In between a world where everything is fluid, a world of extreme contrasts and sensitive balances, dead ends and melancholy, a world that challenges the “self” to become dominant in the need for survival and where the danger is intense of people becoming phobic and marginalised, trivialized, accepting their defeat, vulnerable and subjugated, and a city with a present and living memory, sensitive reflexes, spontaneous, anthropocentric, anxious about the present, but undisciplined, culture is the vehicle for subversion, for its promotion in time.

The common goal of an active and creative person is to aim as far away as possible, to go beyond what is expected, to conquer the unknown, to dare, search for new paths, create common spaces with others who share the same concerns, the same dreams, to communicate with their word, to promote their skills, to feel the anxiety of their neighbor, to participate, to denounce and propose, to search for the role of their personal vision, as well as of social change, of individual and collective truth and responsibility.

In this world and in this city, we are trying to listen for this common goal, to promote, support, provide space for communication and a voice for all, through culture and art, because, in the end, art “encourages fantasies and desired”, it is action, proposal, position.

It is the Dimitria and the city has realised the important contribution of this new, undisciplined, subversive, pioneering, energetic and innovative festival, which aims at its humanity, its creator.

Because “The person – not the individual – is the only venue of society, the only possible city”. Giorgio Agamben.

The Dimitria responds to the present and opens up to tomorrow, centred around humanity and art that resists and subverts, that proposes, that moves forward in life, it has found a voice, content, travelling companions in all the bodies, citizens, and creators, it has a vision of a city of culture, of open dialogue, of free thought, of pioneering action.

The Dimitria is here, it is a contemporary cultural action in a city that is resisting the old, that will not be silent, that wants to hope and to create.

Elli Chrysidou
Deputy Mayor of Culture & Arts