The Xouthou project was conceived in 2015 by a group of visual artists, actors, performers, directors, journalists and scholars in the fields of social anthropology and urban planning, from Greece and other countries. We came together to explore, document and creatively process material emerging from Xouthou Street in the Omonoia area. By means of a broader creative dialogue and interaction between artists and academics, we aim to create a body of work in direct dialogue with the space and its users.

Based both upon research and our own experience of the space, we propose an artistic discourse which will converse with the ideas mentioned above. We will attempt to define the area’s dimly illuminated—like the street itself—geography and its unceasing metamorphosis. We will draw inspiration from diverse interpretations and representations, overcoming the limits set by the dominant public discourse that reproduces xenophobia and social exclusion. We want to retrieve hidden memories and narratives and question pre-fabricated images and leading narratives on marginality.

A series of visits, photographic documentation, and testimonies of current and former residents, professionals, passers-by and people frequenting the neighborhood establish the starting point for a reinterpretation of the street. They unfold to us and to the general public unfamiliar aspects of the area, its material, social and spatial dimensions on different scales, local, international and global.