Around the Ikon

A week before coming to Athens, we went to the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham because an Artemisia Gentileshi painting was being shown and I would travel a long way to see one of her paintings.

Facing the gallery is Oozells Square - it is so lovely and minimalist: just gravel, concrete and a thin strip of water.

So calm and restful.

As we walked towards Brindley Place I noticed the detail on the ground: shards of pottery inserted between the bricks

Brindley Place is big, and I could not get all of it in a photograph so here are bits of it

Lots of people sitting around enjoying the sunshine

deckchairs on the lawn for people to use

I tried to find out about these arches but I could not

Overall, a lovely square.

Water running down the side of this wall - people were taking selfies in front of it

We then moved on to the canal

Some nice old bridges - Birmingham is an interesting mix of the old and the new

 

Eating out in Glyfada

I love the location of this taverna. It's right by the sea - as I am sitting at the table, if I moved my leg to the right, it would dip in the sea.

This is the view

and this

and this.

Sometimes we have company

As it starts getting dark the atmosphere changes

and if there's a moon it's magic

Beautiful reflections

and then we had a visitor.

I have to add through that the service is appalling - they are absolutely inefficient and awful. So, every time we come, which is about one evening every summer, I swear that I am not coming here again, but then, I get lured by the sea and the views and we come again.


 

Anti-racist festival, Athens

Last week we went to the anti-racist festival in Athens. It takes place every year in the park in Goudi and this was our third time.

We went early because we wanted to take a good look at the stalls. The park is extensive, and is overlooked by the Hymettus mountain range. 

Even though we were really early, there were already lots of meetings and speeches going on in various parts of the park.

We began going round all the stalls, 

starting with the books

Always interesting seeing what the Greek left are reading: Workers' resistance in Greece, Ernesto Che Guevara, Malcolm X

No need for translation here

Mandela, Che and Fidel Castro 

Karl Marx and F. Dostoyevsky

Rosa Luxemburg and Friedrich Engels on the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Michel Foucault

On this stall all of the works of Louis Althusser - even some that I had not heard of - but nothing by Nikos Poulantzas!

Lots of banners, of course

Ursula Le Guin

Some more fiction: Orwell and Brecht

Mikhail Bakunin and Pasolini

Georg Lukazs

Judith Butler and Jacques Lacan

Simone de Beauvoir

More Foucault

Katerina Gogou, the anarchist poet from Exarcheia who left this life far too early

More Ursula Le Guin

More Emma Goldman

There seemed to be a lot of groups organising summer camping, this one to raise money for  Palestine

Black Lives Matter and black liberation

On Palestine

On the coup in Chile, plus Antonio Gramsci

This group offer free Greek and English lessons to immigrants and refugees

They are based in Exarchia

Mainly Leon Trotsky on this stall

The Palestinian flag everywhere

4th International stall: all of Ernest Mandel's works

Community Surgeries' Network: a lot of these sprang up 10 years ago during the economic crisis, and they are still going on

Lenin and Trotsky

T-shirts

badges

Palestine

This is the group who have been organising the Saturday vigils for Palestine in Syntagma square

more on Palestine

keffiyeh for sale

badges

Palestinian women

Che

trying to raise money to buy an ambulance and medical supplies for Palestine

So much about Palestine - as one would expect

Recognise the Palestinian State now

Free Palestine

Freedom for Palestine

Advertising the Feminist Festival that is going to take place in September

I have neutral to indifferent feelings about tattoos,  but I liked this one and asked if I could photograph it

Frieda Kahlo and Smash Patriarchy and what looks like it could be a Banksy 

Feminist writers' association

and their latest publication

against homophobia

Dusk was settling and everywhere, all around the park, small or large groups in workshops or listening to speeches

We then had a look at some of the other stalls

selling clothes,

jewellery

and accessories

mainly from Africa.

It was time to eat and we were truly spoilt for choice: so much to choose from, from so many different countries

Zimbabwe: rice with chicken curry or a vegan option of various beans, corn and nuts

The Kurds from Turkey were offering a type of kofte

Couscous with chicken and veg from Tunisia

Vegetable Wat from Ethiopia

Kofte Poluo from Afghanistan

a rice dish from Egypt

a dish from Cameroon

A vegetable curry, or a chicken a veg dish from the Congo

Kofte from Kurdistan

Chicken with rice or Akara (a falafel made of black-eyed beans with veg and rice) from Nigeria

Quinoa with vegetables from South Sudan

Falafels made out of lentils with pita bread, veg and tahini from Sudan

in the background you could see people rolling out the pitta breads

Spring rolls and noodles from the Philippines

and a whole bunch of people making them

The Greek taverna had quite an extensive menu

and here's the souvlaki preparation station.

At this point I stopped taking photos. We got ourselves some food and a bottle of wine, sat down and enjoyed our meal.  We then had a pudding each. 

We stayed for another three hours, mainly listening to the bands but we also wandered around. We had such a good time. As the evening progressed more and more people kept arriving so that by the time we left the whole place was buzzing - there were so many people enjoying themselves. A wonderful five hours.