POLIS21 – ATHENS
BETWEEN FILOXENIA AND XENOPHOBIA

Firday 6th November afternoon, Monastiraki Square – Public exhibition and artistic intervention
Saturday 7th November, Byzantine and Christian Museum – Symposium

The recent exponential increase in the presence and visibility of migrants in Athens is the focus of a day of discussions bringing together academics, architects, activists and migrants’ groups, and a public exhibition and artistic intervention in Montastiraki Square.

The issue is a fundamental one for contemporary Greek and European political life. Not only is the phenomenon of migration increasingly dominating the political agenda of the right and the far-right, but the urban texture of the city and the way this is navigated and negotiated by its inhabitants has been seriously affected, as the experience of the areas of Omonia-Psirri-Kerameikos-Metaxourgio in Athens shows.

PROGRAMME

10.00AM : Introduction

10.30AM: First Panel: Between Filoxenia and Xenophobia

The first panel addresses the contemporary reality of migration from a theoretical and political point of view, demanding what xenophobia means today, and what particular political instances and mechanisms of repression are faced by migrants into Europe today.

With:
Dr Maria Theodorou – SARCHA (School of ARCHitecture for All)
Between Filoxenia and Xenophobia
Olga Lafazani
On the Greek border: migration movements, control policies and dominant discourse.
Gemma Galdon Clavell
Local policies: campaigning for migrant rights in the city
Paraskevi Kourti
Paraskevi Kourti has taken part in a research on the impact of migrant settlement in Thessaloniki

12.00 – 12.30AM: Break and Video Screening from the Research Walk (prepared by Panayiota Andrianopoulou)

12.30AM: Second Panel: Migration: What challenge for Art and Urbanism?

The second panel focuses on the artistic and urban side of migration. In what ways is the phenomenon of migration transforming the way the city is inhabited and negotiated? Are we faced with new forms of urban exclusion, or could migration be seen as a liberating force is an often compartamentalised space?

With

Eleni Tzirtzilaki – Nomadic Architecture Network
The historical centre of Athens and its refinement. Filoxenia, displacement and it’s particularities. What is the role of art?
Nikos Papastergiadis
Cultural Translation or the Zombification of the Other; the transformation of the urban environment in postindustrial cities.
Nelly Kampouri & Pavlos Hatzopoulos
Discussion on the occupation of public space

In conjunction with the symposium, Locus Solus: a performance based installation project, will take place at the Byzantine Museum organized by Out of the Box Intermedia. Under the auspices of the European Cultural Foundation and the British Council, the project explores the idea of science in relation to accounts of contemporary and historical utopic imagination. Drawing on the novel Locus Solus (“Solitary or Unique Place” 1914) by Raymond Roussel (1877-1933), a proto-Surrealist text in which a scientist named Martial Canterel fits out luxurious laboratories in a villa near Paris. Each room demonstrates one of the ingenious inventions of his encyclopaedic mind.

For more Information about the project please visit:
outoftheboxintermedia.org
eurocult.org
britishcouncil.org/greece-arts-and-culture-locus-solus