Utopia [just around the corner?]

A drift for three performes and silent walkers

With Geert Vermeire

A group of walkers move in a flow along the now invisible Ilissos river banks in Athens, with no other intention then to get lost, with a book, inspired by Thomas More's, but containing only one word, Utopia, and in a format that challenges the very idea of a book.

It is a book that resembles a walk, it is not linear, it opens from different angles, it has pages folded in pages, you can open and browse through it in different directions, actually it is not a book to be read, it is a book to be shared spontaneously between the different silent walkers, carried around and to be opened on places that come towards the walker, symbolically opening the places, inviting to read the place, the walker and the moment in which he stands.

The walks go along with a walking score with drawings and text, retracing the walks.

A silent walking performance by Geert Vermeire, conceived on the "Utopia" book by Stefaan van Biesen, together forming an artistic walking duo since 2001 developing in a collaborative practice called the Milena principle.

As a duo of walkers, they invite guest artists and the public to perform with them in a continuous series of walking performances in contemporary cities around the world. (https://youtu.be/fEHXmCPh-a8)

Geert VERMEIRE

Curator, artist and writer, working and living between Greece, Portugal and Belgium, with as main field an artistic practice focused on the performative, mixed reality and social practices, with the body in public space, community involvement and ethical involvement of cultural action as key elements. His writing activity meets with immersive formats of arts and extends to an interdisciplinary and artistic research involving walking, stimulating creative collaborations among others between choreographers, sound artists, new media artists, architects and writers.