Exhibition duration: January 24 – 26, 2013
Location: University of Athens, Central Building & French Institute of Athens
Curator: Dr. Sozita Goudouna
Participating artists: Peggy Kliafa and Georgia Sagri
Peggy Kliafa participates in the show with the installation:
Window (from the installation in situ in Sotiria Hospital), 2010, 251x124x5 cm. MDF, paint, gelatin, pills, blisters
Peggy Kliafa’s Remedy or Poison installation reflects on the ambiguity of medicine by presenting its two sides as remedy and poison. The greek work farmakon (farmaki-farmako) denotes this ambiguity. Ontologically the medicine is tied to the notion of the promise, it is identified with the experience of the promise of remedy or cure. The infinite power of a promise alludes to Derrida’s notion of the “still to come”, to a future that is yet to come. The artist elevates the significance of the medicine by creating artworks made out of a kaleidoscope of pills. The artworks are representations of stained glass windows from cathedrals; in their religious allusion, they manifest a deepening of interest in different notions of therapy. The contemporary compulsive desire to consume pills aims to cure our mental, psychological or somatic weakness. The work challenges this therapeutic or placebo effect.
Dr. Sozita Goudouna
Curator
PRESS RELEASE
CONFERENCE: THE POLITICAL AND ETHICAL THINKING OF JACQUES DERRIDA
The conference The Political and Ethical Thinking of Jacques Derrida (24-26.01.2013), hosted at the National and Kapodistrian University of Greece and the French Institute of Athens, is accompanied by the exhibition Metaphor of the Blind, featuring the visual artists Peggy Kliafa and Georgia Sagri, curated by Sozita Goudouna and produced by http://outoftheboxintermedia.org.
The Philosophy Sector of the Department of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology of the University of Athens, in collaboration with the French Institute of Greece, is organizing a conference on the following topic: The Political and Ethical Thought of Jacques Derrida, from Thursday January 24, 2013 until Saturday January 26, 2013 in the Argyriadis amphitheater (New Amphitheater) in the Central Building of the University of Athens (30, Panepistimiou Ave.) and the French Institute of Athens auditorium.
The Conference, featuring 40 speakers from a variety of academic disciplines (philosophy, political theory, psychoanalysis, architecture, literature, and more), covers a wide range of subjects which are connected to the ethical and political theory of Jacques Derrida, such as democracy, law, hospitality, giving, forgiveness, justice, decision, responsibility, ethics and animals.
On Friday 25, 19.00-22.00 at the French Institute of Athens, two round tables are held on “Thinking of the Crisis through Jacques Derrida”, in which four well-known French philosophers participate: Michel Deguy, poet, Emeritus professor of the University Paris 8, Marc Crepon, Director of the Department of Philosophy of the École Normale Supérieure, Charles Ramond, professor of philosophy of the University Paris 8 and Pierre-Yves Quiviger, professor of philosophy of the University of Nice. The interventions by the French philosophers will be commented upon by two Greek philosophers. The professors Michel Deguy, Marc Crepon and Charles Ramond will also speak on Saturday morning at the Central Building of the University of Athens. Simultaneous interpretation will be available in both events.
The conference will be accompanied by a screening of the ERT documentary The Pathways of Thought: Jacques Derrida.