Vouvoula SKOURA was born in Thessaloniki, Greece.

She studied Graphic Arts at the Athens Technology Institute [A.T.I.].

She lived in London, during the Greek dictatorship. She attended courses in Art History [1970] and a graduate course in computer graphics for video in Middlesex Polytechnic [1988].

For many years she has been involved with experimental multimedia photographic techniques.

Her works in Film and Video have been presented in more than fifty cities, in international festivals and several universities.

The films “Inner Migration” (1984) and “Skoria Fotos” (1989) were both commended at the Drama Short Film Festival, Greece.

Her video “Black Moon” took First Prize at the Athens Video Art Competition, 1998.

The Greek Graphic Designers Association awarded her its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.

“ETEL ADNAN Words in exile” (2008) won the Greek Film Centre Award at the 10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

The Greek Graphic Designers Association awarded her its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.

[...] Everyone over hereʼs desperate to get to the other side, And everyone over there wants to come here. Which gives the city this passion. [...]

Niki Marangou «NICOSSIENSES»

Niki showed me her house somewhere in the walled city. The waves have eaten away at a wall, the windows gape, and I try to ʻstealʼ a shot. Ammochostos wasnʼt teeming with people like Beirut with its bombed-out houses in 2006. It was a dream city in the light of day; an impalpable, unexpectedly solitary, singular city. Thatʼs how I think I saw the city, and thatʼs how I want to remember it: As unexpectedly solitary. Which is why I record it on video without dramatization as simply and as close to Niki Marangouʼs poem “No manʼs land” as I can.

So the experience of this journey, the shots of the Green Line, the language of the poems all prompted an ʻanarchicʼ depiction. The images are spread out or hemmed in, sometimes repeated sometimes not in changing open and closed forms. In varying colours. And this subverts the reading, even as it seems to be illustrating the text. Solitude is the dominant viewpoint. It subverts linear interpretations of history, because nothing can be taken for granted.

The austere ʻinstallationʼ in the bathhouse—a clear allusion to the East—will create a landscape-reference to war. A clear reference to the wars: Cyprus For Instance to paraphrase Heiner Müller . Entrenched, the TV screen, like the trenches, will allow—or, rather, force—viewers to think beyond the obvious... At least, thatʼs where I want them to venture... beyond the obvious.[ ... ]

V.S. November 2012

Translation: Michael Eleftheriou

Videos:

Water on Table (2010)

Windows in cities (2009)

Vouvoula Skoura in youtube

ETEL ADNAN Words in Exile / trailer [2008]

THE FOUR STAGES OF CRUELTY [2008]

IN MEMORY OF… [2008-2012]