Sphinx International Festival is an independent and ambitious artistic proposal for the foundation of a “new city”, which attempts to change the emotional map of the city’s inhabitants.

The change will come through the vertical plunge in time and place, for the discovery of the cultural stock, which will serve as a starting point for the creation of a new identity, synchronized with the ontological-existential foundations of people, conditions of creation and freedom, which are now in hibernation. SPHINX is an artistic project in the urban and social space of the city, where artists of different disciplines from all over the world, writers, scientists and the public, create, by interacting with the monumental elements of the city, proposing solutions for the “foundation of the city of the future”, i.e. the space we want to live in. The projects – proposals attempt to overturn immobility, complacency and inertia that bring about stagnation in the present, to unite the actions of bothered citizens and to provoke through various interactions a change in the future of the city, in the sense of a “social sculpture”.

We consider this multifaceted work as a holistic definition of the work of art, a work that concerns society and the city itself, where, coordinated and within a general framework, multiple “plastic” events take place. The creativity of an artist is no longer the work of art in isolation but the holistic planning of this great act with a basic four-fold: artists – citizens (as creators of society and history), real space – virtual space (internet).

THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL

The International Festival of “Social Sculpturing” SPHINX 2018, on the theme of “Oedipus Rex”, this year seeks the limits of the transformation of human identity in the contemporary world and the prospects of human existence. We want this event, which this year will be held from May 19th to June 12th 2018, to be the beginning of a new radical public sculpture event, where students and artists will spread their artistic projects-sculptures in a concerted way in the city’s network, “talking” with archaeological sites (see Map), transferring critically and constructively the “memories” from the past to the present.

The festival aims to be a pioneer, setting a high standard in contemporary spiritual quest and social participation, persistently exploring the foundations of human sense and the impasses in the identity of human being-civilization. The issues discussed return to the questions that have concerned and preoccupy the western intellectuals in the mythical space where they were first formulated, the city of Thiva, inviting through an international competition to public sculpture, temporary installations, land art, happenings and performance, and proposing a unique for Greece “experiment in social sculpture”.

What is SPHINX

SPHINX is a new organization-network of people consisting of artists in various fields of art, intellectuals, writers, on an international level and ordinary citizens with a strong interest and research on the multi-layered and peculiar case of the city of Thiva. On the occasion of this interest and at the same time their involvement with contemporary social problems, they promote and propose since 2015, the Sphinx International Festival, the Hidden Thebes Art Festival, in the city of Thiva.

Sphinx is a new association (founded in 2015) that carries out cultural activities, mainly in the form of festivals, focusing on contemporary visual arts. In order to achieve its objectives, the festival mostly involves artists and intellectuals on an international level, higher educational institutes, institutions, combining their concerns with the social concerns and the action of concerned citizens.