The "Bare Life" was born into the society. The Polis gave it the rights of a citizen, creating the man,
but the man was born with nothing and to nothing: la vita nuda.
The Polis consumes its creation, until he becomes obsolete. The obsolete man is ripped from his
political rights and reduced to “bare life” again. A non-citizen, dehumanized and bestialized
as he existed as a shadow, barely visible, except to those who knew where to look.
When found, the man was expunged from the polis, he is "cursed" and yet "hallowed" ;
his corpse deemed worthless: an empty vessel cannot be sacrificed. Inhabiting the dark and
long forgotten corners of the city, the Sacred Man exists in-between.
The Sacred Man, the one who cannot be sacrificed, finds his place within the holes of the city.
Lost space. Dead-ends, underpasses, the dirty, unwanted spaces: these become his and he becomes them.
However, in these spaces he finds his reflection, an image that he tries to control.
The excluded space becomes the place of the Sacred, transformed and reconstructed by
the Sacred Man according to his needs.
The sacred man embodies the space as the place of the Sacred embodies the Sacred Man,
hidden from the gaze of the city. The Sacred Man has no voice and no visage, he is invisible,
but he continues to exist in polis, forever transforming and reshaping into anonymous forms.
“Bare-Life” is a continuation of my thesis project White Elephant; a study on exclusion / inclusion dichotomy which analyzes the transgressive acts of
excluded individuals in public space. The project “Bare-Life” in this context, tells a story of an anonymous individual who is expunged to the dark and
dirty corners of the city where he finds his reflection. The tribal masks derived from transgressive spaces, are the embodiment of the reciprocal relation between the individual and the space itself: the man re-appropriate the space according to his needs and the space hides the identity of the
excluded anonymous individual who inhabits it.
