If you arrive in Athens, Greece, we recommend visiting this exhibition:
Group exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, curated by Katerina Gregos.
These projects are all part of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens’ 2025 programme, Why Look at Animals?
ΕΜΣΤ ATHENS PRESENTS TWO SOLO SHOWS AND TWO NEW MAJOR SITE-SPECIFIC COMMISSIONS
SAMMY BALOJI. JANIS RAFA. KASPER BOSMANS. EMMA TALBOT.
EMΣT Athens is proud to present two solo shows by Sammy Baloji and Janis Rafa and two new large-scale, site-specific commissions by Kasper Bosmans and Emma Talbot, where the four artists delve into the imprint humankind has made on nature, culture and the planet, with a special view onto the lives and histories of exploitation of the other-than-human.
Baloji’s first solo exhibition in Greece, Echoes of History, Shadows of Progress, offers a powerful examination of colonial legacies and resource exploitation, while Bosmans’ kaleidoscopic 30-metre wall painting, The Fuzzy Gaze (2025), explores the various roles we assign to animals and the animal gaze. Rafa’s evocative and immersive solo exhibition, We Betrayed the Horses, continues the artist’s investigation into power relationships between humans and horses, while Talbot’s monumental new textile installation Human/Nature (2025) and accompanying animation film, You Are Not the Centre (inside the animal mind) (2025) attempt to understand the world viewed from non-human perspectives and an eco-feminist framework.
These projects are all part of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens’ 2025 programme, Why Look at Animals?, which explores questions of power and control over the natural world and the deliberate marginalisation of the non-human ‘Other’ in a biosphere where we are all co-dependent. Together they form a prologue to the major flagship exhibition, Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, curated by the museum’s artistic director, Katerina Gregos, which opens on 15 May 2025 with the participation of over 60 artists, and aims to generate a discussion around the rights and welfare of non-human lives and the ethics and politics surrounding their fate and plight at the hands of humans.
SAMMY BALOJI: ECHOES OF HISTORY, SHADOWS OF PROGRESS
Until 2 November 2025 | Curated by ioLi Tzanetaki
EMΣT is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Greece of the internationally acclaimed artist Sammy Baloji. For more than two decades, Baloji has been exploring the complex interplay of cultural identity, colonial history, and industrial exploitation within his homeland, the Democratic Republic of Congo. His work is an ongoing research of the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the contested and mineral-rich region of Katanga (in the South East of the country), as well as a critical examination of the impact of Belgian colonisation.
Sammy Baloji: Echoes of History, Shadows of Progress brings together installations, video works, and photographic series from the past 13 years of the artist’s practice, and also features a new commission. The exhibition highlights Baloji’s artistic research on the history, present-day reality and contradictions inherent in the formation of Congo. More specifically, it looks at the interactions between the pre-colonial Kongo empire and Europe; investigates how the violent exploitation and resource extraction his country suffered under Belgian colonial rule has affected the country’s local infrastructure, culture, and nature; and examines Katanga’s current forms of corporate resource extraction and the ecological destruction they cause.
The exhibition title points to the haunting, lingering presence of colonial legacies, and the continuation of economic exploitation in contemporary Congo. As Baloji states, “I am not interested in colonialism as nostalgia, or in it as a thing of the past, but in the continuation of that system.” In Sammy Baloji: Echoes of History, Shadows of Progress, Baloji masterfully casts a critical eye on contemporary societies by drawing attention to the fact that cultural clichés continue to shape collective memories. Baloji is also participating in the major forthcoming group exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, curated by Katerina Gregos.
JANIS RAFA: WE BETRAYED THE HORSES
Until 5 October 2025 | Curated by Daphne Vitali
Janis Rafa’s work in film, sculpture, and installation explores the complex relationships between human and non-human animals, addressing themes of love and domination, seduction and consent, mortality and loss. Her practice delves into animalistic instincts, untamed behaviors, inherited violence, and human fears, desires, and failures. Her works often focus on the silent presence of animals, allowing them to become the leading force within her poetic and timeless compositions. Her subjects are positioned within unusual cinematographic sets on the urban fringes and decaying landscapes that blend the fictional with the mundane. Rafa’s first solo institutional exhibition in Greece, We Betrayed the Horses, commissioned by EMΣΤ, presents a series of new works exploring the desire for, and domination of, the animal body—specifically the horse. The artist transforms two museum spaces into an evocative installation referencing the taming and riding of horses, inviting viewers into a sensuous environment where sculpture and text-based works highlight the ambiguous relationship between the horse and its controlling rider. The exhibition includes a new film set in equestrian spectacle arenas alongside archival footage from the Eye Filmmuseum, which depicts domesticated animals instrumental in colonial expansion.
Central to the exhibition is Rafa’s concept of the “performed horse,” a construction shaped by human desires, removed from its natural instincts and physicality, reduced to an instrument for human needs. Rafa’s works also examine the gendered, elitist, and nationalistic dimensions of horsemanship throughout modern history. Themes of care, betrayal, obedience, and non-consensual relationships between humans and animals are further explored, emphasizing the exploitative dynamics between species.
While Rafa’s past works have often centered on the animal body, We Betrayed the Horses shifts focus to its absence. Through human-made structures and technologies designed to control, house, or dominate animals, the exhibition suggests a haunting presence—the trace of an exploited and subdued identity. Turning to the horse as a paradigm of this constructed body, Rafa challenges viewers to rethink entrenched notions of animal productivity, efficiency, and spectacle, questioning the seductive but often violent bond between humans and animals. Rafa is also participating in the major forthcoming group exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, curated by Katerina Gregos.
KASPER BOSMANS: THE FUZZY GAZE
Until 15 February 2026
Known for his multifaceted practice spanning sculpture, installation, painting, and drawing, Kasper Bosmans’ works are intricate compositions filled with references to high art, literature, folklore, mythology, heraldry, and anthropology, approached through a playful and queer lens. He gathers anecdotes and stories from diverse cultures, translating idiosyncratic practices and rituals into contemporary narratives that draw attention to mythological remnants in modern life and his latest project explores the shifting roles of animals in human society.
The work, a new 30-metre mural, loosely investigates the history and development of the animal-human gaze in the shape of a procession or enfilade. Horses, teddy bears, hedgehogs, dissected frogs, and feline eyes populate scenes ranging from household spaces to circus arenas, revealing animals as companions, entertainers, and commodities shaped by human utility and desire. Evocative and rebus-like, they reveal minute zoological details and fragments of regional lore, layering local specificity with universal resonance. Not unlike the Ionian embroideries from the Benaki Museum, they capture the intricacy of a shared history – each detail sharpening the viewer’s gaze, anchoring them in the mural’s labyrinth of meanings. Heraldic stylizations and references to caparisons – ornamental horse coverings – highlight Europe’s historical commodification of animals. The glazed eyes and boredom of creatures confined to artificial environments like farms, zoos, and circuses underscore this theme.
As Bosmans reflects: “Animals once looked at us with indifference, as fellow beings without shared language or hierarchy. This lack of a shared vocabulary and understanding was imbued with mystery, but as humans settled in villages and cities, we severed symbiotic ties, domesticating animals for labour, display, and companionship, the mystery started to fade together with the intricately indifferent gaze we used to receive. It was replaced by something else, (or perhaps nothing, a massive void) in our increasingly utilitarian family-run cities. The fuzzy gaze and passive glances started to be cast through glass and meshes, behind bars, fences and circus rings. We pretended animals didn’t have a soul that could be stolen but took it from them nonetheless.” Bosmans’ mural invites viewers to examine the shifting roles animals have occupied in the human world over time within a richly layered visual narrative of human-animal relationships. The Fuzzy Gaze was commissioned by EMΣT and is a prologue to the major, forthcoming exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, curated by Katerina Gregos.
EMMA TALBOT: HUMAN/NATURE
Until 15 February 2026
Emma Talbot has become known for her large-scale installations of painting on silk, a medium whose formal characteristics she finds suited to articulating a feminist discourse. Talbot combines painting, drawing, animation and large-scale sculpture with distinctive imagery, combining mythological and rhythmic motifs, vibrant colours and calligraphic texts to raise issues relating to ecopolitics and the environment. In her works, Talbot engages with questions such as ‘what is nature’ and how – or if – an ethical ‘return’ to it is possible.
Human/Nature, newly commissioned for ΕΜΣΤ, is a monumental textile installation made of painted silk and an accompanying animation film entitled, You Are Not the Centre (inside the animal mind). In these – as in many of the artist’s works – there’s a female protagonist – a version of the artist herself – who is always searching and exploring, trying to make sense of the world. Here, she leaves the human sphere to enter the animal mind, trying to understand the world viewed from non-human perspectives. The figure lives through different sensory experiences as she encounters the olfactory world of the dog, the mind of a spider that plans to make complex webs, or the visual perceptions of deer and the anxiety responses of captive birds etc.
The large-scale painted silk hanging features chimaeras – monstrous human inventions combining different animals. Drawing on medieval animal illustrations and classical chimaera statues, this imagery symbolises human fantasies and the entangled relationships between humans, animals, and nature. The chimaera serves as a metaphor for the human Ego, our imaginings of the unknown, and the often monstrous ways we relate to the natural world. Together, these works seek to unravel human-nature entanglements and envision the possibility of alternative, more caring futures. The project was commissioned by EMΣT and is a prologue to the major, forthcoming exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives curated by Katerina Gregos.
These four projects form part of EMΣT Athens’ 2025 programme, which explores the complex dynamics between animals and humans, their shared experiences, and their crucial role in planetary wellbeing. The flagship group exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, curated by Katerina Gregos, serves as the programme’s centrepiece, while the solo projects and public installations broaden its scope, fostering a museum-wide dialogue on moral, ecological, and ethical questions surrounding animal rights and justice.
Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives opens on 15 May 2025 with the participation of over 60 artists. The press kit can be accessed here.
ΕΜΣΤ Athens is one of the only national art institutions in the world to allow pets.
Pets and their owners are welcome to visit the museum, including the exhibitions.
For further information, please contact:
International press
Amanda Kelly, Pickles PR Vanessa Saraceno, Pickles PR
National Press
Ioakeim Theodoridis, EMΣT Maria Tsolaki
ΕΜΣΤ | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens is funded by the
Hellenic Ministry of Culture
BIOGRAPHIES
SAMMY BALOJI
Sammy Baloji (b. 1978, Lubumbashi, DR Congo) lives and works between Lubumbashi and Brussels. Since September 2019 he has been working on his PhD artistic research project “Contemporary Kasala and Lukasa: towards a Reconfiguration of Identity and Geopolitics” at Sint Lucas Antwerpen. A Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, he has received numerous fellowships, awards and distinctions, notably at the African Photography Encounters of Bamako and the Dakar Biennale, and was a laureate of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. In 2019-2020, he was a resident of the French Academy of Rome – Villa Medici. Since 2018, he teaches at the Sommerakademie in Salzburg. Sammy Baloji co-founded in 2008 the Rencontres Picha/Biennale de Lubumbashi. Solo exhibitions (selection): K(C)ongo, Fragments of Interlaced Dialogues, Palazzo Pitti, Florence (2022) and Beaux-Arts de Paris (2021); Sammy Baloji, Other Tales, Lund Konsthall and Aarhus Kunsthal (2020); Congo, Fragments d’une histoire, Le Point du Jour, Cherbourg (2019); A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes, Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2018); Sven Augustijnen & Sammy Baloji, Museumcultuur Strombeek (2018); Urban Now: City Life in Congo, Sammy Baloji and Filip de Boeck, The Power Plant, Toronto and WIELS, Brussels (2016–2017), and Hunting and Collecting, Mu.ZEE Kunstmuseum in Ostend (2014). He has recently participated in the 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023), the Architecture Biennale of Venice (2023), the 15th Sharjah Biennial (2023), Sydney Biennial (2020), documenta 14 (Kassel/Athens, 2017), the Lyon Biennial (2015), the Venice Biennale (2015), the Photoquai Festival at the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, 2015). In 2023, he ranked 11th in the Power 100, the annual list of the “most influential people in art” by the British magazine ArtReview. His first solo exhibition at Imane Farès, 802. That is where, as you heard, the elephant danced the malinga. The place where they now grow flowers (2016) is now part of the collection of Tate, London.
JANIS RAFA
Janis Rafa graduated from the University of Leeds School of Fine Arts (2002-2012) with a PhD in video art. She went on to complete the two-year residency programme at the Rijksakademie. Recent solo exhibitions (selection): Feed Me, Cheat Me, Eat Me, Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam (2023-24); Resilient Tongues, OpBo, Athens (2024); Eaten by Non-Humans, Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2018-19). Group exhibitions (selection): Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, EMΣT | Museum of Contemporary Art (2025); The Life of Animals, MUHKA, Antwerp (2024); Biennale Gherdëina, Switzerland (2024); 59th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale (2022); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (2021); Goethe-Institut Athen (2021); MAXXI, Rome (2022 and 2020); State of Concept, Athens (2020); Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018); Mardin Biennial, Turkey (2018); Kunsthalle Munster (2017); EYE Filmmuseum (2021 and 2016); Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (2015). In 2020, her debut feature Kala azar premiered at Rotterdam Film Festival (Tiger Competition, winner KNF award) and New Directors | New Films at MoMA, followed by international festival touring and cinema release in the Netherlands. Her second feature film The Future is An Elder Cow is in development with Heretic Productions.
KASPER BOSMANS
Kasper Bosmans (b. 1990, Lommel, Belgium) studied in Belgium at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and did his master’s degree at HISK – Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Ghent. Solo exhibitions (selection): Mutualism, Delvaux, Paris; Collection Display: Kasper Bosmans, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands (2023); Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Husbandry, WIELS, Brussels (2022); Wolf Corridor, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands; A Perfect Shop-front, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Milan (2021); Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York (2020 & 2018); Das Verflixte 7. Jahr, Fuerstenberg Zeitgenossich, Donaueschingen, Germany (2018); The Words and Days, De Hallen, Haarlem, The Netherlands (2017); Specimen Days, S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Cintamani Weavings, Centrale for Contemporary Art, Brussels (2016). Group exhibitions (selection): 9th Biennial of Painting, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium; After Paradise, Triennale Kortrijk, Belgium (2024); 40th EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art, Limerick, Ireland, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Imaginary Friends, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2023); Barbe à Papa, CAPC Musée d’art Contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux (2022); I Think I Look More like the Chrysler Building, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands (2021); The Penumbral Age: Art in the Time of Planetary Change, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, In the Presence of Absence: Proposals for the Museum Collection, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Together, M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany (2020); Blood and Soil: Dark Arts for Dark Times, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania; Future Generation Art Prize @ Venice 2019, Palazzo Ca’ Tron, Venice; Future Generation Art Prize, PinchukArtCentre, Kiev; Young Artists in Europe: Metamorphosis, Fondation Cartier, Paris (2019); Stories of Almost Everyone, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Kathmandu Triennale 2017, Maligaun, Kathmandu, Nepal; Drawing Biennial, Drawing Room, London (2017).
EMMA TALBOT
Emma Talbot was born in 1969 in Stourbridge, England. She trained at the Royal College of Art, London, and was subsequently a Rome Scholar at the British School of Rome. Solo exhibitions (selection): The Age/L’Età – Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2023); Kunsthaus Biel, Switzerland (2023); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2022); DCA Dundee (2021); East Side Projects, Birmingham (2020); Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (2019); Freud Museum, London (2016). Group exhibitions (selection): Art in Periods of Upheaval, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (2024); Art Display, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; The Inescapable Intertwining of All Lives, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf; The Ecstatic Being. Between Knowing and Understanding, STUK Leuven, Belgium (2023); The Milk of Dreams, main exhibition, 59th Venice Biennale (2022); Winter Light, Hayward London (2021). In 2020 she was awarded the Max Mara Art Prize for Women.
ΕΜΣΤ
Founded in 2000, EMΣT | The National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens is the leading national institution for contemporary art and visual culture in Greece, and one of the flagship institutions in Southern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Museum is located in the former FIX brewery, an Athenian landmark of industrial modernist architecture, in the heart of Athens. EMΣΤ regards art and visual culture as a transformative element in education, knowledge production, storytelling and a tool for the advocacy of progressive and emancipatory values. The Museum focuses on practices that cast a critical eye on society at large and its political urgencies, examining key issues of our times such as democracy, governance, equity, economics, the environment, the effects of globalisation and the dominance of technology, while highlighting the importance of public life and dialogue.
EMΣT acquires, safeguards, preserves, documents, researches and exhibits contemporary Greek and international art through a dynamic temporary exhibitions programme and a rotating presentation of its collections of Greek as well as international art. The Museum promotes education in the contemporary visual arts and constantly aims to raise awareness as regards critical and experimental trends in current art. One of its founding goals is to promote artistic innovation and to commission and produce works in all media. EMΣΤ offers the public opportunities to interact with contemporary art through its exhibitions and publications as well as its education and public programmes; the latter are free of charge. EMΣΤ also aims to promote Greek contemporary artistic production more generally by connecting to expand the domestic community of contemporary art by connecting it with professionals from the international scene, through – for example – the International Curators Visiting Programme. Likewise, it aims to connect international artists to Greece through its Residency Programme. Finally, it also provides professional support to emerging artists and curators through its Mentorship Programme. In a constantly changing world, EMΣT represents the exchange of ideas and perspectives through contemporary art, enriching the daily lives of the public and the experience of the visitors.
The EMΣΤ collection includes the work of artists from Greece with a special focus on the diaspora and the rich and often contested histories and the cultural, socio-political entanglements of the geographical region surrounding Greece, which includes the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa, where cultures, diasporic currents and religions merge and confront one another, yielding complex and often unknown, forgotten or marginalised narratives. The Museum’s mission statement and collection policy can be accessed online here.
D.DASKALOPOULOS COLLECTION GIFT
The D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift represents the largest ever single donation of contemporary artworks to EMΣT. The integration of this significant group of works into the Museum’s collection contributes decisively to the strengthening of its international character. Aligned with the direction of the Museum’s collection policy, which centres on the critical geopolitical position of Greece, the works speak to the multitude of historical, cultural, and socio-political narratives attached to it. The donation also enriches the anthropocentric, existential, and socio-political orientation of the existing ΕΜΣΤ collection, addressing relevant gaps in the narrative of the history of contemporary art in Greece. The D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift can be accessed online here.
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