The Pet City Exhibition

“We want good health. We want clean air. We want clean water. We want a few animals. We want lots of animals. We want a few kids. We want a few germs. We want surveillance. Security. We want boundaries. And we want numbers. Survivors. You have time.” “I watched the walls of the houses, there is a lot of glass in this city. With strange seams. It is Hard to tell from what material it is. I have passed before, I say, from here. Going where, it is impossible to remember. I continued walking. I did not at all have my mind at the time. I’ll get to the end of this road, I say. I was hearing some things and far away. And I never got there. got.” Excerpts from the play “Pet City” Triggered by the play entitled “Pet City” director’s Mary Xanthopoulidou played in Theatre Simio in May 2010, a group of artists inspired by and created works for the exhibition “The Pet City Exhibition”. The press release of the play states: “In a condition of the future, a future that can be so close as the next day, and in a place not specified, five young people must learn to live without oxygen, without abundant of water, with re–processed food and limited freedoms and to ensure that they are obedient towards the status quo, the way that each owner prefers his pet to be. How far is our planet from this reality and how people react to that?” Such a world can no longer be regarded neither surreal nor plausible but only dangerously possible. The differences between a similar nightmare living and this which may be the present, everyday experience of the inhabitants of some Athenian areas are often so weak that confirm that this “future” is happening now somewhere near us, here. On one hand, when the priority of human existence is the very survival, the instinct unites everyone and any discrepancies are assimilated. But at the same time the way people handle under such circumstances the boundaries of the human condition, raises questions about human nature itself. Human life and the natural environment that hosts it have an interdependent relationship where one directly affects the other. How will the environment look like in the world of the automated human, who now acts mechanically, after being deprived the right of freedom in every part of his life? How would you react to the creative powers of nature facing such a reality of human life ? What new myths will be created to interpret the contemporary cycle of birth, destruction and rebirth, eternal recycling? The participating artists in the exhibition “The Pet City Exhibition” will try to give with their creations answers and submit new questions. Curation: Vassiliki Athina Vayenou, Art Historian | Giorgos Tserionis, Artist...more