CITS is very happy that the Crossing Borders conference we organized with the University of the Aegean (Laboratory ENEXA) was so successful. We had over 200 participants from over 30 countries: intellectuals, professor, artists, volunteers, refugees, activists, students.
The conference opened on the 7th July, with an art exhibition at Halim Bey in Mytilene with artists from all over the world.
From inside the art exhibition:
The artists were amazing and made their art part of the discussion.
This brilliant one is from a 10year old refugee who describes his lived experience.
We also had a music event
And free ouzo, the drink of Lesvos:
For those who could not come, you can follow the first day in this link:
You can also see:
Tariq Ali's Speech here.
John Rees's speech here.
Maria Nikolakaki's speech here:
Stratos Georgoulas's speech here
Feyzi Ismail's speech here
Raquel Guttierez video speech
Zoi Konstantopoulou's interview
Our first panel from the first day:
Loic Jaeger (head operations from MSF), Stratos Georgoulas, Maria Nikolakaki (chair), Tony Banyan (Director of Statewatch), and Sharmini Peries (TRNN).
The special panel we had for the local community of Lesvos, in Greek.
Alex Politaki, George Pleios, Maria Nikolakaki(chair), Zoi Konstantopoulou and Stratos Georgoulas.
Our plenary session:
Tariq Ali, Feyzi Ismail, Dimitri Lascaris (chair), Maria Nikolakaki, John Rees.
We had many reports on the conference in Greek, English and Turkish in the media. More reports to follow in the coming months.
Now we are working on publishing the papers of the conference at a book by PM Press, a book in Greek, an edition of our journal Cooperatives and Commons and conference proceedings online. Participants of the conference are kindly asked to send their full papers for publication until 30 October.
We are also working on our next conference for July 2017, so stay tuned for more exciting news!
We wish to thank The Real News Network (TRNN) for livestreaming our conference, and the Greek National Television (ERT), Stop the War Coalition, People's Assembly and Stop. Imperialism for their sponsoring.
We also like to thank your translators Anna Holloway (Greek to English and English to Greek) and Salim Nabi (English to Farsi and vice versa for communication with the refugees who came).
But above all we want to thank all those who took part in the Crossing Borders conference. The conference is the people who take part in it. We promise to become better every time.
The Organizing Committee
Maria Nikolakaki, Stratos Georgoulas, Francesca Coin, Dimitris Lascaris, Eleni Drongiti, Aimilia Voulvouli, Evi Zevgiti, Dimitirs Papageorgiou, Christos Kouroutzas, Dimitris Paraskeuopoulos, Kostas Leros, Anastasia Tsakaloglou, Alex Politaki