The Dresden Diaries Project is a film/video/sound collage by visual artist Alkis Vlassakakis.
In the early 50s 1.000 greek teenager between the age of 14 and 21 arrived in the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany. Send there alone by their parents from other socialist countries, all of them refugees of the civil war hitting Greece. They were accompanied by a handful of grownups, guides in this destroyed country where they were replacing parts of Germany’s lost generation.
Learning nearly everything in this strange world far away from their families and their home country, they formed new bonds with the fellow children. And these bonds became very close ones in those twenty-five years until their exile was over and they could return to Greece as greek citizens. They lived together, managed to survive adolescence together and eventually dated and married – mostly each other again.
stay greek, don’t assimilate!
The expectation of the communist society was a single one: Whatever happens – stay greek, don’t assimilate! They would join greek culture clubs, have greek parties and dance to greek music.Their children would learn greek in kindergardens and schools. And they all would join the big parades on may 1st.
All in all they would live a normal life. Not a normal life a german would live, but a normal greek life. But how normal can a life be when you have no idea how a normal life looks like?
These home movies are the legacy of Georgia Dewetzi (1939-2011). Born in the village of Iatrades (Evros) she lived in Dresden until 1973. She left tons of home movies. The home movies used in ‚The Dresden Diaries‘ are showing her view of her normal life with her family, her friends and relatives. The clips and sound bites used to illustrate the normal greek way of living are by no means ’normal‘. They are clips from greek movies of the same era showing the ’normal‘ lives of fictional characters. But how does a normal life look according to Finos Film?
Το Dresden Diaries Project, ένα κολάζ εικόνων και ήχων, θα παρουσιαστεί απ’τον Άλκη Βλασακάκη και αναφέρεται σε μία ιδιαίτερη ιστορία παιδιών από την ελλάδα που μεγάλωσαν στην Ανατολική Γερμανία. Μετά τον εμφύλιο, χίλια περίπου παιδιά κομουνιστών, μεταφέρθηκαν χωρίς τους γονείς ή άλλους συγγενείς στη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία της Γερμανίας. Το βασικό παράδοξο αυτής της συνθήκης ήταν η οδηγία τα παιδιά να μεγαλώσουν με την ελληνική κουλτούρα και να μην γίνει καμία προσπάθεια ένταξης τους στο νέο περιβάλλον, με σκοπό η επιστροφή τους στην ελλάδα όταν υπάρχει και πάλι κομουνιστική προοπτική.
Οι εικόνες προέρχονται από φιλμ Normal8 όπως βρέθηκαν στο αρχείο της Γεωργίας Δεβετζή (1939-2011). Η Γεωργία ήταν μία απ’ αυτά τα παιδιά και κατέγραφε με την κάμερα της την καθημερινότητα αυτού που θεωρούσε ότι είναι μία ‘κανονική’ ζωή. Οι προβολή θα πλαισιωθεί από τα ηχητικά τοπία της Dalot.
Video / Regular8 Home Movies Projection live remix
Music and sounds by the sound artist Dalot
The Dresden Diaries is a work in progress.
The performance was part of the „tradition and family“-cicle of Fyta / Athens Biennale
http://athensbiennale.org/
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A review by Dr. Fil Ieropoulos can be found here.
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