The project IT’S TIME TO OPEN THE BLACK BOXES! is an ongoing participatory art project initiated by artist Danae Stratou. Living in Europe in this time of multiple crises, it is ever so easy to fall into a state of fear-induced paralysis. This art project is a reaction to such a prospect. Danae Stratou invites you to actively participate in the project by contributing one word. By joining our “voices”, the project aims at activating a dialogue constituting, in itself, a collective response to our multifaceted predicament. By opening the ‘Black Boxes’ we symbolically bring to light the words that reflect what threatens us the most, or that which we are desperately eager to preserve.

The project was inaugurated in Athens, Greece, (2012). It has since traveled in Krems, Austria, (2016) and in Paris, France, (2017), Mallorca, Spain (2018) and now in Ghent, Belgium. The open call cycle is reactivated each time the project travels in a new city for a period of 1-3 months prior to each exhibition. Through the website, a wide range of social media, and conventional local media; local communities are invited to participate. In this way, the Black Boxes, when opened in each different city, reveal local concerns, hopes, and fears in a manner that, nevertheless, bind the different cities together.