About me

When Verb becomes NOUN

Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki is a visual artist and educator whose practice explores everyday rituals—both personal and communal—to reveal the dense, complex, and vulnerable intersections of history. Her work, much like the mycelial threads beneath a forest floor, connects unseen histories and raises questions rather than offering conclusions.

Positioning herself within a space of polyphonic dialectics, she develops her practice as a living score, script, or invitation—composed through shared reflections with those she encounters, human and nonhuman alike, with the lands she traverses, and through her own poetic insights. Understanding herself as an amalgam of histories, she continuously investigates her genealogy.

Her focus lies in her neighborhood, Nea Ionia, established after the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and shaped by the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey. Today, it remains a community continuously formed by successive waves of migration. Within this context, Sifostratoudaki concentrates on women’s lives—their roles as community builders and their practices of care and healing.

Walking through history via her own lineage, her artistic research becomes a space of unlearning, rest, sharing, and reflection. Her focus on the micro-scale of locality provides a point of balance from which she traces cross-cultural histories.

Her practice activates mechanisms of curiosity by constructing new perceptual environments through spatial and performative interventions, notes, and gestures. Processes of (self-)observation, everyday experience, and classification—understood as forms of comparison, quotation, and movement—become means of generating meaning and connection.

Through plastic gestures, fluid materialities, poetic improvisations, and choreographies, and by drawing on interdisciplinary tools from anthropology, architecture, and philosophy, she creates clusters of events that trigger energetic processes and foster polyphonic collaborations. These include long-term projects such as Yellow Brick, which extend and enrich her aesthetic and political perspectives.

Founder and curator of Yellow Brick (since 2016) and member of Mouries Collective (since 2020)

CURRENT AND UPCOMING PROJECTS

2026 – Ririka, Portraits, Episode One
Yellow Brick, Athens, GR
The Portraits series begins with Ririka, an elderly hotel owner in southern Crete. Each episode focuses on a woman from a remote place, exploring her life, work, care practices, and role within the community. The films conclude with a short poetic score, revealing the artist’s process of learning to listen.

2026 – Le petit Salon, 1st Edition
Festival of Collectives of Collectives, Yellow Brick, Athens, GR
Initiated and curated by the artist, Le petit Salon is inspired by women’s circles—public or domestic spaces of exchange—where cooking, nurturing, philosophy, gossip, poetry, and crafts unfold as practices of community-building, knowledge-making, and collective imagination.

2025–2026 – Weaving Hydro-feminist Paths of the Unfamiliar Athens: Nea Ionia, Eastern Thrace, Cappadocia

With the support of the Greek Ministry of Culture, TR/GR

A cross-disciplinary research and art project initiated by Yellow Brick in collaboration with NTIZEZA (Athens) and the University of Cappadocia (Mustafapaşa, formerly Sinasos). The project traces the migratory routes of women from Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace, and Cappadocia to contemporary Athens, focusing on memory, care, and belonging. Through fieldwork, interviews, and workshops across the three regions, it explores how stories of displacement and coexistence shape today’s urban and social fabric.

2025 – History and Memory: Artistic and Archival Approaches through the Archive of the Prokopieion

Curated by the artist, supported by the Greek Ministry of Culture, GR

This project invites artists and community members to engage with archives as living narratives of collective and personal identity. The archive includes refugee registration books, correspondence with the Greek state and the Refugee Settlement Commission, rare Karamanlidika publications, legal documents, photographs, and heirlooms.

2025 – The Gardens of Nea Ionia (in process)
In collaboration with the Municipality of Nea Ionia, GR

An open invitation to residents of all ages and cultural backgrounds in Nea Ionia to engage with nature, strengthen social bonds, and reimagine belonging. The project envisions a living, community-led garden that fosters connection and offers a shared, vibrant public space.

2026 – Welcome Bread Meetings: Bread and Charcoal
Incolaboration by G. Kotretsos, The Telos Society, Athens, GR

A series of bread-making workshops in neighborhoods across Athens, exploring how everyday acts can create caring communities and engage with history. In collaboration with local restaurants and bakeries, participants learn recipes from diverse regions and cultural origins. The workshops blur the boundaries between the intellectual and the everyday, nurturing dialogue through shared practice.

2024–Ongoing – VAHA Round III – Kilim Hub Athens
An initiative of Anadolu Kültür and zusa

Kilim Hub fosters inclusive public dialogue by amplifying the herstories of displaced women through interdisciplinary artistic practices. Engaging local and migrant communities in workshops, shared meals, embodied memory practices, and collaborative storytelling, it creates participatory spaces for care, reflection, and dialogue. The activities challenge dominant narratives of belonging and explore identity as a shared, evolving process. The project will culminate in a publication serving as a creative and educational tool to strengthen solidarity and deepen understanding of cultural transformation in Athens.

Ongoing – Healing Exercises: Inherited and Emerging Women’s Knowledges for Collective Learning and Interspecies Connections

By Mouries Collective, supported by Necessity Network, Athens, GR

Responding to the eco-social crisis, this program reclaims women’s healing practices as tools for interspecies connection and collective learning. Through workshops, rituals, walks, dinners, and collective encounters, the project explores healing as both relational and political. Practices such as mourning, movement, fortune-telling, and voice become modes of inquiry and connection. A film and publication will document the process, sharing alternative methodologies that challenge anthropocentrism and cultivate more-than-human solidarity.

Ongoing – Writing Commission: The GOAT PoL (Geopolitical Open Atlas of the Polity of Literature)

Musagetes Foundation, Canada
Contributing writer to an ongoing collective project mapping the polity of literature—a conceptual territory formed through shared practices of writing and reading. The GOAT PoL fosters literary solidarity and invites participation in expanding the collective landscape of literature.

CV

Studies
2013 – 2015 Master of Fine Art, Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, which is part of Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam, NL (Cum Laude)
2007 – 2012 BFA in Fine Art and Art Education, Athens School of Fine Arts, GR (Merit)
2010 MA Performance Practice and Design (Socrates – Erasmus Program), Central St. Martins College, University of London, UK
1997 – 2000 Bachelors of Arts in Design (Graphic Design), Vakalo College of Art and Design – University of Derby (Second Class Honours (1st Division), GR

Scholarships
2022- 2023 Fellow of the The Gwärtler Foundation Grant
2013-2015 IKY, Greek State Scholarships Foundation, GR
2010 Socrates-Erasmus Scholarship, UK

Solo exhibitions
2017 Art Fair Rotterdam with JOEY RAMONE, Rotterdam, NL
2016 “Rocks in Stock”, JOEY RAMONE, Rotterdam, NL
2011 “Writing on time”, Central St. Martins, London, UK

Organiser and collaborations
2022 UFO.UFO #1, Visitors Programme,Level Five and Cas-co, Brussels & Leuven, Flanders Arts Institute, Belgium
2021 IMPACT JUNCTIONS21 research programme, PACT Zollverein Choreographisches Zentrum NRW, Essen, Germany
2022 STEP 31| “Traditional typography and contemporary artistic practices. Weaving typographic and social “chorographies”., Yellow Brick, Athens Gr (curator)
2021 STEP |30 ‘Integration or creation? With no running water, courtyards with music and flower beds are set up”- Relocation, settlement and production of Identities – Nea Ionia Attica 1923-2021.’,Yellow Brick, Athens Gr (curator)
2021 Roaming, Digging, Planting, Meeting, Welcoming,
3 137 | FAR – Floor Area Ratio, Athens, GR
2018 The Living Arts Project in collaboration with the artist Clare Breen, Ireland
2017 ‘Dysfunctional Organ’, Public Program of CAPACETE Athens at Circuits an Current, Athens, Gr
2016 (since) “Yellow Brick”, founder coordinator of a research space located in Nea Ionia,Athens,Attika Greece. The main subject of research of the Yellow Brick are the words Reading – Writing – Making as linguistic, special and symboling representations – www.yellowbrick.gr
2016 “FOURNOS”, collaborative artwork with Maria Tzanakou organised with the greek magazine “The baker and his work” (“O Artopoios kai h doulia tou”) in the form of a platform with guests artist and researchers, funded by Asopos Mills, Githio, Laconia, Gr
2015 Gruentaler 9, two weeks residency, “Four Pennys, One Act, First Act”, Initiated and organized by The Four Pennys Collective, Berlin, DE
2014 “Pantone Green and a Glass of Lemonade” in collaboration with Jessica Dunleavy supported by Snehta Residency and funded by British Council EUNIC, and the collaboration with the Day Centre Babel, Bhive, Athens, GR

Group exhibitions
2023 Lavreotiki art project, research project and exhibition, curated by Amalia Charikiopoulou in collaboration with Telos Society, Lavrio & Athens, greece
2022 ‘Anhtopolion’, Or.artspace, Athens, GR
2022 ‘Dysfunctional organ’, Or.artspace, Athens, GR
2021 “Rattling Frames”, on line project, by Anna Laskari
2021 Mouries, under the trees | Athens Garden Festival, Athens, GR
2018 Never Below Zero, SNEHTA, Athens, GR
2017 A series of pocket Utopias, Zone D’Utopie Temporaire part 3 curated by Alise Bonnot, Athens, Gr
2018 A field guide of getting lost, TAF Foundation, Athens, GR
2017 “Athens we have a problem”, SNEHTA, Athens, Gr
2017 “The Place in the End”, TAF / the Art Foundation, Athens, Gr
2016 “ARTIST CARDS”, Elika Gallery, Athens, GR
2016 “Subtle and Strong – Ανεπαίσθητα Δυνατό”, Old School of Kolofana, Amorgos, GR
2016 Roltrap, published by Action publishing collective, (as part of Charlois Speciaal) Maastunnel, Rotterdam,NL
2015 “High Rise”, graduation exhibition MA Fine Art, Piet Zwart Institute, curated by Maaike Gouwenberg, Rotterdam, NL
2015 “Reframe Memory”, Athens Photo Festival, Benaki Museum, curated by Ν. Stathopoulo, S. Solidaki and D.Agrafioti, Athens, GR
2015 “Alumni 2012”, Kessanlis Gallery (ASFA), curated by Christoforo Marino, Athens, GR
2014 “Pantone Green and a Glass of Lemonade” in collaboration with Jessica Dunleavy supported by Snehta Residency and funded by British Council EUNIC, and the collaboration with the Day Centre Babel, Bhive, Athens, GR
2014 “The After Party”, SARATIMTRUST, Museum Night, Rotterdam, NL
2014 “If I had it I would give it to you”, Upominki, Rotterdam, NL
2014 “The After Party”, “Museum Night”, SARATIMTRUST, Rotterdam, NL
2013 “ARTIST CARDS”, Elika Gallery, Athens, GR
2013 “ReMap 4” – KYPSELI FANZINE, Athens, GR
2013 “Arkadia 2013”, Cultural Festival of Crete, GR
2013 “3 Weeks / 3 Subjects: young perspectives on contemporary art at Margareten”, ‘Der Hundsturm bellt!’, Volks-theater, Margareten, Vienna, AUS
2013 “Arrival 6+10”, Ck Art Gallery, Cyprus
2012 “In Art”, Zina Athanassiadou Gallery, Thessaloniki, GR
2012 “Platform 20″, Contemporary Greek Art Institute (ISET), Athens, GR
2012 “Why Art Now?”, OpenShowstudio Gallery, Athens, GR
2011 “Suprise 3” – Art AZ, Technopolis, Athens, GR
2011 “No papa, No mama”, artist run space, Athens, GR
2011 “INBETWEEN” Project, ΑBOUT Gallery, Athens, GR
2010 “Egainst Moralis”, ASFA artist run space, Athens, GR
2010 “Between Filoxenia & Xenophobia, The meeting point”, European Alternatives, Athens, GR

Public Space
2016 – “For Ever Pink”, designing, making and transforming a private garden into a sculptural installation in a continuous partnership with Dymphne Dejr Joosten in a life long commitment for the sculptural installation in a garden, Rotterdam, NL
2016 “The tool” Amorgos Island, GR
2016 “Sweating Fountain”, Kralingen Botanical Garden (courtesy of the artist), Rotterdam, NL
2014 “Mirror tulips”, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, NL

Readings/Performances
2016 “Two Yeahs! Live (internet) radio project by Tor Jonsson and Ash Kilmartin”, Piet Zwart Institute and online (13/2 και 24/3) (reader)
2016 “Briliante”,”Using text as clay”Three readings of Gertrude Stein, Freehouse, a project of Jeanne van Heeswijk, International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, IABR–2016–THE NEXT ECONOMY, Rotterdam, NL
2015 “An island folded as a dry bread”, in collaboration with Upominki / Kralingen Botanical Garden / M(o)ther voices, Leeszaal West, Rotterdam, NL
2015 Convercas,Performance with Liz Allan and Clara Json Borg, Mevrouw BOK #49, Rotterdam, NL
2014 “Performative Labour-ISM”, Month of performance, ZK/U Centre for Art and Urbanistics, DE

Workshops / Participations
2018 Taxi Driver Poetry Workshop with Eva Giannakopoulou, Athens Biennial 6, ANTI-, Athens, GR
2018 ΧΟΡΟΙ ΜΑΣ/ ΧΩΡΟΙ ΜΑΣ with Kostas Tsioukas, MIR-Festival, Palas – New Star Cinema, Athens, GR
2018 THINKING VIA INSTITUTIONS (of/on ART), Athens School of Fine Art, Athens , Gr (speaker)
2017 Plateau Media n°2, Institut Français d’Athènes, Athens, Gr
2017 Les réalisateurs – Art and companies network with the artist Fabrice Hyber
2017 School of Gesture, Aneducation documenta 14, Kassel, Germany
2016 Learning from Documenta closing event, Athens Arts Observatory, two years research program, Athens, GR
2017 Learning from Documenta, Athens Arts Observatory, two years research program, Athens, GR
2017 “Appreciative Inquiry Systemic Approach”, Organisation Against Drugs (O.Ka.Na), Athens, GR
2017 “Introduction to the use and application of expressive media and experiential techniques “, Organisation Against Drugs (O.Ka.Na), Athens, GR
2016 “Program Understanding Evil”, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, NL
2015 “Speechless” a work by Bik Van der Pol, PAMM (Pérez Art Museum Miami), USA (voice performer)
2015 “Are you talking to me?’, “By burning we obtain one gram of powder”, a work by Katarina Zdjelar, Wilhelmhack Museum, Ludwigshafen, DE (performer)
2014 “Father, can you see I am burning?”, “By burning we obtain one gram of powder”, a work by Katarina Zdjelar, De Appel arts center, Amsterdam, NL (performer)
2013 “Room for us”, workshop “The grid #1” with Nicolas Paris, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, FR
2013 “The Skill Exchange Library” with Jessica Dunleavy, Snehta Artist Residence, Athens, GR
2012 Masterclass with William Kentridge, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, GR
2012 “Extra People”, workshop, Empros Occupied Theater, Athens, GR
2011 Human Jukebox Shuffle, Athens Biennial 3 – Monodrome, Athens, GR (performer)
2010 6th Universiade Theatre – Performance Festival K.E.P.A., Serres, GR
2010 “10th cycle – Modern Physics and Philosophy of religion”, Free university, Athens, GR
2010 “Reason and Memory”: Discussions on Word, University Psychiatric Hospital, Athens, GR
2010 Site Specific Performance Seminar Emilia Mpoyriti, ASFA, Athens, GR
2009 “4th Symposium of Art Therapy”, Center for Art & Psychotherapy, Crete, GR
2008 “Art and contemporary media for image and sound”, Postgraduate Music / Media & Culture Departments of University of Athens, GR
2008 “Lecture on dyslexia – Learning difficulties – Attention deficit disorder”, Pavlidis Method, Athens,GR
2005 “Museum of Children’s Art”, a year course of Art and Education, Athens,
2006 “3rd Symposium of Art Therapy”, Center for Art & Psychotherapy, Athens, GR
2002 Workshop of storytelling with Stelios Pelasgos, Half Note, Athens, GR

Residences
2018 CAPECETE residency, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2017 CAPACETE Program/ documenta14, Athens, GR
2017 Zone D’Utopie Temporaire part 3 (Z.U.T.) residency -participating as an artist and co-organiser as
Yellow Bric with SNEHTA residency, Athens, GR
2017 “CAPACETE Athens/ documneta14”,GR
2016 “Ερημία”, (Erimia), Wilderness_Amorgos Art Residency, coordinator Amalia Charikiopoulou supported by the Municipality of Amorgos Island and Ministry of Culture of Greece, Amorgos Island, GR
2011 Empros Occupied Theatre – Part of Athens Biennale Monodrome, Performance Residence with Kwstas Tsioukas and Dora Oikonomou, Athens, GR

Publications
2023 “Common Actions” project, publication and exhibition Aargauer Kunsthaus, curated by Olivia Wiederkehr, Zurick, Switzerland
2022 “Writing is drawing is writing” publishes by SPTM-Short Pieces That Move, Rotterdam, NL
2021 Rushing to documenta 14, FIELD- Journal, part of Learning with documenta
2018 Ο αέρας θα είναι πιο ταπεινός όσο πας πιο κάτω / Hubble will be the air as you go down, LETTERs and PRINTs, Yellow Brick, Athens, GR
2018 CAPACETE Athens , Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2017 READING – WRTING -MAKING ‘This text’ by Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki, VOLUMES, Independent Art Publishing Fair, Zyrick
2017 Learning from Documenta, Athens Arts Observatory, Fanzine issue one, two, three and four, GR
2017 Sifostratoudaki, Vasiliki, “Δ έλτα”, Learning from Documenta ( Oνειροκρίτης / Neiromancer, “Fanzine”, n. 2), p. 11-12, Athens, GR
2017 Sifostratoudaki, Vasiliki, Learning from Documenta ( Athens art observatory, “Fanzine”, n. 1), p. 10, Athens, GR
2016 PANTONE GREEN, Limited Edition of fourteen copies, printed and bound by Publication Studio Rotterdam, NL
2016 Amorgos news – https://www.amorgos-news.gr
2016 “Roltrap”, on line catalogue, https://actionaction.xyz/, published by Action publishing collective, Maastunnel – part of Charlois Speciaal, Rotterdam, NL
2016 “Exhibition of Contemporary art in Gythio from 1-4/8/2016”, PELOPOLITISMOS, https://pelopolitismos.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/fournos-contemporary-art-exhibition-1to4aug2016/
2016 “All About Fine Arts, FOURNOS, An Art Installation in Gythio Lakonias”, Art22 – 12/7/2016 – http://www.art22.gr
2016 “FOURNOS, An Art Installation” by Stauvroula Koukouvinou, https://roulabijoux.blogspot.gr/2016/07/fournos.html
2016 “Group Exhibition/ 45 Vassileos Georgiou str, Githio”, Matematic:TAF(The Art Foundation ) – 21/7/2016- https://theartfoundation.metamatic.gr/GR/Event/3693/FOURNOS/, GR
2016 “Asopis Mills participation in the platform FOURNOS in Gythio, Lakonias” -19/7/2016 – https://asoposmills.gr, GR
2016 “Exchibition of contemporary art Fournos” – Civilisation (Πολιτισμός), 2016 in Gythio” by Derdelakos -31/7/2016 – https://githio-click.gr/index.php/genika/politismos/2303-ekthesi-sygxronis-texnis-fournos-2016-sto-gytheio, GR
2016 “Fournos: Artistic “ferment” in Mani. Why a platform of artists “squat” a bakery in Gythion which is their for many centuries? Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki and Maria Tzanakou are explaining to us”, by Ioanna Gomouza, In2life – 1/8/2016 – https://www.in2life.gr, GR
2016 “Flour, water and art FOURNOS: something is “being cooked” in Gythio” by Adria Kalaitsidou, AthensVoice – 31/07/2016, GR
2016 IABR–2016–THE NEXT ECONOMY, https://iabr.nl/en/editie/iabr, NL
2015 “High Rise”, ed. Liz Allan, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, NL
2015 “Alcohol & Other Memories”, a publication by Petra van der Kooij, A column made of glass, p.14-15
2015 art&education, Yearbook exhibits Piet Zwart Institute and Yale School of Art – School Watch reports from Columbia School of the Arts MFA
2015 LOST PAINTERS, “Eindexamen Expositie; Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam”, article by Niek Hendrix 10/07/2015 (online)
2015 “Radio Sonne!”, “The view of the city”, published by Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy and Bauhaus – Universitat Weimar, Fakultat Medien, p.60-61, 64-65
2015 “Are you talking to me?”, in Katarina Zdjelar’s “By burning we obtain one gram of powder”, pp 93-101, Revolver Publishing, ISBN 978-3-95763-304-0
2014 “Kypseli”, Issue 6,” Kypseli Kazamias “, Fanzine, Athens, GR
2014 “Father, Can’t you See I’ m Burning?”, in Katarina Zdjelar’s “By burning we obtain one gram of powder”, pp. 29-36, De Appel arts center, ISBN 978-90-73501-80-5, Amsterdam, NL
2012 “Platforma 20”, Ta Nea tis Technis, No 206, May-June 2012

Teaching / Project Co-ordination / Assistance
2017 “documenta 14”, Chorus Member, Educational department, Athens, GR
2017 “Open Schools” with Day Centre Babel for emigrants and refugees within the Open Schools program, an initiative of the municipality of Athens and only donor Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Kypseli, Athens, GR
2017 “Merso” Art School, Art teacher, GR
2016 “Primary School of Amorgos”, Story telling and making workshop, as a part of “Ερημία”, (Erimia), Wilderness_Amorgos Art Residency, GR
2015 “Free House” assistant and graphic designer with Jeanne van Heeswijk, Rotterdam, NL
2015 Rib, exhibition space assistant, Rotterdam, NL
2013 “Snehta” Artist Residence – project co-ordinator / external collaborator to facilitate Jessica Dunleavy’s workshop in collaboration with “Babel” a day centre for migrants with mental health problems living in Athens), Athens, GR
2011 – 2013 Cultural Centre of Korydallos (ERTEKO), Art teacher, GR
2011 – 2013 “Apochrosis” school, Art teacher and Art Education Seminars, GR
2009 “Rehabilitation Centre Filimon”, Art teacher (volunteer), Athens, GR
2008 “Heaven Peace Academy” and three “Public schools in collaboration with the local teacher Jonas”, Art teacher (volunteer), Tanzania, Africa
2006 – 2008 “Shape Communication”, Art Director / Director of Production, GR
2001 – 2006 “Kormos Expo management”, Publication Manager, GR
2000 – 2004 “Strive”, Olympics games 2004- European art competition for children and teenagers, Coordinator (volunteer), Athens, GR 

Collections
The Kill and Ignore Me Art Collection NL
Maria Oikonomopoulou Art Collection, NL
Private collections in Greece and The Netherlands