Artist’s Information – Agathi Tsoroni

Agathi is a practicing visual artist and art educator from Greece, who has lived and worked in the West Midlands for the past 5 years. Originally a studio painter, Agathi has expanded her art practice into the public realm after having worked on a public art commission in 2001 for Coventry City Centre’s regeneration project. She has done projects in the UK and Greece, as well as in Paris, France. Agathi has worked with a large number of communities including, amongst others, Bangladeshi women groups, an Afro Caribbean club, Sikh communities and the Greek Cypriot communities of Birmingham and Coventry.

Relevant Exhibitions/Projects Include:

‘The Future Monument’ and ‘The Public Bench’ (2001 – 2004)

Two major works of public art as part of Coventry’s regeneration project, The Phoenix Initiative. Agathi worked for two years with internationally renowned Paris-based public artist Jochen Gerz to create In the course of three years, 50,000 people took part in the two projects.

Live/Work Spaces Research Project (2005)

Within walking distance of West Bromwich town centre, a dirty, disused space was transformed into a vibrant and inviting community resource, funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Agathi worked on the ‘outreach’ strand of the project, where local communities and organisations were contacted and invited to take part in Live/Work; and as a supporting artist developing project ideas for Live/Work with two groups (Bethel Christian Youth Group, and Hidden Talents Young Bangladeshi Men),as well as facilitating workshops that took place at the Unit.

The Big Chilli (2005 – 2006)

As the lead artist, Agathi is working with two groups of Bangladeshi Women to explore issues
around Bangladeshi food culture, myths, and cultural inclusion in the Greets Green area of West Bromwich. A DVD showing the process of the project, and the final work, will be produced in Summer 2006.

Unwrapped (2006)

Visual work that is involved with painting, time and memory, making visible the process of the creation of each of her paintings. Agathi’s work is about frequency and repetition; the process of creating her work depends on her taking one photo every day. Drawing her inspiration from Muybridge’s ‘Animal Locomotion’ series, Agathi uses mixed media in order to expose the process of her work.
Group show at the Custard Factory, Birmingham