Phoenix Athens Gallery and Residency is the brainchild of artist and founder Dimitri Yin. 

 

The idea for Phoenix Athens started in 2004 in a small village in Cyprus called Lemba at the Cyprus College of Art. After submitting countless applications to residency programs and being rejected from nearly every single one of them, Yin’s tutor advised him to create his own residency. Fast-forward to 2018 after 9 years of living and working in France and 2 more years in London. Yin is now in his early forties and has just completed his MFA at the Wimbledon College of Art. He has just made several trips to Athens and realises just how much his romanticized view of Classical Greece and his experience as a diasporic Greek artist needs a top-up so starting in October 2017, he creates Phoenix Athens Gallery and Residency. 

 

The project aims are straightforward. Provide visiting international artists and the community of Athens with a mutually beneficial experience. On one hand the artist  is exposed to modern Greek culture, while Athenian society on the other has the opportunity to learn from the experiences, practice and knowledge of artists from outside of Greece. All of this in real time, while the artists are at their peak and while they are in Greece. The residency is therefore christened, so to speak, as The Villa Exarchia. A way to address the importance of the overlooked gem, the untold experience, and the value of underdog communities and creative individuals who may not necessarily qualify to study in Rome. 

 

Yin who participated in residencies in America, the UK and Europe, realised how detrimental it is that many of these projects are not [sufficiently] administered by artists. Phoenix Athens is different. The model for the residency is about community within the city, human connections between creatives, and the fine-tuning of craft or skilling. The residency programme is also designed to be more inclusive, offering incentives to young artists and historically disadvantaged artists of color.