Institute of Anxiety – school workshops

Subject: Anxiety, which is not understood only as a destructive, limiting state of mind but as a potential for action, an impulse for change

Educational and social goals: Different examples of how a feeling of anxiety might transform in some form of creative energy or an impulse for making a change

Exact actions and program: Encouraging children to draw pictures and tell stories about their experience and common sense of anxiety

Organizers and Artists running the workshop: The workshop will be organized by Prague-based artists Barbora Kleinhamplová and Eva Koťátková in collaboration with Nisyros-based cultural practitioners and organizations: Kiriaki Deftereou (dancer and choreographer), Greg Haji Joannides (artist and director of art organization Sterna) and Theologos Mamolis (secretary of the Educational & Cultural Society of Nisyros), Nadja Argyropoulou (curator). Barbora Kleinhamplová and Eva Koťátková are Prague-based artists, founders of the Institute of Anxiety, an art project realized in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut in Prague and art organizations Are | are-events.org and Sterna, Nisyros.

Dear children,

we have recently established a new organization called Institute of Anxiety. You may be surprised to find out that our institute doesn’t have a building to work at, it doesn’t function in usual working hours and it is not inhabited by any employees. Yet, it is an organization that desires to communicate, to share and to act in regard to influence or change things around us. It is run by 4 people (from which two of us are traveling to Nisyros to meet you) who felt the need to raise questions about things that are considered stable, normal, unchangeable.

You may also wonder why the Institute associates itself with the word “anxiety”, something that many people would consider to be a negative thing.

We try to see anxiety not only as a destructive, limiting state of mind (something that makes us stay at home, not talk to others, something that influences our interest in things around us) but we seek in anxiety a potential for action, an impulse for change (when we feel sad or anxious we should not keep it for ourselves but perhaps try to share it with others (those that we trust) and try to find a solution together-maybe it is easier then we might think).

We would like to open this idea of the Institute and its mission at Nisyros. During our workshop we would be interested to find out, together with you, different examples of how a feeling of anxiety might transform in some form of creative energy, form of protest against the current state of things or an impulse for making a change. We would like to invite you to become members of our Institute for the one day in April (exact date to be specified) and form a temporary working unit together.

For this we will only need modest tools such as coloured pencils, writing pens and papers (as we believe revolution often starts on paper), and audio recorder to record your stories.

We look very much forward to meet you and we will be honoured if you decide to work with us together

Yours sincerely

Eva and Barbora

Primary school of Mandraki, supported by the Municipality of Prague, Ministry of Culture CZ, the Municipality of the Nisyrians, the parents’ association and Blue Star Ferries.