Athens is hosting a major exhibition dedicated to Tilda Swinton, the acclaimed actress and performer, at the Onassis Ready space. Titled 'Ongoing', the show presents personal belongings, photographs, and film clips that trace her illustrious career through the lens of collaboration.
The exhibition focuses on eight key figures from cinema and fashion who have shaped Swinton's work over the past four decades: Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Jim Jarmusch, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Tim Walker, Joanna Hogg, Olivier Saillard, and Derek Jarman. It is a collaboration between the Onassis Stegi and Amsterdam's Eye Filmmuseum, where it was first shown.
A Different Way of Working
At the inauguration, Swinton spoke about her creative philosophy. 'I realised that my task – or rather the opportunity I was given, coming from the era I do – is to bear witness to a different way of working,' she said. She described starting out collectively with a group of artists, including director Derek Jarman, operating in a spirit of co-creation where process came before the finished product. 'I had the chance to talk about that, to share this model and to recognise that, in fact, it is no longer really available to younger artists.'
Swinton lamented how emerging artists are often encouraged to cut themselves off from their networks. 'You are a young, emerging artist; you have released your first album, your first collection, your first film, your first book. You have got there through a network – a network of friendship, a family framework, the network of your university, your art school, your college, whatever it may be. And then you are encouraged, sometimes subtly, sometimes much less so, by the record company, or the gallerist, or the film studio, to strike out on your own, to cut yourself off.'
She added: 'Now it becomes important for you to promote yourself as a marketable product. And so I thought that, with my exhibition at the Eye Filmmuseum, I might perhaps offer this as a way of being useful: a portrait of a different way of working, one that happens to correspond very precisely to my own path.'
Creative Companionship
The exhibition is not a retrospective but an encounter and celebration of Swinton's creative fellow travellers. It serves as a gesture of faith in the future and a navigational chart for today's individualistic landscape, standing as proof that art is an act of profound companionship. At its next stops, the exhibition is expected to be enriched with new material.
Swinton explained her approach to selecting projects: 'I never chase a role. I am interested in people. And very often I find myself at the kitchen table, planning a project with my friends. The first thing we look at is what I might do in it. And sometimes there is no role for me, so I do nothing. And sometimes there is.' She noted that all her collaborators 'want to be part of the conversation. They each have a unique perspective. But their unique perspective depends on the dialogue they have with their collaborators.'
Recalling Derek Jarman's advice, Swinton said: 'Derek Jarman used to say, “Get ready to go on set as if you were going to a party.” And that really was how it felt. And as we all know, a good party is not one where you want the host to be solely responsible for the energy in the room. You do not want a bunch of guests standing around, waiting for the host to tell them how to have a good time. A good party is something you share: the energy is shared by everyone, someone puts on the music, someone serves the drinks, someone brings the food. And that sense of shared responsibility is not even about authorship of the work. I mean, ultimately it is about authorship. But in practice, it is about responsibility.'
New Works by Collaborators
Director Luca Guadagnino has created a new, highly personal portrait of Swinton in the form of a short film and a sculpture. Jim Jarmusch has transformed existing footage from his surreal zombie film The Dead Don’t Die (2019) into a new installation with fresh editing and soundtrack. Photographer Tim Walker visited Swinton at her family home for a series of photographs focusing on her relationship with her ancestors.
The exhibition 'Ongoing' runs at Onassis Ready in Athens, offering a rare glimpse into the collaborative spirit that defines Swinton's career. For more on cultural events in Europe, see our coverage of Yerevan hosting the European Political Community Summit and Montenegro's EU accession talks.
