Naya Magaliou

Publication (Text, illustrations, artwork), 7 booklets, 135 × 210 mm, offset printing, screen printed covers

Designed by Else Lagerspetz, Published by Pirate Papers an imprint of Knock! Knock! Books, 2023

Work/Unwork is a compilation of texts and images that center around the theme of artistic process and labour. Comprised of seven separately bound booklets, the reader is free to engage with the different texts in whatever order they prefer.

*photos by Benedicte Thierry and Else Lagerspetz*

Duo Exhibition in Collaboration with Lotta Esko 

Yö Galleria, Helsinki, Finland & Alibi Gallery, Athens, Greece, 2024

The collaborative project investigates the histories and symbolisms of bananas. It delves deep into the context provided by the common and oversaturated symbol of the fruit through large-scale paintings on found cardboard and large sculptures by Lotta Esko carved from found materials. Fruits, Unite! asks questions about why we consume tropical fruit in the West and how we view bananas in popular culture.

*photos by Shubhangi Singh, Kush Badwar, Thomas Samaras, Valia Kehagia*

Performance, 45 mins

The Poem Returns as an Echo: Dialogues with Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982), curated by Caterina Stamou, ISET Contemporary Greek Art Institute, National Gallery Alexandros Soutsos Museum, 2024

The performative reading explores intercultural and diasporic experiences, which are in many ways intangible and unclassifiable. Personal and political events are discussed from the perspective of bodily awareness and self-knowledge. Intergenerational and gendered trauma, political and socio-economic contexts, as well as potential future behaviors are stored somewhere within our bodies, digested like food in the intestines.

*videography by Georgia Bardi and Konstantinos Karamaghiolis*

Series of posters, spray paint on paper and post-it notes, 32x45cm and 7,5x7,5cm respectively

Poster Exhibition, group exhibition and closing event of the Decolonizing Salon work group, curated by Aktina Stathaki, 1927 Art Space, Athens, Greece

Deriving from a research into contemporary colonial financial policies; politicians, CEOs and businessmen who have participated in the privatization of Greek lands and resources are depicted in order to put names and faces to this regime.

Solo Curatorial Project (Group exhibition, artist micro-residency & film and television program Vent Space Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia, 2023

(Participating Artists: Xenia Joost, Naya Magaliou, Saara Mahbouba, Anselm Oja, Elisa Margot Winters)

What does the exposition of artistic labour look like, as opposed to the exhibition of artistic product? Can You See Work? (iii) was an invitation to think about what galleries are typically used for: the exhibition of results. Five artists worked in VENT Space and showed fragments of their processes. We invited members of the public to visit the space in order to co-work, watch films/tv and have discussions.

Collaborative curatorial project with Shubhangi Singh, Group exhibition and student action Väre Building, Terrace Gallery, Otaniemi, Finland, 2019

(Participating artists: Paola Jalili, Samra Sabanovic, Sami Juhani Rekola, Reishab Kailey, Sofia Pyykkö, Zuza Buchowska and Saara Mahbouba, Emma Clear and Lisa Rein who worked as artists-in-residence in the exhibition space)

Through diverse practices and through the process of sustained engagement, the works exhibited within the gallery explored the relationship between space and labour. The chosen works took on both the form of completed artwork and that of short-term residencies in the gallery space itself, in order to occupy and document artworking, in a space that doesn’t typically reveal processes in a public way.

*photos by Shubhangi Singh*

Performative lecture, colour video and live reading, 20mins

Peripheries in Parallax: Brave New Peripheries Conference, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland, 2021

The focus on process, in a world where results are king, can be a marginal choice. It is a departure from the results-oriented proposals of capitalism, neoliberalism, and -isms. In this work I offered a peripheral utopian sketch. I took an audience on a virtual lockdown walk, collaging imagery and expressing the thoughts that came up. I discussed ways to live in incompleteness and ongoing-ness, presenting work and unwork; the constant non-labour and non-leisure in the home-studio, the kitchen-table studio, the home-office.

Collaboration with Shubhangi Singh

Performative lecture, video and live reading, 15mins

The Best Fears of Our Life Seminar and Slow Academy Conference, Kauppakeskus Redi and Loukko Center of Subcultures, Helsinki, Finland, 2019

In the performance, we journied through failing, failures and faults. We viewed them as subversive acts within production machinations. By looking at failures as sometimes being the wrench in the proverbial system, Fault Lines proposed the need to investigate the leap made between simply slowing down and being deemed an abject failure and what the social implications of this failure are.

*photos by Sheung Yiu*

Mixed media installation, dimensions variable

Solo exhibition, Alibi Gallery, Athens, Greece, 2018

With the use of handmade large-scale stamps, the installation repeats the phrase I urge you to steal this object, examining issues of monetary value in the cultural industry and proposes that theft, whether metaphorical or not, can serve as a criterion for good art. Influenced by the writing of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the idea of high and low forms of art is challenged.

*photos by Elias Politis*

Mixed media installation, dimensions variable

Group exhibition What Are We Now?, Beta Space Gallery, Aalto University, Otaniemi, Finland, 2019

Notes ii included a series of prints, sketches, notes and carved linoleum. The artworks included imagery and phrases based the theme of artistic process and its transparent presentation within the final art object. Words such as structure, reproduction and subtraction as well as grid formations and repetitive line formations heavily featured.

*photos by Sheung Yiu

Mixed media project, gold leaf and acrylics on paper, 38x51cm & 45x51cm, pvc print on paper, 60x80cm (inner dimensions) and pvc print on cotton, 60x80cm (inner dimensions)
Partially exhibited in Community Auction I, The Breeder
Athens, Greece, 2019-ongoing

This series of prints and mixed media works on paper were produced as accompanying material for for the Masters Thesis Project: Iterations and moments of Work and Unwork: Some Thoughts and Some Images. Based on explanatory sketches found in philosophy books, these works showcase squares, grids and certain natural shapes such as a snake eating it's tail or an ameoba eating a human.  
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​*Photos by Elias Politis and Sheung Yiu

Stamp, 1sqm, stencils, 21x30cm and vinyl flooring, 20sqm
Participating artist in Art Athina with Alibi Gallery, Athens Conservatory, Athens, Greece, 2018

Commissioned for the Art Athina Art Fair by Alibi Gallery in 2018. A 1sqm stamp was used to stamp the temporary vinyl flooring of the booth and read: THIS UTTERANCE IS UNTRANSLATABLE AND PRICELESS. THIS UTTERANCE IS CHEAP. Three stencils on post-it notes were encased in double-sided glass and placed by the stanp. Texts such as: AT THE SUPERMARKET 1+1 FREE IS NEVER A GIFT. YOU PAY FOR IT SOMEHOW. and UNTRANSLATABLE UNSUSTAINABLE UNATTAINABLE CHEAP were carved into the small stecils and added to the themes of the works; values within written language in the art field.  

Installation (paint on paper, ink on paper, ink on recycled cotton), dimensions variable
Presented at the experimental group exhibition and artist' micro-residency Can You See Work? (iii), Vent Space Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia, 2022

A series of experimental artworks made during residency at VENT Space Gallery in Tallinn Estonia. Ink drawings of squares and rectangles and tweets about art as well as marbling on cotton were arranged in various grid formations in the space. The artworks reflected the experience of working in that space alongside the other participating artists.

Mixed media outdoor installation, gold leaf, gold paint, survival blanket & found materials, dimensions variable & video documentation, 8.27mins, colour  
Artistic intervention, Floating Peripheries Conference, University of Lapland
​Birdwatching tower, Rovaniemi, Finland, 2019

Collaboration with Adrian McGrath
Cement sculpture, 180x90cm
Images, Tropes and Narratives: Sharing Control, group exhibition at Marek Gallery Wolkesdorf, Austria, 2018
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​*Photos by Sheung Yiu  

Collaboration with Else Lagerspetz and Paopla Jalili as the D.U. Collective
Inkjet print series, A4
Images, Tropes and Narratives: Sharing Control, group exhibition at Marek Gallery
​Wolkesdorf, Austria, 2018
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*​Photos by Sheung Yiu

Collaboration with Else Lagerspetz and Paola Jalili as the D.U. Collective
Digitally printed poster, 153,4x102,6cm 
Mainostauko (Ad Break), outdoor poster exhibition by Street Art Vaanta
Urban Vaanta, Finland
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*Photo by ©Street Art Vaanta

Plastic paint on wall, 120x100cm
​Private commission, Glyfada, Greece, 2019
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*​Photos by Elena Bura 

Painting Series, acrylics on paper, A3
​Come Together...Right Now..., group exhibition at Alibi Gallery, Athens, Greece, 2020

Six photographs, A6
Produced as part of bachelor degree dissertation: ​Body of Writing. A Critical Study of Two Text Based Performances: Their Unique Use of the Word and the Dynamic Employment of the Body as Canvas, DJCAD, Dundee, Scotland, 2015

Projection mapping installation, projector, plexi glass, dimensions variable PROJECTile group Exhibition at Cooper Gallery Project Space, Cooper Gallery, Dundee, Scotland, 2016 
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​*Photos by Jacquetta Clark

Mixed media Installation, dimensions variable
Emerging Talent BA Student Degree Show, DJCAD, Dundee, Scotland, 2016