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 that documents the lived contestation between acts of enclosure and commoning in the village from 2005 to 2022. In the middle of the timeline are three piles of cards. The cards, featuring a series of photographs of the plane tree located 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. Under each year on the timeline, along with 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 the leaves of the plane tree — write a few notes about a notable event in the village’s struggle history, and place it under the year it took place. 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 are currently ongoing. Action research, walking, counter-mapping, anarchiving and dialogical art practices, all research methods I followed, attest to the obstinate presence of enclosures’ other and the application of a wide range of acts of commoning and development of associated socialities and values in the village. Heartfelt thanks to individuals and collectives for making 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