Eleni Tzirtzilaki, Urban Mythology
Curating: Bia Papadopoulou, Artemis Potamianou
Silent Walking Iera Odos-Leonidou-Filodimou Continue reading
walking
Walking as a narration, by walking there is an interaction, you co-shape the time of the city. It contains instability, the body through walking is forced to respond to any circumstances it encounters.
Walking is an autonomous art form, basic act of symbolic transformation of the ground and aesthetic tool of knowledge regarding the physical transformation of the space as it is being crossed. Through walking and small gestures, postures, readings of poems, texts, small events, the walkers-participants get together and meet with different people -communities that live in the public spaces and urban areas of Athens. A relationship with the landscape is formed, with the plants, the animals as well as humans and their interventions. The nomadic subject through walking crosses borders through passages and cracks.
Il cammino commune is a series of actions that took place in Rome, in Hydra, in Athens. The “We were kicked out of here, Walking in the paths of displacement” meaning walking in an invisible area of Athens, Menandrou Street, combining the walkers’ team with those who were living in this area, who are immigrants without papers. In some cases walking is an activist act of protest for the river that was lost, in the action in Kifissos (Athens Biennale), or at Plato Academy for the endangered park, while in the «Revolution Bodies Walking”, the aim was to highlight the relationship of the precarious body with the city in a state of exception and a reminder of the city’s memory.
Nomade/Topos-Athens
Silent walking 14 Mai 2017 /15 .00 Plato’s Academy
Athens is a city of southern Europe where urban planning
is unclear, where there are many unemployed and homeless
people as well as many empty apartments and closed shops,
where the city is often very reminiscent of an installation and
magic is often hidden beneath the cement.
It is a city that refugees and immigrants come to in order to leave
for the North as soon as possible, but many do not succeed as
they are blocked by the closed borders and often they end up
residing here, where squats/hospitality spaces for refugees are
in the center. Continue reading
Silent walk 13, 14 May 2017
Nomadic / Topos / Athens
13, 14 Mai 2017
Athens is a city of southern Europe where urban planning is unclear, where there are many unemployed and homeless people as well as many empty apartments and closed shops, where the city is often very reminiscent of an installation and magic is often hidden beneath the cement.
It is a city that refugees and immigrants come to in order to leave for the North as soon as possible, but many do not succeed as they are blocked by the closed borders and often they end up residing here, where squats/hospitality spaces for refugees are in the center.
Continue reading
TRACES ON THE GROUND (KATO TRITOS LESVOS)
TRACES ON THE GROUND(KATO TRITOS LESVOS)
Archaiologikoi Dialogoi 2016 /Lesvos
FRIDAY, 15-4- 2016
Nowadays, the island of Mytilene can be characterized as “Ravaged shore” culminating in the agreement between the European Union and Turkey, the detention centers and the deportations.
I think about the ground as a fertile, hospitable ground that is formed through the inflows and outflows of people who come from other lands, refugees. What are the traces? I think about the bodies of the people who arrive, the camps that are constructed to house the refugees, the camp of Moria, the border guards of Frontex, the people who died and were received by this ground. A contradictory, heartbreaking, controversial and unstable ground. Continue reading
Partisan Nitsa – Eleni Papayiannakis Electra
A visit to the place. Life must change.
On Revolution.
On the afternoon of September 12th, 2015 a group of women, men and two children (14 people in total) headed to the mountain village Kallikratis, situated on a plateau, mainly inhabited during the summer, with trees, sheep and goats, towards the location Sideroporti, on the Mountain. At the place where, on April 18, 1949, as it seems from the press of that period, at 3.30 in the afternoon during a conflict , partisan Nitsa-Eleni Papayiannakis, called Electra, was killed along with Athena Chandapakis and the rebels: Giorgos Manouselis (group leader originated from Kallikratis village), Andreas Kourkoumelis, Sotiris Psarrakis, Georgis Christou, Vasilis Vlassis (Lycurgus). Giorgos Miaoulis, although survived the conflict, he was later killed. Continue reading
onMAPS#0
onMAPS is collaborative project developed as a digital magazine focused on public space realized through contributions of artists, architects, urban planners, writers, thinkers. The magazine is a collection of artworks, photographs, documentation of actions, projects, frames, drawings, illustrations and texts written in the language chosen by the author. A starting point to open a discussion on what it means in general, to work / act / react / in a common space, on how to redefine what we consider public, what public space offers the community and how community access it. Continue reading
Walking on Filopappou Hill. Meeting at the abandoned kiosk of Dimitris Pikionis
“What did you do to Elefsina? What did you do to Ilissos and Kifissos rivers and to their holy waters? ‘Your sewage systems ends up in the rivers, you disposed the wastewater from your industrial plants inside them. I no longer see the altars of the gods on my mountains and hills, but only the offices and machines of your companies.” -Gaias Atimosis (1954)
Silent Walking on Filopappou Hill. Collective Reading at the abandoned kiosk of Dimitris Pikionis with a group of students from Kassel University (urban practice course) (Federica Menin, Laura Lovatel, Markus Bader, Stefania Tsigkouni). Continue reading
Revolution Bodies. Walking in the center of Athens.
Route: Free Self-managed Theatre Embros –Aristophanous –Evripidou -Athinas -Panepistimiou- Syntagma square – National Garden.
The action was part of the ten-day Body and Politics event.
It was a silent route- wandering through fragments-traces that concern the lost memory of the city, experiences – narrative poetry from its present – narratives of uprisings. The narratives were about the Theatrou Square and the Boukoura theater, the Municipal Theatre of Athens and its habitation by refugees from Asia Minor disaster, the occupation of the refugees’ quarters and the current residents, the events of December 2008 and the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos along with Memories from the Paris Commune, the Chiapas, the crosstalk at the police station with Electra Apostolou, the events of December ‘44 in Athens, ending up at the National Garden. There were poetry excerpts from Giorgos Ioannou, Mansour, Katerina Gogou, Pie Paolo Pasolini, live narratives about Panepistimiou Street by Nikos Kazeros, Constantina Theodorou, about REX Cinema, by Diana Sabri and Vasilis Spiropoulos about the route.
Breaking the borders
Route: Kotzia Square-Omonia Square – Splanzia Square, Chania-Hackney Wick in London
An event is created through a video named “Crossing the borders. Routes in the historic center of Athens.” The video is displayed simultaneously for two hours, at both squares, after the sunset.
Through paths, crossing the Park of Plato Academy.
The park as a common good for Athens.
Route: from the entrance across the cafe following the paths of the park, up to the high school.
The action was part of two-day actions-interventions organized by the Residents Committee of Plato’s Academy “we fight-claim-demand”. Archaeological Park: Open -Free Culture area. Fight for the quality of life. We defend the common. We create communities of active solidarity”
To keep the park open -free and non-tradable, an alternative destination for Athens.
It was a unique experience through the spring landscape initially with the children who had come with small crafts they created with Ioanna and placed them on the trees at the park entrance and afterwards walking together in a unique landscape with olive trees, Judas trees, plane trees, Daphne plants, and other plants.
The shopping cart
Route: Athinas Street-Central Market- Kotzia Square.
The action “the shopping cart“, action about the human condition, was part of the happening-conversation “Athens in Trans-IT-ion! Athens: A city in transition? ” Organized by the theorist of art and culture Eva Kekou in the CAMP (Contemporary Art Meeting Point) which is located at the square.
Memory. Kotzia Square or Loudovikos Square or National Resistance Square is a historic square in Athens, with important urban buildings such as the Mela building standing on the corner of Aeolus and Kratinos Street, where it used to be the Municipal Theatre designed by Ziller, which had hosted 150 families of refugees, and was demolished in 1933 by the Mayor Kotzia, while the trees of the square were a key element of its aesthetics.
Urban Void. Today it is just an Urban Void as there is only a gray pavement without trees, benches, or any interventions. Today’s square was formed in 2004, too hastily, without an architectural competition or study, and its architecture does not make the stay in the square pleasant. It is mainly a meeting point of immigrants, drug users and passers-by headed to the near-by shops. On Saturday, at the side of Aeolus Street a jewelry bazaar is held. Interesting and timeless elements of the square are the two cafes.
Il cammino comune. The song. Athens.
Action of the Nomadic Architecture Network. Athens 2011-12 Derive in the historical center (Gerani, Psirri, Metaxourgeio, Gazi)
The Nomadic Architecture Network proposes a walk in a path and a mapping of the route through Songs, texts and poems and invites you to walking common.
It could be a song, a text or a poem too. The Song is a story, a narration about the path. Walking along it, we will connect to the earth, the people, and the social ecological [1]issues of the Athens.
In the walking(Along the way), there will be short events which will concern the common resources. Continue reading
Il cammino commune. The Song. Rome.
Route: Piazza Sannini-via dei Piceni-via dei Volsci in the area of San Lorenzo.
It is about walking and the mapping of a route in Rome at San Lorenzo through songs, texts and poems. Small actions took place in public spaces. Actions took place at the occupied ex –Cinema Palazzo, at the alternative music place KeNako, at the craft workshop Rota-lab, at the Onde Rosse radio station, at the studio of Gianni Piacentini, and the poetess Eugenia Serafini. Radio presentations made by Luisella Carlei, Gianni Piacentini, Eleni Tzirtzilaki (Pier Paolo Pasolini), Eugenia Serafini. The video shown was made by Gianni Lauricella. The route was part of the Urban Transcripts 2011. Rome, the accidental city.
Il cammino commune. The song. Hydra.
Walking on the path to Agios Mamas
Route: Plakes Vlychou- path-Ag. Mamas to Hydra with the sunrise.
We set off at 6 am, Eleni, Stephanos, Thalia, Evemar, from the house in Ano Hydra. We got cheese pies from the bakery, next to the Pirate, which was just closing and we got coffee from another cafe on the beach that had just opened. Stavros was waiting for us with the water taxi. By dawn we could see the sunrise over the sea.
Water Girls – Water Boys. Paradise Lost.
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.