An Oasis for Ritsona
About 70 km from Athens, is placed the Ritsona refugee camp. The place welcomes more than 800 refugees from various countries in war, mainly Syria and Iraq. Together with Maidan Tent, we’ve been working on the creation of the first public space in a refugee camp.
These places were conceived as a temporary solution while the conflict is still active. Unfortunately, wars don’t understand time, and the reality is that there are people who have been waiting here for more than two years. Years full of uncertainty about their future. We feel that it is time to rethink the refugee camps, stop thinking them as nomads and equip them with infrastructure to rebuild their identity. In Ritsona, the vast majority of refugees come from Syria and Iraq, so we have worked inspired by the girihs, the geometric forms of Islamic art, to reinforce the sense of belonging to a place from which they were ripped off, but which they carry with them in their identity. Hopefully, not too long, Ritsona is an abandoned place. Until then, this work belongs to all the refugees who inhabit it. It is already part of your identity. That of their past, their uncertain present and their future.
The project has been made thanks to the support of PPG, who supplied us with the painting and to MPG, who provided funds for the materials.
