03/09/2022 - 07/12/2022
Contemporary - Installation
Artemis Potamianou - Which Side Are You On?
"‘Which side are you on?‘ is a scathing comment on the social conditions which may spell protection or confinement to a woman. Artemis Potamianou composes an environmental narrative by the installation she presents at Cable Depot, referring to the totality of female conditions, which she juxtaposes with the idea of the as yet unrealized dream of freedom and true equality. The exhibition area become a site-specific installation which is metaphorically transformed into a cage that houses elaborate bird-cages which, in turn, host symbols of conditions of confinement or protection for a woman. Toys that are usually meant for girls as subconscious preparation for specific roles revolving around housekeeping and maternity, clocks, keys and identity cards are closed in the cages, as symbols of social stereotypes for woman's nature.
Well-known paintings from the entire spectrum of art history depict a female figure before an open cage liberating the enclosed birds and directly equating them with the fragile female gender. This movement indicates an attempt at the woman's own liberation from the norms and stereotypes of the time. The cage in the work, true to the tradition of the elaborate constructions of old as replicas of buildings, borrows the form of a dismantled existing building and constitutes a symbol of confinement or protection—or both, depending on the viewer's perception of it."
