Totem of the West

Homo animalis: The humanimal complex – Athens, Greece, Benaki Museum - Yannis Pappas studio, Group exhibition of 1st and 6th Studio ASFA, Curated by Thodoris Bargiotas

The totems of the primitive tribes were vertical elongated sculptures depicting natural objects, plants or animals, which were considered sacred for some reason: either they were considered ancestors of the tribe, or they had some sacred quality.This belief was a way for the primitives to connect with the nature that surrounded them, and the animal became a transitional object between human and nature. In recent years, man's relationship with nature has been constantly changing at a frenetic pace. The urban human does not feel part of nature, nor sees nature as his origin. Nature is objectified and the relationship between man and nature is largely utilitarian. The Totem of the West is the totem of modern world made by the modern human: it is a tribute to experimental animals, and presents them in a dystopian laboratory of testing, in a vertical arrangement - geometry inspired by the totems. In primitive tribes, the theme of the totem is accompanied by the term of "tapu" – what in Western societies is known as "taboo": the unclean, the forbidden, the one no one speaks of. The Totem of the West becomes automatically a tapu: it depicts the side of science and cosmetology no one speaks of, the collateral loss of development, evolution and beauty.