Panos Sklavenitis explores how strategies of collective self-ridicule can challenge hegemonic narratives. Masked groupuscules are often the protagonists in his participatory pieces. In Cargo, Sklavenitis sets up a neo-tribal community inhabiting an undefined dystopian future. In the aftermath of some unprecedented catastrophe, Greece is inhabited by a Mad Max-type social clan decorated with varied symbols of modern Greek nationalism. This neo-tribal community—a mutated relic of a once vast middle class—is partially modeled after a "cargo cult" worship of "technologically advanced civilizations" albeit the community appears to worship relics of recent Greek social history, such as leftovers of the 1990s euphoric era of “economic modernization” and the 2004 Olympic Games. The community’s choreography draws and comments on the opening ceremony of the Games, where mythological cupids and byzantine emperors marched together, providing an ideological condensation of "Hellenism." Sklavenitis’s ethno-futurist world offers a metaphorical layer, an augmented platform designed to randomly host and present hobby groups and thematic societies found across contemporary Greece.

#self-ridicule #neo-tribal #dystopia #nationalism #cargocult #OlympicGames

photos: Nysos Vasilopoulos, 6th Athens Biennale 2018 ANTI