A Refugee Hotel in the Heart of Athens

We Are City Plaza, Claude Somot & Xiao­fu Wang © Samir

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.


Project

City Plaza Hotel


Actors

Sol­i­dar­i­ty Ini­tia­tive for Eco­nom­ic and Polit­i­cal Refugees, orga­ni­za­tion; Claude Somot, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and cura­tor of We Are City Plaza; Xiao­fu Wang, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and cura­tor of We Are City Plaza


Year

2016—2019


Loca­tion

Athens, Greece

We are City Plaza is a project of the French pho­tog­ra­ph­er Claude Somot and the Chi­nese pho­tog­ra­ph­er Xiao­fu Wang. For a peri­od of two weeks they lent cam­eras to 18 res­i­dents of the squat­ted hotel aged between 8 and 38 years. They took pic­tures of their dai­ly lives, which are shown here in excerpts. We Are City Plaza, Claude Somot & Xiao­fu Wang © Ali
We Are City Plaza, Claude Somot & Xiao­fu Wang © Hassan
The City Plaza Hotel in Athens was occu­pied by activists between 2016 and 2019 to pro­vide safe and dig­ni­fied accom­mo­da­tion for peo­ple on the run. The self-man­aged project was financed exclu­sive­ly from pri­vate funds and was sup­port­ed by sol­i­dar­i­ty. With­in a very short time, it estab­lished itself as a cen­ter for the fight against social exclu­sion and racism. We Are City Plaza, Claude Somot & Xiao­fu Wang © Abbas

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A Model City of Memories and Dreams

The urban land­scape of the cos­mopoli­tan city devel­ops from about 150 hous­es, which were built by fugi­tives togeth­er with the Berlin asso­ci­a­tion Schle­sis­che 27 and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions. © Aris Kress

That the hous­es assem­bled here seem to be thrown togeth­er is because the indi­vid­ual build­ings, as they stand there, do not nec­es­sar­i­ly exist as built struc­tures. They are mem­o­ries mixed with visions of one’s future four walls. Built by refugees from Iran, Syr­ia, Moroc­co, and Pak­istan, World City, as the project is called, was cre­at­ed togeth­er with Berlin-based asso­ci­a­tion Schlesische27 and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions. This glob­al city of a dif­fer­ent kind is both spec­u­la­tion and dream: about a future with­out bor­ders, the city as a process of dia­logue and its polypho­ny, of which there’s still too lit­tle to date.


Project

World City


Actors

S27—Art and Edu­ca­tion, ini­tia­tive; Anton Schüne­mann, Bar­bara Mey­er, Lin­da Weich­lein, Matze Görig, con­cept; Matze Görig, artis­tic project man­age­ment; Lin­da Weich­lein, orga­ni­za­tion­al project man­age­ment; Jana Barthel, Car­los de Abreu, Matthias Falken­berg, Jens Ger­lich, Wasim Ghiri­ou, Abuzer Güler, Renaud Hélé­na, Chris­t­ian Diaz Ore­jare­na, Nidal Jalouk, Folke Köb­ber­ling, Bern­hard Kremser, Ben­jamin Men­zel, Valentin Peitz, Thorsten Schlop­snies / Todosch, Fed­er­i­ca Teti, Kun­sta­syl e.V. with Bar­bara Caveng, Rudi Keil­er Gómez de Mel­lo, Char­lotte Kent Danoy, Bern­hard Kremser, Aymen Mon­tass­er, Dachil Sado, David Tsch­ier­sch, Patryk Witt


Year

2016—2020


Loca­tion

Berlin, Ger­many

Chil­dren, teenagers and adults build mod­els of hous­es, which rep­re­sent known and expe­ri­enced, but also future and dreamed places. © Fred Moseley
Lamin Man­neh, Gam­bia. © Fred Moseley
Abdel Kad­er Hami, Syrien. © Matze Görig
S27—art and edu­ca­tion © Fred Moseley

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A Model Project for Refugee Integration

The pho­tog­ra­ph­er and author Nico­la Zolin doc­u­ment­ed the rise and fall of the city of Riace and its for­mer may­or, who wel­comed refugees with open arms, cre­at­ing a spe­cial kind of utopia. The fol­low­ing images are tak­en from Zolin’s 2018 pho­to series »The World is a Small Town«. The Mari­na of Riace on the south­east coast of Italy, where a boat with sev­er­al hun­dred Kurds strand­ed in 1998. © Nico­la Zolin

For­mer may­or Domeni­co »Mim­mo« Lucano of the south­ern Ital­ian munic­i­pal­i­ty of Riace was co-founder of the asso­ci­a­tion Cit­tà Futura—City of the Future. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with aid orga­ni­za­tions, he took in refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Pales­tine, and Lebanon. With this came state sub­si­dies that were then also invest­ed in the village’s infra­struc­ture, which—many today believe—would like­ly have died out with­out the new res­i­dents. And so, togeth­er with the locals, aban­doned hous­es were repaired. The new­com­ers were also intro­duced to local tra­di­tions of glass mak­ing, ceram­ics, and embroi­dery. But from the begin­ning, there was resis­tance to what was seen as an idio­syn­crat­ic approach, which final­ly led to the project’s col­lapse a few years ago. Lucano was accused of mal­prac­tice, abuse of his posi­tion, and had to leave Riace. In the mean­time, how­ev­er, he’s back forg­ing new plans.


Project

Riace Cit­tà Futu­ra / Asso­ci­azione Cit­tà Futura—Giuseppe Puglisi


Con­trib­u­tors

Domeni­co Lucano, for­mer may­or of Riace; res­i­dents of Riace, refugees, Ser­vice of Pro­tec­tion for Refugees and Asy­lum Seek­ers (SPRAR), co-Winanc­ing; Cit­tà Futura—Giuseppe Puglisi, asso­ci­a­tion; Nico­la Zolin, photographer


Year

Since 1999, year of foundation


Loca­tion

Riace, Italy

A view of Riace Sopra, a place from which peo­ple had moved away for decades to find work in the north of the coun­try or North­ern Europe. The fate of the vil­lage changes with the fugi­tives that the for­mer may­or Domeni­co Lucano has placed in the emp­ty hous­es of the vil­lage. Ini­tia­tives are estab­lished with res­i­dents so that those who want to stay can set­tle down. © Nico­la Zolin
The for­mer teacher Domeni­co Lucano became may­or of Riace in 2004 and is estab­lish­ing a cul­ture of welcome—a cel­e­brat­ed inte­gra­tion and devel­op­ment project. Togeth­er with local res­i­dents, he found­ed the coop­er­a­tive »Cit­tà Futura«—City of the Future, in order to take a stand against the eco­nom­ic exploita­tion and social exclu­sion of refugees, while at the same time attract­ing more tourists to the region. © Nico­la Zolin
It is said that over the years more than 6,000 refugees from about 20 nations have come through Riace. Only a few stayed, many want­ed or had to move on. The sign that stood at the entrance of the town dur­ing the reign of Domeni­co Lucano is an expres­sion of this diver­si­ty. © Nico­la Zolin
6,000 peo­ple protest against the arrest of Domeni­co Lucano. © Nico­la Zolin

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