Sanctuary City

Athens, Greece, 2023

Sanctuary City is a public art project curated by Almir Koldzic and Niovi Zarampouka-Chatzimanou, commissioned by Counterpoints and developed in collaboration with the 26th Primary School of Athens, the Network for Children’s Rights, Unicef Greece, the Athens Comics Library, and The Home Project. Fokionos Negri, one of the most well-known pedestrian streets of Kypseli neighborhood, was selected as the locus area of the artwork because of its vibrant and multiculturalist atmosphere, long history of civic participation, and, not least, because it is the neighbourhood where the project’s artist, Eirini Linardaki, grew up.

Kypseli was once one of the most prestigious districts of central Athens and a residential centre of the bourgeoisie since the 1940s, but steadily degraded due to the relocation of most of its residents and the abonnement by the authorities. Today, both Kypseli and Fokionos Negri have been rejuvenated, since many migrants (since the 1990s) and international artists (since the 2010s) moved there and opened shops, galleries, bookstores, and cultural hubs.

Sanctuary City attempted to create, albeit symbolically and temporarily, a non-hierarchical space of convergence, a platform of inclusion and participation, and a temporary refuge where everyone is welcome, regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, immigration status, religious faith, or political views. It was activated in a public amphitheater on Fokionos Negri street between March 28-30, 2023.

Sanctuary City was developed with the youngest residents of the neighborhood (those recently arrived and those from more established communities); the artist designed workshops and participants contributed designs of their most cherished objects, along with stories about their neighborhood. A mosaic—a blanket collage made of fabrics—was created out of the drawings that more than 90 residents contributed, including the students from the 26th Primary School of Athens.

The installation was complemented by a public programme that entailed two-day open discussion sessions with artists, theorists, teachers, and residents from the neighborhood, addressing the very question of who has the right to speak and act in the public space.