In the eighth cycle of bEam arts artist residency, the common denominator of all the works created was the concept of “transmutation”. A transmutation that arose precisely due to the experience of the city of Thessaloniki  for the four artists . The location and cultural context of the city played a decisive role in shaping both the theme and the course of their work. Each artist uses her own means to approach her artistic experience within the city, which ends up being a space of creative transmutation.

Patricia Canino is  a visual artist and photographer who lives and works in Paris. The way she approaches her work is multi-layered and comes across several media, integrating painting into her creative process. Her goal is to create aesthetic experiences with a transcendental character, wanting to both overcome and redefine the relationship of viewers with the perception of reality. The series of works she presents in the exhibition come from Byzantine churches in Thessaloniki. Having already found and processed material of Byzantine frescoes from Matera, Italy, she came to Thessaloniki with the aim of finding corresponding images. Taking as her starting point the image of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of orphans, she explored through photography a series of ecclesiastical spaces. The richness and quality of the iconography she photographed led her to a process of transmutation, creating a series of photographs that tells a story of spiritual ascent, from darkness and ashes to the golden glory of light.

Nora Mauroy is a visual artist  from Norway,  based in Brussels. In her most recent work, she has been concerned with the relationship between women and cats, the social stereotypes surrounding this relationship and her own personal experiences with the cats of her roommates. Coming to Thessaloniki, she decided to explore a culturally unknown field for her. Stray cats on the streets and the care they may receive, without “belonging” to any human. Her goal is to create a documentary film based on the material she collected. This material consists of conversations with people and organizations that care for stray cats as well as her own care practices towards stray cats of the city. This exhibition features audio-visual material from her interactions with humans and cats, as well as material evidence of the care practices she developed during her time in Thessaloniki. Ultimately, it approaches this caring relationship that is not limited to the boundaries of possession of an animal with an investigative and at the same time tender gaze.

Denise O’Flynn, originally from Portsmouth, England, is exploring a range of expressive mediums, having as a core objective in her practice to find the multiple moments of joy in the world. Coming to Thessaloniki, she explored the city, sketching everything that caught her attention and gave her moments of pure joy. What ultimately attracted her and became the reason for her work were all the small machinery and spare parts shops in the Vardaris area, many of which have existed in the area for decades. Observing the routines of the people associated with them, she realized the existence of a small community of people, who, regardless of the commercial operation of the spaces they occupy, have routines of coexistence and connection with each other. She therefore collected a series of images which she ultimately hand-printed and colored, creating a work dedicated to this small, peculiar community.

Malena Tagliaferro  comes from Argentina and her visual work is characterized by a commitment to interactivity, utilizing multiple digital and analog media. Traveling far from her country, during her first days in Thessaloniki, she searched for the faces of her loved ones among the strangers of the city. From this experience emerged the idea for a facial recognition device, which is not used for control and surveillance, but for finding one's loved ones. Moving forward with this idea, she began to wander the city, collecting images of flowers and recording her routes within it. She composed all these elements in an interactive video, with a facial recognition mechanism, multiple layers of images and meanings, as a dedication both to loved ones who are far away, and to the experience of wandering in a place completely foreign to her.