Space gives the impression that it is more domesticated and harmless than time: most people carry a watch but only a few carry a compass. We have a constant need to know the exact time, but we never wonder where we are; we think we already know. We’re at home, we’re in our office, we’re in the subway, we’re on the road.
Georges Perec, Spieces of Spaces and Other Pieces
It is the May Day, in 2017. In the morning, a crowd gathered to honour the workers’ struggle. Among the flags and the banners, one could read a motto, with…
“One could not be more cozily accommodated in an uncozy situation”
Walter Benjamin
Saturday’s newspapers always reserve some room on their printed and digital editions to fit in the report on the clashes in Exarchia. The same article, slightly changed, is reproduced weekly just like the urban conflict it describes: police forces and urban guerillas gather and collide, every Friday night, with exceptional consistency, on the Tositsa Street or in the alleys near the famous Exarchia Square. A conflict that resembles a performance, weekly displayed in the showroom of Exarchia and condenses the rebellious nucleus of the neighborhood.
On one…
Nikos Vrantsis
Freelance researcher /Urban mouse /Flâneur interested in poetics of space
