Elpidos 13, Victoria Square

Elpidos 13, photo: Mathias Völzke

From the storefront of no. 13 on this pedestrian street, it is a short walk to Victoria Square, a low-key crossroads for people of myriad nationalities, newly settled or passing through Greece. In Spring 2016, Victoria Square made news when it became a makeshift refugee camp, mostly for people fleeing violence in Afghanistan and Syria. More recently, an Iraqi-Kurdish restaurant has opened on the square’s northwest corner, and in the Café des Poètes across the way, you may hear stories of film shoots in this once-posh neighborhood, or of how the central statue of Theseus rescuing Hippodamia from the centaur Eurytion, made by the German sculptor Johannes Pfuhl in 1906, was shot at during the Civil War of 1946–49. In this zone marked by the coming together of many peoples, artist Rick Lowe, together with local agencies, is finding ways to forge connections, initiating dialogues that links arts and culture with small businesses as well as with support networks for immigrant and refugee groups.

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ELPI-ZO

by Antigoni Theodorou

—don’t look at me—don’t cry. You are the hope.
Listen there will be a time
when children will choose their parents
they won’t come out of the blue
There won’t be doors closed
with people leaning…

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Silkscreen Prints

During this silkscreen workshop given by Eva Mitala, participants will print on paper, fabric, and on walls of Elpidos street collective drawings that were made during their previous workshops with Felipe…

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African Fest 2017 on Elpidos Street

An event proposed by the African Network of Greece offers a breath of cool air to the evening of Friday, July 14 and gives the citizens of Athens the opportunity to taste some typical summer drinks of…

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VSP screenings

Outdoor screening of films by Stavrakos Film School graduates
Three short films from the school's archive

UMMI, Nikos Avgoustidis, 15 min., 2016
Mohamed, a six-year-old refugee, finds himself alone on a…

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Microcosmos, collage workshop for children

with Noam Assayag

Microcosmos is a workshop open to all the children in the neighborhood. We play with maps and make collages to let them express their own vision of Victoria. Maps are powerful things; collages let us imbue…

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Tessellation Workshop

with Stelios Alexakis

Experimentation with using mosaic as a modern medium of representation. The participants create a common mosaic working as a group using the technique of direct polling on a portable wooden panel. There…

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