8 - Imaginary Leadership and Displacement

Summary

The Greek Pavilion in the 57 Venice Biennale of Art, hosted an exhibition titled Laboratory of Dilemmas. As the informative note explained at the entrance of the site: ‘Laboratory of dilemmas is a narrative video installation based on Aeschylus’ theatre play Iketides (Suppliant women) and the dilemmas it poses between saving the Foreigner or maintaining the safety of the Native, which attempts to expose the anguish, puzzlement and confusion of individuals and social groups when called upon to address similar dilemmas’. According to the note: Iketides ‘is the first literary text in history that raises the issue of a persecuted group of people seeking asylum …. . The King is faced with a major dilemma … If he doesn’t help them he will be breaking the sacred laws of hospitality and violating the principles of Law and Humanism, leaving the Suppliants to the mercy of their pursuers who might well destroy them.’