Poster series, Oberhausen, Germany, 2016

In the context of Actopolis Festival Oberhausen 2016 - Building A New City curated by die geheimagentur.

What lies behind the rhetoric of democratic and participatory informal ways of building new cities?
From the Platonic State until today, from the less to the more utopic attempts to construct new cities there is always an idiosyncratic initial idea of an illuminated and excellent subject who arranges matters according to his measures. Using my friends as emulated subjects I underline in an overidentification manner this arbitrariness. My friends become the exemplary citizens of the new city. South, subaltern subjects claim their part in the hegemonic redistribution of ideal and powerful localities, cities and identities (as this could be ever possible in the current condition). Be as an Athenian! 'With a little help' is a provocation to address the preconceptions and stereotypes circulate around the Athens of crisis, polarizing the identity of its subjects somewhere between the lazy wasters of Europe and the creative force of 'new south' of flexibility and sustainability.
'With a little help' is also a poetic gesture: the portraits of my friends as temporary monuments in the public space, in a small german city, somewhere where it would be impossible to be placed without my intervention.