AKASAKA, invisible city festival.
In October 2012, in collaboration with the City of Heraklion, and with the help of the Architects’ and Archeologist’s Unions, we developed the AKASAKA/INVISIBLE CITY FESTIVAL, a project designed to bring the entire city together via a walk-through highlighting the abandoned buildings in the area and their history, and finishing the walk at the School of European Education in Agia Triada – a school covered in tags and graffiti. There, children, parents, neighbors of the school, and passers-by could draw with charcoal on the exterior walls of the school a world of paper-cut style heroes, imagined characters, and children’s’ alter-egos. The participants could also use chalk and white paint to draw on the heavily worn road around the walls to both draw attention to the problems (like missing crossings for the school children) and to connect this particular school with its neighborhood. Later on, we treated all the paintings with permanent bases so that the murals became permanent installations. Since the school murals were installed, the walls have never been tagged!
photos: Jannik Weylandt
Lakkos Neighborhood, Heraklion, Crete: In 2013, the same festival organizers requested we create a mural in the much-neglected Lakkos area of Heraklion, so we held a collaborative workshop with the Roma children of the area to create the mural. For most of the children, it was the first time they had an art class and we spent several days together preparing and painting. We participated in several similar projects throughout Greece.