The evolving dialogue between human creativity and the processes of the living natural world is at the heart of the exhibition entitled “Natura Naturans: Human Beings, Nature, Landscape”, presented as part of CYFEST 17 – International Media Art Festival, for the first time in Greece, at the MOMus-Experimental Center for the Arts, in Warehouse B1 at the Port of Thessaloniki, from 27 November 2025 to 25 January 2026.
Looking back at the lasting resonance and influence of the Organic Art movement within the avant-garde, and its radical ideas about form and perception, the exhibition approaches them through new contemporary artistic media: algorithmic systems, kinetic constructions, immersive environments and participatory practices. Combining twentieth-century works from the Costakis Collection of the MOMus-Museum of Modern Art and the Frants Family Collection with new projects by more than 20 international artists presented by CYLAND MediaArtLab and the MOMus-Experimental Center for the Arts, the exhibition “Natura Naturans: Human Beings, Nature, Landscape” reveals how the experimental spirit of the avant-garde continues to shape the way we perceive movement, materiality and the inseparable bonds connecting all living systems.
The dialogue begins with the artists of the Costakis Collection, whose work marks the birth of the Organic Art movement in Soviet Leningrad in the mid-1920s — a movement represented in the collection of the MOMus-Museum of Modern Art. Its founders cultivated an unparalleled sensitivity to the living rhythms of the world.
The exhibition continues with paintings by artists who worked in Saint Petersburg in the second half of the twentieth century and continued the tradition of organic art, all from the Frants Family Collection.
In the contemporary section of the exhibition, the organic worldview of the avant-garde finds its technological echo. Artists translate the language of living systems into new media, taking a new approach to perception through the use of data, light and sound.
Mathieu Zurstrassen, 92Lb4, kinetic sculpture, 2025.
Alexander Baturin, Ocherish Landscape, oil on canvas, 63 × 94 cm, 2003. Frants Family Collection.
Maria Varela, Butterfly of the Beautiful, sculptural installation, 300 × 150 cm, 2025.
Anna Frants, To Make a Long Story Short, from the Simple Pleasures series, installation, 2024. Support: CYLAND MediaArtLab.
The exhibition “Natura Naturans: Human Beings, Nature, Landscape” envisions a world in which the boundaries between the living and the artificial, the organic and the digital, dissolve into a shared field of generative activity. The exhibiting artists treat data and code not as tools of control but as living materials that evolve, react and interact — creating an art of collaboration rather than representation, in which human and nonhuman forces co-produce the aesthetic experience. The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of performances throughout its run.
Full information about CYFEST 17 – International Media Art Festival is available here: https://www.cyfest.art/cyfest-17
Organiser: CYLAND Foundation Inc.
Partner institutions: MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection, MOMus-Experimental Center for the Arts, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, CSAR-Center for Studies in Russian, Central Asian and Caucasian Art
Main sponsor: Frants Foundation
Curators: Anna Frants, Maria Tsantsanoglou, Silvia Burini, Giuseppe Barbieri, Elena Gubanova, Eirini Papakonstantinou, Domna Gounari, Lidiia Griaznova, Sergei Komarov, Victoria Ilyushkina, Alexandra Dementieva, Jérôme Nivet-Carzon
Participating artists: Vasileios Agiomyrgianakis – Haruka Hirayama – Jussi Tuohino – Osmo Hakosalo, Dafin Antoniadou & Andrey Smirnov, Maria Varela, Liudmila Belova, Max Blotas, Elena Gubanova & Ivan Govorkov, Alexey Grachev, Alexandra Dementieva, Maria F Dolores & Paula Pin (Transnoise), Mathieu Zurstrassen, Sergei Komarov & Lidiia Griaznova, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexey Kostroma, Linda Loh, Natalia Lyah, Anastasia Fiori Metallinou & Tilemachos Moussas, Katerina Moschou, Tuula Närhinen, Eva Duru & Anthie Kyrkou, Vito Palumbo – Niki Lada – Francesco Abbrescia, Jaanika Peerna, Mariateresa Sartori, Hugo Solis, Alexander Terebenin, Anna Frants, φø (Fotis Rovolis), Eric Vernhes
Collections represented in the exhibition:
Costakis Collection: Maria Ender, Ksenia Ender, Yurii Ender, Elena Guro, Mikhail Matyushin, Solomon Nikritin
Frants Family Collection: Alexander Baturin, Victoria Belakovskaya, Liudmila Belova, Leon Bogdanov, Konstantin Dydyshko, Tatyana Glebova, Maria Gorokhova, Jane Greer, Valentin Gromov, Elena Gubanova & Ivan Govorkov, Vladimir Grinberg, Anatoly Kaplan, Maria Kazanskaya, Pavel Kondratyev, Alexander Kozhin, Ivan Kudryashov, Nikolai Kulbin, Anna Leporskaya, Valentin Levitin, Xenia Livchak, Vera Matyukh, Evygeny Mikhnov-Voitenko, Valentina Povarova, Richard Vasmi, Vladimir Volkov
Performance programme, November 2025–January 2026
Thursday, 27 November 2025, 19:00
Hugo Solis, Jaanika Peerna
Saturday, 13 December 2025, 20:00*
Vito Palumbo – Niki Lada – Francesco Abbrescia, φø (Fotis Rovolis), Dafin Antoniadou & Andrey Smirnov
Saturday, 20 December 2025
Maria F Dolores & Paula Pin (Transnoise)
Workshop 16:00–20:00*
Performance 20:00*
Saturday, 24 January 2026, 19:00*
Eva Duru & Anthie Kyrkou, Anastasia Fiori Metallinou & Tilemachos Moussas
*Public participation is included with the exhibition admission ticket.
CYLAND MediaArtLab is a nonprofit media laboratory and arts organisation founded by independent artists and curators. Connecting art, science and technology, CYLAND promotes collaboration between artists, engineers and programmers. It organises exhibitions, workshops, sound and video programmes, and supports the creation, presentation and archiving of media art around the world. CYLAND is the founder and organiser of CYFEST, which is holding its seventeenth edition this year.
CYFEST is a nomadic international media art festival. Since its inception in 2007, its main concern has been to explore the dialogue between different visual languages and technological cultures, with the aim of finding ways to work together and take collective action with professionals from the arts and scientific communities. As a decentralised global network, CYFEST brings together artists, curators, educators, engineers, programmers and media activists from around the world, creating a platform for mapping, mediating and documenting new media art at regional and international levels. Each year, the festival programme includes a series of exhibition projects, sound artworks, videos and educational programmes.
English translation of the original Greek announcement.