South as a State of Mind is a bi-annual arts and culture journal published in Greece and distributed internationally. Possessed by a spirit of absurd authority, we try to contaminate the prevailing culture with ideas that derive from southern mythologies such as the ‘perfect climate’, ‘easy living’, ‘chaos’, ‘corruption’, and the ‘dramatic temperament’, among others. Through our twisted – and ‘southern’ – attitude, expressed through critical essays, artist projects, interviews and features, we would like to give form to the concept of the South as a ‘state of mind’ rather than a set of fixed places on the map. People from different – literal or metaphorical – ‘Souths’ renegotiate the southern attitude, partly to define it and partly to invent it, within the post-crisis world. Opening up an unexpected dialogue among neighbourhoods, cities, regions and approaches, South as a State of Mind is both a publication and a meeting point for shared intensities.
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Southern stereotypes are very important in the publication, and through our invigorating and inspired ideas of our contributors we aim not only to explore, but also to transform them.
What might be considered weaknesses of the southern mentality we would rather present, perhaps a little self-mockingly, as a force of power with which to face down the future!
South as a State of Mind was founded in Athens in 2012 by Marina Fokidis and the Kunsthalle Athena team with a desire to face the future amidst bleak prognoses brought on by economic crisis and crypto colonisation. During the course of its first five issues it became an agency, for placing sovereignties in relation, and for a growing affective network. Between 2015 and 2017, it was reconfigured as the journal of documenta 14 for four issues under the editorship of Quinn Latimer (editor in chief of Publications, documenta 14) and Adam Szymczyk (artistic director of documenta 14). The results are forever part of our evolving history and we will remain welcoming to all the ideas, attitudes and the characters that sustained and transformed South, putting us in contact with many new readers and collective ways of learning.
And we go on…