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© Panos Sklavenitis. All Rights Reserved.
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Panos Sklavenitis was born in Ithaca and lives and works in Athens.
His recent work examines forms and discourses of the carnivalesque and the practice of masquerading. It emerges from field research, interviews, recordings and archival material, while employing a trickster methodology that incorporates fabricated or ambiguous stories and documents. His research takes the form of texts, videos, mixed-media installations, performances, workshops and participatory actions.
Performances and participatory actions
Recent works include Carnival of Contact, presented as part of From Moon to Moon at Translocal Performance Art Giswil, Switzerland (2026); Castrametation, commissioned by the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST) for the grand finissage of Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives (2026); Taramata, curated by Nadja Argyropoulou at the Nobel Building, Chalandri (2024); Zéte, at Plásmata II: Ioannina by Onassis Stegi (2023); On Becoming an Animal, a parade developed for the 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (2023); and The Severed Head of Dimitris Ameladiotis, presented at To Pikap Kato, Thessaloniki, and EIGHT, Athens (2022).
Earlier performances and participatory works include It’s Me! at Stoa 42, Athens (2019), as well as presentations at the Athens Biennale (2018), Kultursymposium Weimar (2019), Actopolis in Oberhausen and Zagreb (2016–2017), the Month of Performance Art Berlin at ZK/U (2015), and Le Moindre Geste – The Slightest Gesture at the Théâtre de Belfort (2019).
Workshops and research projects
Sklavenitis organizes Daysign, an ongoing series of workshops based on collective and experimental processes. Examples include Daysign: From the Animal’s Side – August in Athens at EMST (2022) and the Post-Athens Daysign Workshop at the Athens School of Fine Arts (2019).
Other workshop-based projects include Pulcinellata, a performative learning project with Bruno Leone at Casa Guarattelle, Naples (2025), and Battle Beasts – Animals in the Shadow of War at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK, 2025).
In 2026, he conducted The Head – Research on Bulgarian Masking and Carnival Traditions in Sofia, in collaboration with Æther Art Space and with funding from the European Union’s Culture Moves Europe programme, implemented by the Goethe-Institut.
His long-term collaborative research project Sarakiniko, developed with Eva Giannakopoulou, was presented at the 6th Athens Biennale – ANTI (2018), and in new iterations at Ammophila, Athens, and the Ithaca Cultural Center (2026).
Installations and exhibitions
His installations have been presented in exhibitions including Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, curated by Katerina Gregos at EMST (2025–2026); Being as Communion, the central exhibition of the 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, curated by Maria-Thalia Carras (2023); Outraged by Pleasure, curated by Nadja Argyropoulou at the Nobel Building, Athens (2023); Niche(s), curated by Effrosyni Kontogeorgou at Tor 40 Halle, Güterbahnhof Bremen (2022); The Right to Silence?, curated by Sozita Goudouna at the Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, CUNY, New York (2020–2021); and Weasel Dance | The Mimetic in the Post-Digital Predicament, curated by Most Mechanics Are Crooks at the Goethe-Institut Athens (2019). Earlier projects include The Miracle of the Black Leg at Zabriskie Point – Espace d’art contemporain, Geneva (2013).
Residencies and distinctions
Onassis AiR, Athens (2023); Gaststudio Tor 26, Bremen (2022); ACTOPOLIS Sarajevo (2016); ACTOPOLIS Oberhausen (2016); and Visual Art Interventions in Public Urban Space – Painting on the Blind Facades of Buildings, Athens School of Fine Arts (2011).