This exhibition is about the city at night as an ambiguous place: it is a photographic exploration of the themes of uncertainty, uneasiness, anxiety and of allure, this mixture of emotions that the metropolis evokes at night. The city is a place, the meaning of which develops in the direction of ambivalence; it can be seductive and threatening at once, familiar and unfamiliar, friendly and strange or dangerous.

The photographs present the Freudian uncanny as this utopian place of safety that we may feel we belong to, but also the place of fear and danger, of dark secrets, that we can only inhabit furtively. Sleep, secrets, dreams, madness, beasts, they are all aspects of the uncanny that may be related to the city at night.

Eleni Mouzakiti : Metropolis series

Penelope Petsini : Dark Light series

The artists

Eleni Mouzakiti and Penelope Petsini have graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London, gaining an MA in Image and Communication (Photography). They are both currently finishing a PhD in Photography in the School of Art and Design at the University of Derby.

Greece in Britain 2003

Uncanny City is presented by the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, UK, as part of Greece in Britain 2003, a nationwide series of events organized on the occasion of the Greek Presidency of the European Union to illustrate the richness and diversity of contemporary Greek culture. The exhibition is sponsored by the National Bank of Greece and EasyJet.