“In the cherry blossom’s shade there’s no such thing as a stranger.” ― Kobayashi Issa

Adonis Volanakis meets the audience on a blind date for an experiential, participatory artistic workshop. Blind Date balances as a methodology between artistic social practices and the relatively recent developing qualitative Art-Based Research. The artistic research with tools of interdisciplinarity, collaboration and dialogue, participation and emerging experience, engages the audience and maybe transforms the participants, the communities as a kind of gentle social acupuncture. In 2006 Blind Date started as a research platform based on the collaboration of an alternating group of artists with groups coming from the fields of other arts / sciences or other countries. Blind Date is a meeting with the Other(s). The rationale is based on the creative partnership of people who begin from a different starting point but share the will for synergy and are curious. The projects are completed with a public presentation of the process and the works with activities, sculptural-audio-visual installations, performances, photography. From the beginning in 2006, until today, Blind Date has changed shape, duration, places, connections with communities and results; from visual art exhibitions, performances in the public space, meetings with newly newcomers from war zones, locals, and so forth.

by Adonis Volanakis Artist/Assistant Professor, Fine Arts Dep./Cyprus University of Technology