The poem begins with the unloving sun

1/5 Photo by Alexandros Kaklamanos
2/5 Photo by Alexandros Kaklamanos
3/5 Photo by Nikolina Bairaktari
4/5 Photo by Nikolina Bairaktari
5/5 Photo by Thalia Raftopoulou

DV, 7 min 55 sec, 2015

In recent years, I have thoroughly read readers' comments on published articles relating directly or indirectly to racism, discrimination, xenophobia et cetera. While I am selecting websites without visible nationalistic orientation for this informal survey, my first conclusion -which I guess will unfortunately not cause any surprise- is the tremendous boom of unprecedented racist (lack of) reasoning, which now appears to be entirely legitimized, in contrast to, say, ten years ago. For the 'Daysign / Narratives around the Greek sun' I decided to 'construct' the comments I will be reading myself.

I contacted LIFO editor Aris Dimokidis to write a provocative article on the Greek sun. I used a couple of examples and suggested that he improvise. One example entailed a German politician making a statement along the lines of "Greeks can put their sun where it doesn't shine".
Aris gladly responded and thus emerged the following April Fools article in LIFO:

Donald Tusk: "The Greeks can stick their sun where it doesn't shine".

The article provoked strong reactions, was commented on and shared much among social networks, and was reproduced over the next few days by a range of nationalistic publications as real news.
'The poem begins with the unloving sun' is a work in progress, which so far consists of the aforementioned action, the lecture performance 'Who's the sailor now', the action 'Daysign / Gerxit - Did you mean: grexit' and this video, in which the choreographer and dancer Medie Megas performs a compilation of texts consisting mainly of readers' comments on the LIFO article.

I thank Aris Dimokidis, the LIFO team, choreographer Medie Megas and visual artist Io Chaviara for their valuable help.

Presentations:

ACTOPOLIS PRODUCTION LAB II, Former Kaufhof building, Oberhausen, Germany, 28-29/09/2015. Devised by: Katja Aßmann, Angelika Fitz. Organised by: Urbane Künste Ruhr and Goethe-Institut.
4th Moscow Curatorial Summer School, during the launch of the zine ‘What is a Turn?’, Moscow, June 2015. Screening initiated by Mateusz Sapija.
'Invisible governments: "Gnosis" as a state of the self', Circuits and Currents, Athens, June 2015. Curated by Kostis Stafylakis.
'Netting the work - Athens', Beton 7-Arts, June 23, 2015. Curated by Eva Giannakopoulou and Rilène Markopoulou.
'1st ASFA BBQ - Bodies that resist' Performance Art Meeting, Athens School of Fine Arts, June 1- June 14, 2015
'Daysign | Narratives around the Greek sun' workshop, Athens, March 31, April 7, 2015. Coordination: Panos Sklavenitis.

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Video Actions

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2015 Actopolis ASFA ASFA BBQ PAT The poem begins with the unloving sun

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