Timeline [Stagiates Free Waters]
2022
Collective action
Digital prints on paper, cards, anarchiving, listening, dialogue
Stagiates, Greece
Events sourced from the archives of the day-to-day struggle of Stagiates for the protection of the water commons are organised into a timeline documenting the lived contestation between acts of enclosure and commoning in the village from 2005 to 2022. At the centre of the timeline are three piles of cards. The cards, featuring a series of photographs of the plane tree at the “Krya Vrysi” water spring source, depict it as if fragmented: its roots, its trunk, and leaves. On the back of each card are a few lines for writing notes. Beneath each year on the timeline, alongside the list of events, are blank placeholders the same size as the cards. Placed on two large tables joined together in the public square of Stagiates, the timeline is collectively constructed by the residents and friends of the village. One may take a card — a photograph of either the roots, the trunk, or leaves of the plane tree — write a few notes about a notable event in the village’s struggle, and place it under the year it occurred. Listening and dialogue emerge as variants of the anarchiving mechanism and constitutive elements of the “Timeline [Stagiates Free Waters]”.
The “Timeline [Stagiates Free Waters]” is part of a body of artworks and practices developed on-site during my several-month research stay in Stagiates, Greece, in 2022, which examine water-grabbing processes in the village as they have evolved over the past 15 years and continue to unfold today. Action research, walking, counter-mapping, anarchiving, and dialogical art practices – methods I employed – attest to the obstinate presence of enclosures’ other and to the mobilisation of a wide range of emancipatory commoning practices, alongside the development of associated socialities and values in the village. Heartfelt thanks to the individuals and collectives who made this action possible. I am especially grateful to Stagiates Open Assembly, the “Apodrasis” group, the Cultural Association “Krya Vrysi”, and the coordination committee of Volos’ Collectives Against Waste Burning.
Stagiates’ public square
Stagiates, Greece