Walls speak and Catherine, a new resident in the country, took a camera and photographed the “sayings”. Among the thousands of graffiti written by anonymous hands that seem to converse on the walls of Athens, here are a few we have chosen.

They tell a story of anger and anxiety, of people under pressure, of a feeling of revolt against the cruelty of oppressive society, of “cannibals” well identified, who must be fought. Words that are violent, ironic or poetic, speaking of a city of on fire, of wars to come, of wanting to escape and of the lure of the night and its feasts. Resist, they say, by all means, “reset the system”. spontaneous words of wrath, some desperate, some mockings…

The walls speak, we should listen.

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Walls Speak was presented in Urban Transcripts 2010 “Athens: urban (r)evolution through individual spontaneity in the absence of planning”, in Athens, Greece, December 2010.

Volume 1, no. 1 March 2017