“It is an ongoing process of struggle which will not stop and you can see this also in Esso houses, I don’t want to focus on losses of fights, but if you are not aware and constantly present you will be overrun so to say, and it’s important and the right thing to do, to be actively part of how you imagine your city and how you want to live, because the city belongs to all.”
Interview with Charalambos Ganotis about the state of exception declared during the protests in Hamburg (December 2013), the situation of refugees (Lampedusa gruppe), and the power of images and performative interventions in our struggle for social change.
Barcelona, February 2014
*Charalambos Ganotis is a member of Schwabinggrad Ballett, a collective of art and activism from Hamburg founded at the turn of the millennium to create unexpected situations beyond ritualised protest-formats. It uses direct action, sloganeering, music, dance and discourse, its performances were part of dozens of manifestations and protest camps. It has been active in the Right to the City-movement in Hamburg and – among other things – has attacked the German embassy in Athens with a hard boiled egg.
