Dimitris Chimonas is an artist from Cyprus working across theatre, performance, situations, film, and sculpture. His work employs theatre tools, conventions, devices, and frames through use and abuse, to investigate participation strategies, and the construction of collectivities within individualistic and hegemonic neo-liberal narratives.
He presented work at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2015 -2016), at the Benaki Museum (Athens, 2016), at the Young Artists Biennale (Tirana, 2017), at the Prague Quadrennial of Space Design & Performance (2019), at Cabaret Voltaire (2021) and Gfzk Leipzig (2023), amongst others. He also conceived and directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the Cyprus Film Days International Festival 2023, and is a recipient of the Startup Forum Award 2024 by the Aerowaves Network for emerging dance and performance presenters.
In 2022 he founded, curated, and co-organized Sessions: a series of queer happenings, in Nicosia, Cyprus with Lex Gregoriou, presenting an extensive showcase of the local queer scene. Sessions continued with a six-month “takeover” of the State Gallery of Contemporary Art - SPEL (Nicosia, CY), presenting a series of dance and theatre performances, workshops, talks, screenings, festivals, music concerts, improvisations, and parties, claiming the public building as a dynamic and transformable playground for the queer and artistic sub-communities of the island.
Chimonas attended various artist residencies, was a fellow at the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut (2018-2019), graduated from the Acting & Contemporary Theatre course at East15 Acting School in London (2012-2015), and is currently attending the MA Art Praxis at the Dutch Arts Institute (2024-2026).
dimis dot chimonas at gmail dot com