Poetry Expo 26
/ 20 February 2026
Concrete Expressionism
Examining the therapeutic aspects of concrete poetry as a means of managing and externalizing mental disorders
Poetry Expo 2026
This practice in visual poetry, developed alongside therapeutic photography as part of a master’s research project, reconsiders the relationship between image, language, and inner experience. It explores how visual form and textual expression interact as parallel forces shaping perception and meaning.
The visual poems stage a dialogue between two fundamental and often opposing impulses: the desire for visual order and harmony, and the need to break free from externally imposed rules of expression. Through the deliberate use of typography, spacing, and layout, words are allowed to occupy the page as physical presences, creating room to breathe within the visual field.
This approach transforms the page into a site of artistic and personal negotiation. By reshaping language spatially, the work opens an inner space of autonomy and relief, where creative freedom becomes a tool for navigating mental states and engaging with everyday challenges.
The project is part of the subthemes Writing After – Catastrophe, Memory, and the Archive of Loss, Hybrid Selves – Gender, Identity, and Posthuman Intimacies, Unruly Forms – Experiments in the Poetic Wild, The Poetics of Care – Intimacy, Tenderness, Repair.
Author
Christina Kassesian
Christina Kassesian is a translator, book editor, writer, and musician. She was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, in 1976. She works and lives in Athens. She studied law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and holds a master’s degree in Cultural Organizations Management from the Hellenic Open University. Furthermore, she studied electric guitar and contemporary/jazz harmony at the Hellenic Conservatory. She writes short stories and poetry in both Greek and English. Her work has been featured in cultural magazines, poetry journals and poetry anthologies in Greece and abroad. Her first poetry collection, entitled Large-Scale Structures, is due to be published in February 2026 by Stochastis Publications.
