Impossible Biographies

Many years before the first clouds of the crisis would hover over the greek skies, amidst greek society’s most glorious of moments and its most mundane of days, the lives and labour of migrants would be faced with their meticulous devaluation.

Impossible Biographies from Ross Domoney on Vimeo.

For them, the crisis has by now come of age. Yet despite and against shallow journalistic interpretations, there is nothing humanitarian about it. This is because for them the crisis was from the upstart orchestrated politically, socially and militarily. In this way, the discourse about racism in crisis-ridden Greece merely obfuscates and comes in handy. For it obscures exactly how structural this devaluation had been for the development of the Greek state in itself, as well as for the self-perception of Greek society. Yet the crisis knows how to twist meanings too. Today, migrants are accused of the very decline of the Greek edifice. And within this twisted world, their devaluation takes on a more offensive and, at the same time, a more legitimate form. Impossible Biographies, as part of the research project The City at a Time of Crisis, bears witness to this offensive. Today, just like yesterday, the devalued lives of migrants shall remind us how it is to live and die within an enforced anonymity and invisibility. How it is to live a life whose biography is impossible.

The City at a Time of Crisis is mapping racist attacks in Athens. To view or contribute information please visit: map.crisis-scape.net

Produced by Ross Domoney and Christos Filippidis

Filmed and edited by Ross Domoney

Research by Christos Filippidis

Additional footage by Yannis Tsakiridis

Special thanks to Clemont

Paloma Yáñez

Klara Jaya Brekke

Dimitris Dalakoglou

Antonis Vradis