Description
Edition print of 40 by Spyros Rennt for ‘SECCMA Trade: Details of Love’, a project curated Kostas Stasinopoulos organized by SECCMA Trust, with all profits in support of Emantes – International Lgbtqia+ Solidarity.
Spyros Rennt lives and works between Athens and Berlin. His photographic work documents queer sexuality and the rave subculture through a personal lens. He has published two photographic books, Another Excess (2018) and Lust Surrender (2020). He has exhibited his work in group shows in Europe and the US, in spaces like the Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin, 2019) and the Schwules Museum (Berlin, 2021). His work has been featured in publications worldwide, such as BUTT Magazine, Interview, i-D, Dazed, Sleek, Indie and LAMPOON, among others. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Emantes – International Lgbtqia+ Solidarity is a Social Cooperative Enterprise based in Athens, Greece, that was founded in July 2018 by experienced volunteers in the LGBTQIA+ refugee field as well as in feminist and/or queer groups. Some of the founding members were refugees/asylum seekers at the time. Emantes’ mission is twofold. On the one hand, they provide direct or indirect psychosocial support to LGBTQIA+ refugees/asylum seekers. On the other hand, they raise awareness on the issues the LGBTQIA+ refugee/migrant community faces, by highlighting the multiple repressions posed by its dual identity and its invisibility within the general refugee/migrant population. Emantes means “we” in kaliarda, the slang used by homosexuals in Greece during the 1940s, in order to safely communicate with one another. In modern Greek, “imantes” means straps, which to Emantes are a symbol of solidarity. Straps can lift or hold together very heavy objects. So, in a way, Emantes understand and envision solidarity through diversity and adversity, a connection with “others” in the most unlikely combinations.
SECCMA Trust is a creative venture of SERAPIS that aims to form an alliance supporting the growth and expansion of contemporary art locally and internationally.