Inscriptions: Stagiates Free Waters
2022
Action, digital prints on paper, cards
Stagiates’ public square
Stagiates, Greece
“Inscriptions” is an action taking place in the public square of Stagiates. A marble slab bearing a Turkish inscription in ancient Arabic script, dating to 1780, dedicates the fountain to Hadji Ahmet Aga, an official of the past. Handing out a few cards bearing Aga’s original inscription alongside the line “Αφιερώνω την κρήνη σε...” (“I dedicate the fountain to…”), I asked participants: “Where would you dedicate the village’s fountain?” In a world where the capitalist hydra declares war on the earth and all forms of life, the dedications articulate a shared commitment to the care of the fountain, the village, and the life around it, while affirming forms of collective life grounded in self-organisation, solidarity, and non-hierarchical relations.
A few of the dedications read:
To all the children of the world, the plants of the village, and the passing animals.
To 1.5-year-old Eva, for her first contact with the waters of Stagiates. To make water a seed of resistance and rebellion.
Our fountain, to water, to cool, to connect, to remind us. In your shade may our children’s children sit.
The seed is the messenger between the past and the future.
Every victory in the end is written in defeat. We do not stop. Road to utopia.
To those who fight for land and freedom.
Stagiates’ public square
Stagiates, Greece