‘X Apartments’ offers glimpse into lives of others

Dionysis, a 63-year-old Greek pensioner, dances to electronica with Austrian performance artist Doris Uhlich in a small room, just two by three meters, in Kolonos. “I’ve gone back in time,” he says.

Barry Amadou, a 24-year-old from Guinea, tells his story of constant migration, which he illustrates on a map with pieces of string and photographs showing all the places he’s been in his life, placed on a small table in his basement apartment. “The first time I ate McDonald’s was in Germany and it was bought for me by a policeman,” he remembers.

Anna from Moldova has reproduced a slice of home on the rooftop of an apartment building on Amerikis Square: She has planted a small garden on the roof and has arranged dozens of plastic flowers around the displays of photographs and religious icons adorning the walls of the building’s old washroom, now her apartment. “If you have hands, feet, can work and walk, then you’re the richest person in the world,” she says, explaining her philosophy on life.

Paola Revenioti, a 56-year-old transsexual, offers us coffee and answers questions from her couch in a carefully decorated apartment on Liosion Street, where she lives with her dog Lucy. The headquarters of far-right party Golden Dawn is nearby but she makes a point of never passing in front of the building even though she has not heard of any party members giving the Somalis who play basketball across the street any grief.

Lambros, whose parents are both Greek, came from Brazil as a young man in 1997. He worked in various hotels (he speaks five languages) until he lost his job and home. He has spent the last two years living at the municipal shelter, “until the Big Man opens a door,” he explains, fingering a small cross that hangs around his neck. “My dream is to be able to rent a studio apartment again.”

What is life like in some of Athens’s most run-down neighborhoods? On the one hand we have a swimming pool on the rooftop of a pretty building in Metaxourgeio, on the other, a dank basement in Kypseli – apartments built haphazardly by fortune-hunting contractors and elegant inter-war buildings testifying to a rich architectural past.

The “X Apartments” initiative, organized as part of the Fast Forward Festival by the Onassis Cultural Center a couple of weeks ago, brought us face to face not just with veiled truth but also with vital lies by organizing visits to 15 homes along two separate routes for two days. The first started at the Attiki metro station and took in Kypseli. The second began in Metaxourgeio, crossed the tracks at Larissis train station and ended in the district of Kolonos. For about six hours in total, the spectator-participants were released in pairs with a detailed itinerary to meet and explore the homes of foreign and Greek residents. We asked questions and they asked questions. We chatted, we drank a liqueur in one house and had Syrian sweets in another. It all seemed fast, condensed, like a movie in fast-forward.

The concept belongs to German curator Matthias Lilienthal, the new artistic director of the Muenchner Kammerspiele, who started setting up site-specific tours of the homes of “others” in 2002. So far, the “performance” has been held in Beirut, Johannesburg and Sao Paolo in a bid to reinterpret the notions of private and public space. The Athenian installment was put together by Fast Forward Festival artistic director Katia Arfara and Anna Muelter, while the research into the city routes was conducted by Prodromos Tsinikoris. Fifteen Greek and foreign artists took part.

I took in both routes. I invaded people’s privacy, I smelled the smells of their homes, tasted their food, and saw many lives coexisting in one: the life of the city. I listened to people’s stories, seeing that the things which connect us – such as fear and hope – are also the things that divide us. I pondered, yet again, the limits of art, where it is truth and where it is staged.

The “X Apartments” experience moved me to my core. It made me think.

A few days later I returned alone to the apartment of Sami Hamo, a 48-year-old Syrian who had opened his home to the project. He lives with his wife and their 5-year-old daughter in Kypseli. Having spent years working in construction, his own home is well cared for and freshly painted.

“I came to Greece on January 26, 1995,” he says. “I’m an immigrant, not a refugee. I left Syria in 1992, from a Kurdish village about 80 kilometers from Aleppo, to attend university in Bulgaria. I was one of six children. I came here after Bulgaria, legally.” During our discussion he repeats that he’s legal several times, wanting to stress the point.

Sami has been out of work for two years. On the weekend he sells used items such as books and clothes in Monastiraki, rarely bringing home more than 20 euros. His landlord has allowed the family to stay without rent – so far at least – on the condition that Sami maintains the property and does any repairs needed.

“I do my best,” he says.

The television is tuned into a Kurdish channel. Sami’s wife serves me homemade biscuits and his daughter comes into the living room every so often to show off a favorite toy.

“I’ve lived in Kypseli for 10 years,” says Sami. “There’s an organization, Myrmingi, which helps people in need. I’ve been going there and helping out as well. A church gave us food for about three months but then stopped because, a woman said, we are Syrian. We were sent to another church.”

How did he feel about the “X Apartments” experience?

“It gave me so much joy and hope. You see people who care about you, how you are, what you’re doing. Around 250 people came through this house. They heard our story, asked questions. Now I miss all those nice people. I have hope for a better tomorrow. But we also have to wonder how we got to this point, where one has everything and another goes hungry. I don’t want much. Just enough to make ends meet. The little one asks for bread and can’t understand why there isn’t any. She needs for there to be bread.”