‘X Apartments’ Offers Glimpse Into Lives Of Others

Dionysis, a 63-year-old Greek pensioner, dances to electronica with Austrian performance artist Doris Uhlich in a small room, just two by three meters, in Kolonos. “I’ve gone back in time,” he says.

Barry Amadou, a 24-year-old from Guinea, tells his story of constant migration, which he illustrates on a map with pieces of string and photographs showing all the places he’s been in his life, placed on a small table in his basement apartment. “The first time I ate McDonald’s was in Germany and it was bought for me by a policeman,” he remembers.

Anna from Moldova has reproduced a slice of home on the rooftop of an apartment building on Amerikis Square: She has planted a small garden on the roof and has arranged dozens of plastic flowers around the displays of photographs and religious icons adorning the walls of the building’s old washroom, now her apartment. “If you have hands, feet, can work and walk, then you’re the richest person in the world,” she says, explaining her philosophy on life.

Paola Revenioti, a 56-year-old transsexual, offers us coffee and answers questions from her couch in a carefully decorated apartment on Liosion Street, where she lives with her dog Lucy. The headquarters of far-right party Golden Dawn is nearby but she makes a point of never passing in front of the building even though she has not heard of any party members giving the Somalis who play basketball across the street any grief.

Lambros, whose parents are both Greek, came from Brazil as a young man in 1997. He worked in various hotels (he speaks five languages) until he lost his job and home. He has spent the last two years living at the municipal shelter, “until the Big Man opens a door,” he explains, fingering a small cross that hangs around his neck. “My dream is to be able to rent a studio apartment again.”

What is life like in some of Athens’s most run-down neighborhoods? On the one hand we have a swimming pool on the rooftop of a pretty building in Metaxourgeio, on the other, a dank basement in Kypseli – apartments built haphazardly by fortune-hunting contractors and elegant inter-war buildings testifying to a rich architectural past.

The “X Apartments” initiative, organized as part of the Fast Forward Festival by the Onassis Cultural Center a couple of weeks ago, brought us face to face not just with veiled truth but also with vital lies by organizing visits to 15 homes along two separate routes for two days. The first started at the Attiki metro station and took in Kypseli. The second began in Metaxourgeio, crossed the tracks at Larissis train station and ended in the district of Kolonos. For about six hours in total, the spectator-participants were released in pairs with a detailed itinerary to meet and explore the homes of foreign and Greek residents. We asked questions and they asked questions. We chatted, we drank a liqueur in one house and had Syrian sweets in another. It all seemed fast, condensed, like a movie in fast-forward.

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by
Maria Katsounaki