ISSUE #13

MYTHOLOGY
OUT NOW!

Myths still fascinate us by triggering our imagination and giving birth to multiple associations and interpretations that no mind can put into logical order nor entirely grasp.

The Greeks had neither an organized religion nor sacred books nor a strict and unmovable metaphysical narrative. Myths varied from place to place, and often offered contradictory outcomes depending on the era or local tradition.
Nevertheless, myths condensed all fundamental Greek values, such as respecting nature, understanding hubris as a form of egopathy, accepting the eternal universal laws governing one's own mortal fate, and honoring the heroes who defended their families and the city's altars, in other words those who died for a life in freedom.
These are the same themes that artists participating in SMCK Magazine's spring and summer projects — Three Myths for Athens and Myths of Our Times — highlighted with their works (video, photography, jewelry, objects, and texts) included in this issue.

When people misunderstand their focal points—the sa- credness of nature and the illusions blurring human vision—tmyths may become glamour providers for people sick with power.
Allegories as they are, myths also speak of tyranny, injustice, greed, borderline personalities, and their horrible crimes against the innocent. They remind us of the evils humans have to bear in dark times when freedom, justice, and equality do not exist.
Thus, in their role to address issues that were too sensitive and dangerous to talk about, myths also served as the voice of the unprivileged, and of those who yearned for truth. Myths attributed, for example, to the former slave Aesop, became the uncensored records of the oppressed in their strive to remain human, even in the most brutal periods of the Imperium Romanum.