Ioannis Pavlatos
I am a curator and public sound artist, focusing on sound and gender in a socially engaged practice. I have completed an MA in Public Art, a BA Hons in Sonic Arts (1st Class Hons), and a BA in Drama & Theatre Studies.
I am currently working in a collective as a curator @AMOQA, and as an activist/organiser/artist @Avelo Space and produce two queer radio programs; Queerphonie on SoundArt radio UK and Cruel Optimism on Cannibalradio Greece. I am also volunteering on the curatorial board for the Aphrodite Feminist Queer Film Festival 2019 and with the LGBTQIA++ Welcome Refugee group. For the Reshape program, I wish address two of the topics that directly connect to my practice. How to encourage understanding of and promote the value of art in social fabric? How can art better support practising citizenship together?
These questions focus upon how social art practice can reshape citizenship forms that are very much LGBTQIA++ issues of inclusion and exclusion. These questions also manifest theoretically in queer frameworks, moving towards questioning our critical understanding of the performativity of gender in citizenship. Through addressing these questions I also suggest to develop and build upon queer discourses that rethink normative socially engaged frameworks of audience building and identity boundaries.
Examples of the gendered subject in citizenship, and queer as a method of deconstructing and rethinking the value of art making can be found in my activist art projects such as Rockumenta and Gender Panic (Avelospace) and my radiophonic work on Cruel Optimism (Cannibalradio Athens) & Queer Temporalities (SoundArt radio UK). These are strong examples of socially engaged practice that challenges normative identity frameworks and are subjects which I wish to explore and develop through the Reshape project.