The City Plaza Hotel in Athens’ Vic­to­ria dis­trict stood emp­ty for a long time. In April 2016, an ini­tia­tive, togeth­er with strand­ed refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syr­ia, and many oth­er places, occu­pied the build­ing. They trans­formed the 126-room ex-hotel into a res­i­den­tial com­plex and man­aged it them­selves. In doing so, the project is a demon­stra­tion of the prac­tice of eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal sol­i­dar­i­ty with refugees. Thus, it was also a cen­ter for the fight against racism, bor­ders, repres­sive migra­tion poli­cies, and social exclu­sion. After thir­ty-six months, the exper­i­ment came to an end in 2019. Despite the project’s brevi­ty, this build­ing in cen­tral Athens, as well as the activ­i­ties that unfold­ed there, rep­re­sent crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant top­ics to all of us—and not only in times of crisis.

Link to Audio guide