A visual artist, GEORGE DRIVAS (Greece, 1969) holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Athens and a master’s degree in film and media studies from Freie Universität in Berlin. His works explore the possible relationships between motion and immobility in video, the predominant medium in the artist’s work. Among his main exhibitions are individual shows at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), in Athens (2009 and 2018), and Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, in Rome (2017). He represented Greece at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).
In the video LABORATORY OF DILEMMAS (2018), around a conference table, men and women engage in an extremely formal discussion. The white, stiff bodies, with their well-ordered hairstyles and clothing, debate the unexpected results of a scientific experiment: in trying to create cells immune to the hepatitis virus, scientists have unwittingly created a new type of cell whose function is still unknown. The technical and formal nature of the discussion conceals the anguish of a fundamental ethical issue: the dilemma between welcoming the foreigner (and risk disrupting the current order) or protecting the safety of the native (without giving them the chance to find a new and better answer to their problems). The video is based on Aeschylus’ tragedy The Suppliants, in which the King of Argos must decide between receiving Egyptian refugee women, causing internal strife and war with Egypt, or refusing aid, which would provoke the wrath of the gods for breaking the sacred law of hospitality to suppliants.
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