SCHEMATA | Page 31

Athens, Symbolic epicenter of the European crisis, city of conflict, city of contradictions, the cradle of democracy stuck in limbo between a present that doesn’t seem to pass and a future that still needs to be designed. A city marked by 5 years of crisis, a city full of marked people. The walls tell their stories, in the cracks of reality. Welcome to Words cover the streets like tags of the crisis, as a game of life and death, projected on broken and vulnerable bodies, often of children and young adults, with hollow cheeks and empty eyes. fear, desperation, hopelessness, a city in a state of emotional exception. Welcome to the civilization of fear. the protest on the walls cannot be kettled in, gas masks, molotov cocktails, the city in flames. Everywhere and at all times. the only terrorist is the 8 o’clock news the only terrorist is the state and as the fires burn our hearts will unite almost a little romantic. and maybe love will save the world, but until then – at least in Athens – the struggle goes on. ironically, cynically, passionately. but even on the walls of the crisis city there are moments of hope, new blueprints of society, geographies of solidarity. I think we all actually should feel ‘lucky’ because [the crisis] makes us more creative. we are creative now because if we were in a period where everything is calm and nothing really happens we wouldn’t have the motivation to express ourselves. it’s not a good situation to be in, I'm not saying that, but I think it makes you creative. welcome to Athens, city of creative resistance.