lives here, 2023
lives here, 2023
wood, glass, fabric, digital photo prints by Vaskos, paper cutouts
collective performance I HEARD THEM SINGING IN THE MOUNTAINS
at Kairi Arcade, Athens
curated by Eva Vaslamatzi
Photographs from illegal rooftop settlements in Hong Kong. These makeshift communities, often invisible from the streets below, were built on top of buildings withoutgovernment approval. These structures emerged primarily in the 1950s and 1960s due to a severe housing crisis and
high property prices, forcing low-income residents into precarious living conditions.
The dwellings are typically constructed from cheap, ad-hoc materials likecorrugated metal and wood, leading to extreme temperatures and high fire risk. Among the pictures collected in the book “Portraits From Above – Hong Kong's Informal
Rooftop Communities” (Half Letter Press, By Rufina Wu and Stefan Canham Berlin: Peperoni Books, 2008) is often present a makeshift wooden or metal tablepopularizing local traditional table design.
Here in Stoa kairi, in Athens, the arcade, in a popular tradition during the 1960s –1990s, was a particularly productive area with craftsmen and textileindustries, small shops, etc. The present intense touristification and the
ever increasing real estate and housing crisis often triggered by arts-related gentrification, fed the redesign of the “rooftop slum” Honk Kong table. Table offers a minimum utilitarian surface. On the wall in cut out paper is myGreek mobile number with the Hong Kong country code prefix.
Participating artists: Larissa Araz, Filia Dendrinou, Anastasia Douka, Dimitra Kondylatou, Evi Souli, Eva Vaslamatzi, VASKOS (Vassilis Noulas & Kostas Tzimoulis)