Seeing Otherwise: Art Otherwise

Abstract

This lecture introduces examples of artistic research as a method for knowledge production rooted in place, and participation. It examines how visual practices—when situated outside dominant institutional or urban centres—can challenge the standardized ways of seeing the world. 

Central to the lecture will be the ongoing inquiry of Georgia Kotretsos' work by proposing that seeing is site-specific. The work foregrounds the role of the viewer not as a passive recipient but as a co-producer of meaning, arguing for spectatorial emancipation as an epistemological act. Through performative lectures, visual scores, and speculative pedagogies, the practice suggests alternative modes of engagement with knowledge and art. 

Drawing from the ongoing work of THE ΤΕΛΟΣ SOCIETY, an arts and culture research observatory and publishing platform, the talk focuses on field-based experiments conducted in sites considered marginal or transitional. These include disused infrastructures, rural landscapes, and symbolic border zones. Such environments become active sites of inquiry, where practices of looking are reconsidered through visual, embodied, and collaborative methods. 

Durham, with its layered post-industrial history and institutional architectures, is seen as a resonant context to examine these ideas. This talk proposes the “margin” not as lack, but as a threshold for critical insight—inviting reflection on how working off-centre can reconfigure our understanding of both art and knowledge production.

This lecture is free and open to all. Registration is not required to attend in person.

More information about Georgia Kotretsos