Body & Public Space

How do we relate to the human body today? What are we prepared to put up with in public view? What will we not accept? How is the body positioned in public spaces? What is the relation between body and politics? How is ‘our’ body and that of the ‘others’ portrayed and discussed in a time of crisis and precarity? How do new technologies affect corporeality, and to what extent do they lead to a commodification of the body? Or is the body dematerialized in our times? How do new technologies and the media shape (and/or resist) a new authoritative discourse on the body?

Thinkers and artists working in Greece and abroad present their perspectives on this topic. They converse with the audience about the body’s public place as well as its meaning today.

Photo © Pavlos Fysakis

Credits

Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly
Penelope Papailias
visual artist
Georgia Sagri
Assistant Professor of Classic Archaeology, University of Athens
Dimitris Plantzos
Lecturer of Architecture, University of Portsmouth
Phevos Kallitsis
Chair
:
Associate Professor of Modern Greek Studies, University of Oxford
Dimitris Papanikolaou

TALKS CYCLE: BODY

Focusing on the body, the discussion ‘Body and Public Space’ is part of a cycle of talks for Season 2015-16 at the Onassis Cultural Centre.

The body has never ceased to be a point of attention, at the core of human existence, communication, artistic expression, philosophical thinking, scientific explorations, and pedagogical practice. It has been an area of control and a goal of self-determination, a nexus of limits and a means of transgressing them, under the constant peril of decay, though always able to develop new potential. In a multicultural world with a multitude of perspectives and means of communication, where everything is changing at great speed, the body is the one thing that seems to remain stable and unchanging. But is this really the case? In recent years a dynamic interdisciplinary discourse on the body has emerged internationally. It shows how our relation to the body has also changed, and that the questions continuously posed demand new concepts, approaches and ideas.

Planning – Concept: Afroditi Panagiotakou, Elisavet Pantazi
Curated by: Dimitris Papanikolaou