Born in Athens, lives and works in Italy. She studied at the School of Fine Arts in Athens (1994-2000) and continued her postgraduate studies in Fine Arts (2001-2003) at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (GB). Mary Zygouri, stages video-Performances in extreme spaces, following‬ a more relational strategy. Thus creating situations, where the real experience and the limited control over the outcome of the performance (the behavior of the public or animals involved is unpredictable) generates an authentic reaction, characterized by theatricality and documented with a cinematographic approach.
Location: Bellotta, Biological Poultry Farm , 10.000 chickens, (IT)Turin. Camera: Wiliam Farnesi Editing: Mary Zygouri, Pavlos Polizos Production: 2007
In the video-performance “Symbiosis”(2007), Mary Zygouri stages as Valentina ,an imaginary secretary - inspired by the homonymous 1946 typewriter Olivetti model shown in the video -an authoritative figure inside a herd full of 10.000 chickens. This work was inspired by Jorges Borges against the Argentinean politician Juan Peron in 1946, which resulted in the author losing his job as a public librarian and being resigned to work as poultry inspector. Directly referring to the typology of crowds as purported by Elias Canetti, the work refers to the bidirectional relationship of authoritative language that governs and according to Michel Foucault produces the victimizer and the victim. Bonds of power and the way in which subjects are ideologically accused by power .