Khora: a semiotic perspective on the imagination of the future

The term Khora indicates a concept proposed by Plato and still fascinating contemporary culture. It can be defined as a place and time of endless potentiality, as the receptacle of everything, and is often expressed through the figure of the mother. This figure, already proposed by Plato, can also be found in Christian iconography, which links the term Khora to the iconography of the “Madonna of the Sign”, a pregnant and praying Virgin. This maternal figure expresses very effectively the peculiar temporality that is linked to the concept of Khora: an anterior dimension, a place of the origin, but at the same time an imminent future, a moment of infinite openness to the possible that is going to take shape and to be realized soon. This essay proposes a short overview of the re-elaborations of the idea of Khora in contemporary semiotics, then focuses on the iconography of the pregnant mother. The conclusion presents a reflection on the relationship between the renewed success of the notion of Khora and the contemporary imaginary about time. This imaginary does not place the future in a linear perspective, but postulates a dynamic relationship between anteriority and imminence, which in a certain way coexist and cannot be distinguished as distinct units in a linear syntagmatic chain, as the idea of Khora actually suggests.