Its main objectives are to organize and curate events such as exhibitions, workshops, residencies, performances and other happenings through experimental and interdisciplinary protocols, to bring together teams of artists, writers and researchers by facilitating collaborations, and to weave new communities by actively interacting and working with and for the contexts in which it operates.
FOREIGN VESSELS is a curatorial platform based in Athens, Greece, initiated by artist and curator Marika Konstantinidou in 2021.
Its starting point is the form of the vessel as a carrying device and a locus of exchange, hosting, moving, migrating, mixing, fermenting, breaking down and getting back together again. It takes its name from the etymological translation of the greek word for hotel : ΞΕΝΟ ΔΟΧΕΙΟ, meaning a vessel for foreigners, or more literally, a foreign vessel.
Foreign Vessels' first action took place on the island of Crete and the city of Chania, by a team of three artists (Ilse Van Roy, Marie De Bruyn & Marika Konstantinidou) working with glassblowing, one of the first human techniques giving birth to the shape of the vessel through breathing.
Today, Foreign Vessels remains active as a digital platform, presenting works online and working on new upcoming physical projects.