Bookbinders in Exarcheia

Exarcheia is known to be a place of solidarity but it has also been the epicentre of conflicts and clashes. ² Most notable is the 1973 Eleftheri Poliorkimeni ('Free Besieged') student uprising against the authoritarian military junta that had ruled Greece since 1967. The brutal uprising was a precursor to the fall of the military regime, which had violently suppressed the formation of political groups, unions, and journalism in the area. The 17 November anniversary is commemorated every year with mass student demonstrations, but its influence also lives on in the anarchist, anti-fascist and other social movements based in the area protesting war, corruption, and Greece’s financial crisis. Migrant activists help house the thousands of refugees that have arrived since 2015,³ while others protest ‘touristification’ and the encroachment of Airbnb.⁴ In recent years riots and bloody skirmishes with police have been used to invoke lawlessness in Exarcheia, but many view this as an excuse to target and stifle political activity – just as the military junta did in 1973. ⁵

Seeking to unify the sometimes-contested views on Exarcheia and its history, the artwork focuses on the local trade of bookbinding – a practice with links to the myriad political ideas, movements, and voices that circulate in and around the crowded streets. Exarcheia’s cluster of publishing and printing houses first sprang up in the early nineteenth century to support demand for university textbooks, expanding with the addition of anarchist and leftist printing presses as those social movements grew during the 1960s.⁶