Synoikismos was established in 1924-25 to accommodate approximately 2,500 refugees who arrived in Eleusis in 1922 and after as a result of the forced population exchanges between Greece and Turkey. The aim of the festival is to transform this historic, yet unknown, area of Eleusis into a place of meeting, reflection and exchange on sociopolitical phenomena of our time, through contemporary performing arts.
The works of the Festival invite the visitor to an embodied experience that takes place not in conventional cultural spaces, but also in public and privates spaces of the area.
The Festival invests in new site-specific productions that bring to light the unique stories of people and aspects of the area but also in multiannual residencies that offer artists and local residents the necessary time and space to get to know each other, coexist and co-create. Already, in this first edition participate two artists that work with Eleusis 2021 on a multiannual basis, Euripides Laskaridis and Yolanda Markopoulou.
In terms of theme, the 2018 edition focuses on refugees, a central European issue of today, which is at the same time the basis of the collective memory of Synikismos. The programme starts with the “Routes On Roots #2”, a welcome from the local people of Synikismos area, co-product of the collaboration between Euripides Laskarides and the Asia Minor Association of Eleusis. Followed by Yolanda Markopoulou with Station Athens group consisted of Halil, Hassan, Reza, Aydem presenting snapshots from their lives in Tehran, Bangladesh, Kabul, Karachi and Athens in the streets of Synoikismos in the context of the site-specific perfromance “I_LEFT”. From the other side of the Mediterranean sea, from Lebanon, Tania El Khoury, prominent example of Live Art, creates an unusual encounter between a refugee and one audience member in the live art performance “As far as my fingertips take me”. Also from Lebanon, Dictaphone Group presents the live art installation “Stories of Refuge”, based on three videos they created in collaboration with a group of Syrian refugees in Munich. Finally, the refugee theme is completed with the exhibition of the Italian visual artist Alfredo Romano “OPENINGS – MENDINGS, Eternity is the opposite of extinction”.
The ephemeral site-specific installation “Photosynaxis” by the beforelight group, comes to aesthetically “agitate” the empty plot on Dardanelion Street and redefine it as a flexible assembly center on the map of Eleusis, which is shaped according to the needs of its users. Here, Lena Kitsopoulou and her band invite us to a music performance of rembetiko and folks songs while every afternoon takes place the programme “Kafeneio i Vouli”, a series of discussions with the participation of thinkers from different disciplines and the local people of Synoikismos, curated by Myrsini Zorba.
The Festival includes also a number of parallel events, such as workshops for children and the elderly, walks in Synikismos, visits to the Eleusis Museum of Asia Minor, concerts on the occasion of the European Music Day and the “Home New Home” project, a series of documentaries created by refugees in Greece, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine that narrate the personal stories of these people.
You are all invited from the 15th to the 24th at Synikismos of Eleusis, in a Festival that is created by many people and is constantly re-created every minute and every moment by all participants.
The Festival is completed with a series of parallel events, such as workshops for children and the elderly, walks in Synikismos, visits to the Eleusis Museum of Asia Minor, concerts on the occasion of the European Music Day and the “Home New Home” project, a series of documentaries created by refugees in Greece, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine that narrate the personal stories of these people.
