Autonomy is Light: A Temporary Collaborative Public Exhibition

Martin Chamberlin, Zahria Cook, Meredith Emery, Katie Ford and Ethan Snow
Curated by: Mickey Boyd and Rachel Lea Seburn

We’re thinking about public and private property, and the reorganizing, and rearranging of the contemporary and historical fascination with private property ownership. How can owned yet unused/disregarded/vacant sites within our city be transformed into areas for public artistic inquiry? The unique building where the exhibition takes place offers viewpoints from the street’s sidewalks into an underground concrete and brick room. Sewage, drainage, garbage collection, a smoker’s den, the site is used for waste disposal and simultaneously offers respite from the outside. Let’s conceptually dig into the creative possibility of the underworld, imaginary and real. Not unreal but free. How does the underworld surface in Athens downtown core?

We cannot help but think that autonomy is something light that should be realized. The artworks in this show, all relate to or reference the underground site in which they exist as architectural interventions, Becoming, autonomous apparatuses awaiting the wandering public. A ceramic beam becomes a ‘useless/useful’ support system, stains and bird shit become three dimensional whimsical objects, Light is isolated in time and layered, Abstract paintings are built into the architecture and upholstery becomes a technique for seeing. Autonomy is Light suggests that we may alter our public surroundings through the reinterpreting of what our public infrastructure and architecture can and cannot be.