Elpida Rikou, PhD Social Psychology, anthropologist, visual artist

Elpida Rikou (Athens, 1963) has studied sociology (Panteion University, Athens), anthropology (D.E.A., Université Paris V-Sorbonne), social psychology (D.E.A. and Ph.D, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris) and visual arts (Athens School of Fine Arts). She has attended training courses in psychoanalytic psychotherapy (C.F.R.P. and S.P.F., Paris, 1994-1997), art therapy (eight months course at the University Paris VII-Denis Diderot, 1997) and she has, also, conducted research and published on the uses of art in psychiatry (participating as a volunteer in the drug rehabilitation center 18ANO and other programmes).

Rikou has taught social psychology and social anthropology at graduate and postgraduate programmes at the Universities of Crete, Thessaly, Athens, Panteion and the Hellenic Open University, as well as teaching at the lifelong learning programme “Plato Academy” since 1998. She taught Anthropology and Contemporary Art in the Department of Theory and History of Art at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 2007 to 2022 and from 2011 to 2013 she has also taught in the Postgraduate Programme (Master in Fine Arts) of the Department of Visual Arts of the same School. From 2016 to 2022, she has organized and co-coordinated (along with visual artist and anthropologist Sophia Grigoriadou) the Contemporary Art Workshop at the Municipality of Chalandri. From 2019 to 2022 she has conducted research on artistic research in Greece (with the support of the Research Center for the Humanities and the collaboration of the art historian Katerina Konstantinou, for the year 2019-2020). 

Since 2023, Elpida Rikou turns professionally towards psychoanalysis. She, also, studies mental health counselling (Center for Applied Psychotherapy and Counseling) and she participates, as a volunteer, in “Syn-Yparxi” (i.e.“Co-Existence”,NGO, Network of social solidarity, psychological support and culture).

Elpida Rikou’s publications include the following: She is the editor of Anthropologia ke Sychroni Techni (Anthropology and Contemporary Art, a collection of texts of British and American anthropologists and art theorists published in Greek by Alexandria in 2013) for which she has written the introduction, and of the translation in Greek of Marc Augé’s book Pour une anthropologie des mondes contemporains (Gia mia anthropologia ton sychronon kosmon, published by Alexandria in 1999), for which she has also written the introduction. She has co-edited with Panos Panopoulos (professor of anthropology of sound and music at Aegean University), a volume with the works of artists and anthropologists on voice (Φωνές/Fones, published by Nissos in 2016) as well as the translation in Greek of Alfred Gell’s book Art and Agency (MIET editions, 2021) for which they have written an introduction. She has also co-edited, with Eleana Yalouri (Assistant Professor of Material Culture Studies at Panteion University) and Apostolos Lampropoulos (Professor of Comparative Literature at the University Bordeaux-Montaigne) the volume Value (Axia, published by Nissos in 2018) which includes texts and artworks of artists and theorists commenting on the notion of value. Rikou has co-edited with Yalouri a special issue on The Art of Research Practices between Art and Anthropology of the electronic journal Field. A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism (issue 11, 2018) and with Yalouri and Lampropoulos a special issue at the same journal dedicated to the research programme Learning from documenta (Field, issues 18-19, 2021). Rikou has also published articles in scientific periodicals, edited collections, art catalogues and newspapers. 

Elpida Rikou’s work as an artist includes drawing, painting, video, and collaborative art projects. From 2010 to this day, she proposes, coordinates and participates, as an artist and anthropologist, in socially engaged artistic research projects (Fones/Voices, Axia/Value, Learning from documenta, and others). Since 2014, Elpida Rikou is a founding member of TWIXTlab, a laboratory doing research “twixt” (in between) art, anthropology and the everyday. In 2021, she initiated or.artspace in Koukaki, a workshop where her own and collaborators’ works of contemporary art are created, exhibited and sold, and art research projects and diverse activities open to the public are hosted.

In December 2023 or.artspace hosts Elpida Rikou’s first exhibition of drawings made during the pandemic entitled “My silly paintings are a nutcracker”. The exhibition is curated by art historian Kyveli Lignou-Tsamantani.