the AfroGreeks is a collective community project in progress that is presented as a video installation, accompanied by live events, podcasts, workshops, open discussions, film screenings, co-operations with the communities and other actions, with the aim to give a voice and a means of expression to the “invisible” ones of Athens who stand up for being Greeks of African origin/descent.
The project, which is run by Døcumatism and coordinated by filmmaker Menelaos Karamaghiolis, started in 2015 with actions that led to a public discussion about the African community in Athens held in Kypseli in 2019, a first installation in the library for immigrants “We Need Books” and in St. Therese Catholic Church along with parallel events by the African community. The term was made openly known by the project mainly through Instagram and was adopted by young people of African descent who approached the project curious to learn what it was about.
The protagonists of the project’s video installation are 200 Afro-Greeks (so far), who live and work in Greece, are proud of their origin, claim their right to be artists and strive to express themselves in every possible way. Their creative participation in the collective project the AfroGreeks offers them a chance to express themselves in order to become visible, to declare that they are artists giving form to a loud reaction against any type of racism, through a work of art they creatively take part in, in all possible ways. The aim of the project is to create an archive and a first record of the history of the African community in Greece in the 20th and 21st centuries, as an integral part of the national narrative and Greek history.
The project is of particular importance both for its protagonists and the artists that create it, as the Afro-Greeks are “recognized” as Greeks through artistic procedures and as artists, they create their work and take part in a workshop collective community project that puts them in contact with their history and their past.
Artists’ Note
We are Grace and Alex.
We are Afro-Greeks.
We started from the neighborhood of Kypseli, which for many of us is our true homeland, and we work with Døcumatism and Menelaos Karamaghiolis who – through a series of art events – tried to make this neighborhood change, and no longer be considered a ghetto. I am afraid that it was considered a ghetto because of us.
Racism based on colour, prejudice and racial discrimination have made it very difficult for us to define our identity, our homeland and to feel Greek without being hindered by our origin and colour, even though most of us were born here. All the above make it difficult for us to find our way without constant obstacles in our everyday lives.
Most of us are artists that cannot easily find a place nor the time to express ourselves and show our work. During the last few years, through the AfroGreeks project, we’ve been trying to find ways to deal with all this and become visible. We believe that knowledge and art must not be afraid of the invisible parts of the city, like the ones we live in, and we are glad that you invited us to introduce ourselves and show you what we do and what we dream of.
We hope that you will come and see us when we will be “exposed”/ exhibited as protagonists of a video installation and as artists in live events, where we will sing, dance, discuss, argue, watch films, redefine reality and ourselves.
We say all this – in every way – audiovisually in the project the AfroGreeks, which we have been preparing since 2015 to be exhibited as a video installation that will contain many videos, videos of our own, of our lives, our occupations, our concerns and our dreams. There we will narrate our dreams and argue among ourselves whether we want to be called Afro-Greeks or not. Because we dream that art can become an essential “weapon” that may help to change the world and our lives decisively. Already our project – so far – has 200 protagonists and is still going on. At the end of the video installation there will be an archive-workshop, which will include all the research we have been doing over the years on the African Diaspora. There the work will continue to be filmed and edited in front of the viewers with their active participation. So that at the end of the exhibition there will be a large archive of our interviews and actions that will belong to our communities and will mark the first attempt to capture our history, the history of the African Diaspora in Greece in the 20th and 21st century. A history that is part of the national history of Greece. Because this is where we live and this is where we belong.
Then, the project will pass on to the communities and educational institutions for any researcher or anyone who would like to learn who we are and what we do. Also a “task force” operates as part of the project, in co-operation with communities and organizations, it intervenes in crucial questions of its protagonists and deals with various problems that are related to bureaucratic procedures we face on a daily basis.
Grace Nwoke, Anthropologist & Performer
Alex Loggovitis, Artist
