From January 11 to February 22, 2024, PCAI presents I’d rather be a Cyborg than a Goddess, a video art programme with works from the PCAI Art Collection, curated by Kika Kyriakakou, PCAI Artistic Director. The programme will be hosted at The Ellinikon Experience Centre, one of the largest and most technologically advanced visitor centres in the world.

A preamble of the tribute took place, recently, during the second assembly of the International Association of Corporate Collections of Contemporary Art (IACCCA) in Athens. The programme brings together video works of women artists reflecting on the notions of climate disruption, consumerism, space waste, technology and gender: contemporary narratives that span from the earthly reality to dystopias and science fiction.

The programme title I’d rather be a Cyborg than a Goddess derives from Donna Haraway’s 1985 seminal essay on cyborgian manifestations and relativities. The selected PCAI works weave altogether a storytelling paradigm relating to primary science fiction penned by women writers. Works that often seem to echo Octavia Butler’s and Ursula K. Le Guin’s concerns about the Other. Videos that reflect on areas and concepts pertinent to Mary Shelley’s and Rhoda Broughton’s Victorian texts, two of the first women to write sci-fi novels and short stories.

Afroditi Psarra’s commission Ventriloquist Ontology (2022), created on the occasion of the Sheltered Gardens exhibition, explores the limits of control and hybridization between human and machine through the relationship of a performer and a wearable entity.

Eva Papamargariti’s work Factitious Imprints (2016), part of her former New Museum solo show, focuses on the idea of constructed nature and how it can be documented and defined through a palimpsest of imprints that simultaneous human and natural processes fabricate on different surfaces and terrains.

Almagul Menlibayeva’s work Ulugh Beg. New Silk Road in Space (2020) was created in partnership with artists Inna Artemova and German Popov in the context of the second Lahore Biennial. The video unravels Menlibayeva’s research upon the life of important astronomer and ruler of Samarkand Sultan Mirzo Ulugh Beg, a further reflection on space debris and the industrial contamination of modernity, as well as on ancestral, patriarchal norms related to ruling and prevailing.

Ariana Papademetropoulos’ work Voyage to Venus (2019), shot on the Greek island of Milos, builds its narrative around Louvre’s Venus de Milo sculpture and nature’s predominant force. The artist, as a Victorian Nereid, in lieu of ordinary domestic settings, floats in awe among coastal landscapes and the dark, abyssal caves of the Aegean.

The programme is inspired by the architectural legacy and futuristic vision of pioneering architect Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), who designed the main building of the former East Terminal of the Athens International Airport, which operated within Elliniko until 2000. It also aligns with the aim of The Ellinikon to become not only an architectural landmark, but also a smart city that drastically reduces the carbon footprint of its inhabitants. The programme intends to elaborate further on the radicality, as well as the ecological and gender connotations of landmarks of today and will be accompanied by a series of educational workshops.

Visiting Hours:

12 January through 22 February 2024*
Open Daily:  09:00 – 21:00

The Ellinikon Experience Centre

Free entrance upon booking at: tickets.experiencecentre.theellinikon.com.gr
*The exhibition will remain closed on 22-25/01, 30-31/01, 01/02, 05-10/02 and 15/02/2024