When boundaries divide, who stands together?

Birds call, rivers flow, language erupts. Mother tongues, stories told—language as sonic waves of interference crosses boundaries built to separate us. To honour language and its transformative effects, from rousing babble to revolutionary calls, from gossip that travels word by word, ear to ear, to slang that undermines, and words that provide solace and resistance, TAVROS is bringing together cultural practitioners to vocally transgress the man-made borders that indiscriminately separate, divide, and define.

In our contemporary moment, where conflict zones rage and ambiguous territories become battlegrounds for war crimes, the urgent need for reflection and action is clear. The postcolonial legacy continues to shape global inequalities, with North-South and West-East divides exacerbating the complexity of our interconnected world. Over two days, artists, architects, poets, researchers, and academics will share readings, create discursive environments, and use speech as a tool to propose ways of standing up and standing strong against these dividing forces. This gathering is also an opportunity to reflect, discuss, and disagree, fostering a space for diverse voices and perspectives. A congregation of spoken words will confront the arbitrary cruelty of border politics, amplify the stories of those impacted by conflict and dispossession, and engage with the often ignored murmurs of species indifferent to human-made constructs that create margins where there were none.  

When Boundaries divide, who stands together? is a two-day public programme curated by TAVROS, taking place at the exhibition space of togetherness organised and presented by NEON at the Drama School of the Greek National Theatre | School of Athens – Irene Papas (Pireos 52, 18547 Piraeus).

PROGRAMME

Wednesday 2 October 

17:00 | G E O S O C I A B I L I T I E S | Lydia Xynogala | Lecture in Greek, duration 40’ | This talk performs a transversal reading through various sources and case studies from all around Greece, crossing tectonic activities, human and mineral socialities. Earth and bodily fluids mingle; destructive and healing forces merge. There, time is both geological and human, linear and circular, as bodies return to the same collective space, repeating the same actions.

18:00 | We are in the same storm, but we’re not on the same boat | Federica Bueti, Urok Shirhan | Performative Reading in English, duration 45’ | In times of crisis, it is often said that “we are all on the same boat.” In their book Multitude, Toni Negri and Michael Hardt write this very sentence, referring to the junction of empire and globalization. But is this really the case? After all, you and I do not share the same realities. We co-exist and our lives intersect, but the truth is, we are not the same. We are separated by privilege and the deep scars of inequalities, along with the effects of racial capitalism and slow violence. How, then, do we engage in acts of “togetherness” that acknowledge this “difference” that makes up our difference? What acts of solidarity might be possible that take note of the fact that sometimes we must walk different paths? And what kind of language can we invent to describe something more complex than “togetherness” and subtler than “antagonism”? Through a performative notes exchange, writer Federica Bueti and multidisciplinary artist and researcher Urok Shirhan reflect on questions of language, belonging, and the implications of inhabiting that space of agonism opened by being Together-in-difference.

Thursday 3 October

17:00 | In order to hear the birds the war planes must be silent | Nionia Films (Alkisti Efthymiou, Maria F Dolores, Smaro Papaevangelou, Sofia Dona) | Collective readin in Greek, duration 20’ | Collective reading of subtitles from Palestinian films to comment on their silence from international art fairs and film festivals.

18.00 | Τι togetherness θα παραδώσεις, μωρή; | Lemonia Gianniri, Vassilia Kaga | Collective reading and listening in Greek, duration 60’ | Τι togetherness θα παραδώσεις, μωρή; is a collective performative reading that uses texts from pop culture, literature, academia, concerned with class struggle and queerness. These texts pose questions and offer commentary on the concept of togetherness, in an interactive experience that encourages participants to read texts aloud if they wish. The shared reading will most probably conclude with the most collective process of all, listening to a song.

19:00 | Echoes of Resilience | Latent Community, Pati Vardhami | Collective listening session, in Greek, duration 45’ | A listening session by Latent Community and Pati Vardhami that stages Albanian polyphony as a counter narrative to dominant understandings of migration, trauma and mourning, using its stories to recount community memories of loss and resilience.