Route: Walking along Kifissos river. Sailing. Travelling along Faliron coast and Psyttalia Island.
In this action the teams Urban Void, Nomadic Architecture Network, Flux factory and CUP walked with the participants along Kifissos river, in Faliro Bay, and at the mouth of Kifissos river and sailed through Faliro Bay towards the island of Psyttalia.
The area of Faliro Bay remains inaccessible from the city, starting from the Peace and Friendship Stadium (S.E.F) up to the Olympic facilities. An entire part of the coast, the Faliro Delta, remains a kind of a non-place, a cut-off piece, because the sports facilities are abandoned and the beach is a desertland. The mouths of Kifissos and Ilissos rivers are located there.
Flisvos is the closest beach to the city center and attracts residents of the surrounding areas and immigrants for swimming. Somehow it becomes their “Paradise”, because they swim like living in another era, but it is anything but paradise, when south winds blows. The b phase project of the biological waste water treatment on the island of Psyttalia is not completed, the pollution problem of the Faliro Bay is revealed again in any major rainfall because of the combined sewer overflows system of Athens, all the sewage from the wider center of Athens, through Kifisos river, are discharged into Faliro Bay. Especially with summer rains, when people swim in the adjacent areas the problem is serious. Swimming in this region today is a utopia that is reality as well, because many people continue to swim and fish.
The area looks like a lost Paradise (paradiso perduto), disturbed as it is by the continuous ecological accidents. An area broken into pieces, with islets of particular uses, in a state of perpetual discontinuity. Could all this be a place ideal for recreation, walking and swimming? Could we see the two rivers being alive in this part of the coast again? Could the coastal ecosystems of the two rivers be restored and the utopia to come true? The residents as well as local associations claim a coastal park of the area which will reconnect the city with the sea and will extend from SEF up to Paleo Faliro.
The action was the walking along Kifissos river from Piraeus Street to the coast up to Floisvos and a small trip by boat, looking at the coast and towards the island of Psyttalia. The actions trips-routes aim to get us in touch with the pieces of this lost nature within the city, with the traces of activities, subjectivities, with the reading of a major catastrophe associated with the ways of existence and common life in Athens, with a proposal for a new life.
Participants:
- From the team Urban Void: Nikos Kazeros, Eleni Tzirtzilaki, Harikleia hari, Tzimis Efthimiou http://urbanvoidathens.wordpress.com external partner Jilly Traganou.
- rom the Nomadic Architecture Network: Peggy Zali, Manos Kornelaki, Stefanos Chandelis, Valentina Ros www.nomadikiarxitektoniki.net
- From the team Flux Factory: Douglas Paulson, Chen Tamir – www.fluxfactory.org
- From the team CUP (Center for Urban Pedagogy): Damon Rich, Jae Shin – www.anothercupdevelopment.org.
For the boat trips we worked with the local club SEANATK (Association of Amateur Fishermen of Tzitzifies Kallithea).
The action was the participation in the 2nd Athens Biennale
