Arosita Gallery presents the Cypriot artist Yioula Hadjigeorgiou’s solo exhibition Meta-comfort: Active and Reactive  Forces, curated by Dr. Stratis Pantazis from 9 to 30 December 2024, under the auspices of the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Sofia.  

In the chapter “Active and Reactive” of the book Nietzsche and Philosophy, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze  analyzes Friedrich Nietzsche’s claim that the entire reality of beings (organic and inorganic, human thoughts and  behaviors, historical and present events etc.) is a force or a mixture of active and reactive forces. Active is  considered the force that is free, wild and creative. It seeks power and is an act of action. In contrast, the reactive  force is involuntary, an act of resistance that prevents any positive development and evolution. For Deleuze all forces  are related either by giving orders or by obeying. The body, whether biological, chemical, social or political, is defined  by the unequal relation between dominant and dominated forces. Even though the last obey, they continue to be  distinctive from the dominant ones, since obeying is a quality of force, associated with power and command.  Individual strength still exists in dominated forces and there is an acknowledgment that the power of the opponent  has not been totally defeated. It is still a threat. Thus, there is a sense of continuous battle.

The coexistence of opposite dynamics, which implies a noticeable or unnoticeable battle for the construction of  identities within a social experience of alienation and anxiety for integration, is central in Hadjigeorgiou’s solo  exhibition in Arosita Gallery, whose title has been inspired by Deleuze’s chapter. In her works, she refers to or  incorporates images, ideas and elements associated with events, which have shaped human experience and history,  in order to look into or raise questions on today’s sociopolitical issues. By “digging” into history and the present and  by bringing together active and reactive forces, Hadjigeorgiou manages to extract essential fragments from existing  ways of looking at society and modes of thinking in an attempt to bring us back to critical thinking and reasoning.  Through critical thinking, individuals are able to break away from the dominant contexts of thought and behavior,  achieve individual self-transformation and social change,2 while the acceptance of and the reconciliation with the  trauma and the grieving process can open new paths of positive and creative action.  

Arosita Gallery, 12 B Vrabcha Street, Sofia 1000 

Opening hours: 15:00 to 19:00, closed: Saturday / Sunday 

phone: +359 885 87 28 04, www.arosita.info, [email protected]