Joanna Bacas, Socrates Stamatatos
EVA (Evil Vibrant Astute) 2.0

Exhibition
14 May–15 June 2025
Aksioma | Project Space, Ljubljana

Opening
WED, 14 May at 7 PM

Part of Tactics&Practice #16: Are You A Software Update?
Curated by Nora O’ Murchú, Socrates Stamatatos, Janez Fakin Janša, Neja Berger

The biblical story of “the Fall” mirrors the lore of Pandora’s Box. In Greek mythology, Pandora, the first woman, was entrusted with a box she was forbidden to open. However, her curiosity compelled her to do so, unleashing all the world’s evils—sorrow, disease, and death—into existence. Only Hope remained inside, offering some comfort to humanity amid the suffering.

A common experience among femme and queer subjects in our society is a cycle of brutal disenchantment of reality and the journey—often involving multiple identity crises—to the reenchantment of life. For these subjects, to acquire knowledge means deconstructing centuries of oppressive systems, only to end up with a dark void. This void, often portrayed as a dark trance, is captured in many memes like those at #girlcore, where knowledge and the act of knowing is usually akin to an act of violence, a loss of innocence.

In their multimedia exhibition EVA (Evil Vibrant Astute) 2.0, Joanna Bacas and Socrates Stamatatos invite you to a playdate. The large-scale installation is both a city–similar to the playsets of our childhood–and something that resembles the inner structure of a machine–like a motherboard. Within this peculiar city, visitors can interact with a network built specifically for the project. Using it, they can exchange theory and media on topics like girlhood, feminism, re-enchantment and technology, to name just a few.

The artists invite visitors to crouch down and play as they did when they were children. Recalling memories of endless games and countless imaginary worlds, they can understand how fantasy and magic played an integral part in their early enchantment with life and the world.

EVA 2.0 is the closing exhibition of tactics&practice #16. Aligning with its themes, it aims at expanding on the idea of action in order to counteract oppressive systems. How can re-enchantment foster environments for collective action? How can fantasy and escapism act as tools for synergy and for visualizing more equitable and bright futures?

THE AUTHORS

Joanna Bacas is a transdisciplinary artist based in Berlin. She holds a diploma in Fine Arts/Sculpture from Weissensee Academy of Art Berlin. Her practice spans ceramics, jewelry, poetry, and illustration, exploring identity, agency, sensuality, and resistance through a queer feminist lens. Beyond critiquing oppressive systems, her work envisions utopian alternatives and reclaims the body as a site of healing and empowerment. She has exhibited internationally, including at HGW STD, Milan Jewelry Week, Budapest Jewelry Week, and Schwules Museum Berlin, and recently contributed to a symposium at Die Angewandte on digital constructions of girlhood. Her makeup design work has appeared in Vogue, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, and productions at the National Theater of Greece and Berlin Fashion Week.

Socrates Stamatatos is an independent curator and transdisciplinary artist based in Athens. Their curatorial, artistic and theoretical pursuits engage deeply with the queer experience and the philosophy of caring, focusing on the empowerment of marginalized communities through the use of digital technologies for connectivity and community building. They hold a BA in Theory and History of Arts. They have shown their work and contributions of various disciplines independently and in collaboration with a variety of art and cultural institutions, including Institute of Network Cultures, panke.gallery, HGW Std., Onassis ONX/AiR, die Angewandte, and State of Concept. They are also a Culture Moves Europe fellow.

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