Cosmotel was a project that revolved around the idea of an autonomous migrating artistic community that used a hotel as its creative base. The collective work was exhibited in peripheral artistic centres such as Thessaloniki, Ioannina and Syros island in an attempt to decentralize artistic production in Greece. Cosmotel is essentially an art motel for artists to share related ideas and motivations. The basic premise is to provide facilities for artists working in the context of an environment which fuses individuality and collective activities [...]. The Cosmotel consists of 11 resident artists, 9 resident architects and advisors on anthropological, sociological and psychological issues [...].

The manager is myself. The building featuring the Cosmotel logo is in thetown of Stroumnitsa – a 1.30 hour drive from Thessaloniki and 1 hour from Skopje, which would have been the location for a meeting, planned to take place in the future. The reality is that as the daughterof hotel owners I had always had the obsession of creating my own hotel. All the artists, architects and the rest of the people are my friends whom I gave hospitality every weekend during some months between 1994 and 1996 satisfying in that way my enthusiasm for communication and collaboration.

Maria Papadimitriou

Excerpts from “The Poetics of Mobility and Periphery,” in exh. cat. Paradigmata, pp. 58-59.