8 Athenians discuss: What does it mean to be an active citizen today?

How do people build the city, collectively and creatively? How are different citizenship struggles shared and related? This latest “Society Uncensored” online discussion breaks the borders of citizenship, reflecting the realities of everyday urban life and showcasing street-level practices of city making.

Co-curated with the Syrian and Greek Youth Forum, an international activist movement based in Athens, Onassis Stegi brings together a variety of grassroots organizations engaged in practices of active citizenship. Different knowledges gather from multiple perspectives: community art, refugee-led activism, sex work, Black Studies, asylum law, environmental sustainability, education, and more. The discussion moves through the needs, ideas, and methods of citizenship, the challenges faced, and the ways to collectively overcome them. From everyday actions to creative ways of being in the world. As a result, forms of Athenian citizenship emerge that are lively and disruptive, joyful and rebellious.

The city and its citizenships are never fixed or finished, but always being reimagined and remade. By shifting focus away from citizenship as defined by the state, Athens becomes a testing ground of ideas, a song of solidarities, an amplifier of demands, an abundance of voices and languages.

Society Uncensored <br> A series of online discussions focusing on Greek society

Citizens share their experiences, without any censorship. Members of active organizations, individuals from the academic and the art communities, from the fields of activism and civil society, journalists, researchers, law and governance experts, people from diverse ethnicities and communities of Athens, take a personal stand on the issues that are brought forward through the debate.These deep and genuine discussions highlight key aspects of our social life, in an open digital platform promoting conversations and fruitful debates. This is the intention of the ‘Society Uncensored’ series, created for a multitude of ‘voices’ to be heard, aiming at diverse – and even marginalized or ambivalent – views to be spread, enhancing reflection and awareness on ubiquitous social issues, which emerge through the current events, the public debates at social media and the press, as well as our own daily life.

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Society Uncensored

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Society Uncensored

Credits

With:

Michael Afolayan, ANASA African Cultural Center
Ayman Alkalaa, Syrian and Greek Youth Forum (SGYF)
Keira Dignan, ECHO Mobile Library
Elena Karagianni, Artist-Refugee Education Coordinator of the Greek Ministry of Education at Schisto camp, Founder of the association: Art and Action Network
Vaggelis Manolopoulos, Organization Earth
Chryssa Mela, Khora Asylum Support Team (KAST)
Niovi Zarampouka-Chatzimanou, Victoria Square Project (VSP)

Moderator: Tom Western (UCL and SGYF)
Curation: Tom Western, Pasqua Vorgia
Heads of Production: Pasqua Vorgia, Smaragda Dogani

Filming and audiovisual materials overseen by Christos Sarris
Filming and Editing: ALASKA
Line Production: Evgenia Agkistrioti

An Onassis Stegi production
In collaboration with the Syrian and Greek Youth Forum

With subtitles in Greek and English