, 2019
Director Biography - Eva Giannakopoulou

Eva Giannakopoulou, grew up in Ithaca, Greece and she is currently residing in Athens where she works. In the past she has lived in Naples, Barcelona, Istanbul, Berlin and in other places depending on the circumstances.
She has performed and exhibited in museums, institutions, galleries, festivals, impromptu stages and other public or unconventional sites in Greece, Mexico, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey and Serbia including Material Art Fair (Mexico City, 2017), Benaki Museum, Athens (The Same River Twice, 2019 and The Equilibrists, 2016, organised by the New Museum, New York and the DESTE Foundation), Athens Biennale 2018: ANTI and Athens Biennale 2015-2017 OMONOIA (2016), Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin (solo show, 2015), MPA-B, Berlin (2015 and 2014), Excentricités 3 and 6 Performance Festival, Besançon (2015 and 2012), Action Field KODRA, Thessaloniki (2012), 3rd Art Biennale MIET, Thessaloniki (2011).
She has studied History of Art in Italy, Fine Arts in Greece and was recipient of IKY (State Scholarships Foundation) and Vikatos scholarships for her Masters "Space Strategies" at the Art Academy Weiβensee, Berlin, graduating in 2015 with honours under A. Creischer, A. Siekmann and K. Wildner.
She has co-curated and co-organised art projects and performative events, while in 2013-2014, she was a co-labourer of the MPA-B (Month of Performance Art, Berlin).
Eva was member of TWIXTlab, a space operating in-between, art, anthropology and the everyday.
In January 2019 she co-founds Most Mechanics Are Crooks, an artistic and curatorial band that aims to reclaim insincerity as a tool of progressive discourse.

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Director Statement

Using the camera as a bodily extended observational tool, I have experimented with different artistic practices as performances, installations, films, participatory acts and projects. With my work, I seek to explore and capture the complexities and subtleties of the “visual ethics”, whilst reflecting upon notions of gazing, observation, participation and instincts.
Being driven by my interest in social anthropology and politics, I have carried out fieldworks focusing on female, queer and motherhood representations, in relation to radical ideologies, observational methods and tactics. This dimension many times led me to a symmetrical reversal of questions aimed at my position on this, but also to experiential and transgressive participatory forms during the fieldwork.
My research based performances and projects include interventions in intercultural frameworks, public spaces, and secluded communities. In such context, I often explore what happens when particular groups of affinity or persons with unusual interests, vocations and hobbies, are displaced or de-contextualized in institutional or cultural events.