Protesting in a performative way...

Back in Greece for Christmas vacation... let's say... These days here in Greece and especially Athens nothing is festive. We are in the middle of a social crises with every day protests and riots all around. The reason why all these begun was the fact that a police officer shot dead a 15-year-old boy, named Alexandros Grigoropoulos, some days ago. 

Greek people became furious and turned openly against the conservative government and its unpopular social and economic policies as well as against the police forces and their tactics.

During the last days people express their feelings with protests that often turn out to have the form of a riot. Thousands of protesters burned and destroyed buildings and public property in Athens and other major cities. More than 60 people have been hurt and many have been arrested by the police with or without reason. How and when this is going to end is something that nobody knows yet.

Under these circumstances we (a group of friends and me, all of us coming from different disciplines) decided to protest once more but this time with a different way, a performative way. We decided to focus on the deaths, because that boy was not the first one who was killed the last few years by the Greek police with no good reason and for sure he is not going to be the last one. So, using very simple materials (white paint, brushes and our bodies), we went to the protest and we would paint on the street, the pavements and the walls figures of people, as the police paints the figure in a crime scene. We wanted to make clear that all this is a big crime scene were innocents are killed just because. Just that, so simply.

The task was difficult. The streets were crowded by the protesters and the police was around. Everything had to be done quickly. But the most great part of this after all was the reactions of the people. Nobody blamed us for destroying public property. In contrary everybody was willing to help either by verbally support either by lying on the ground so that we would create his figure on the street, ether by stopping the protesters for a few seconds so that we would be able to finish what we were doing. Nobody asked why. In it's simplicity this performative activity was crystal clear to everyone, even to the angry Greek protesters.

We hope that we will continue this in the next few days. We want to transform these main streets of central Athens to a big crime scene. And in this crime scene people will continue to walk, protest and driving their cars as always, as if nothing has happened or not?

There are some photos of that here. Soon I will make the video as well...