Using art as a tool towards Vision Zero
This was the core message of the 1st Outta Climate Festival that was hosted on Friday 22/9 in Agios Dimitrios (municipality in Athens Metropolitan Area).
Outta Climate Festival is a new initiative of CIVINET Greece-Cyprus, with the artistic contribution of Jazz Solidarity Network, funded by the Green Fund (Ministry of Environment).
The 1st festival in Agios Dimitrios was transformed to a celebration of peaceful protest, but also solidarity for the flood victims of Thessaly.The social kitchen “The Other Man“, as well as other social organizations (Athens Bike Community, Hellenic Federation of Urban Cycling, Mothers in the street & friends, SOS Road Crimes Association, Greek Community of E-scooters Users, etc.) were there supporting the festival and its message.
The festival started early in the morning at Tataki Street. With the participation of the students of the 1st and 12th Primary Schools of Agios Dimitrios, and the guidance of the internationally renowned artist SOTEUR, an original Mural was designed on the asphalt of the street.The result was astonishing, 30 meters long and covering an area of about 100 square meters the Mural already breaks records as it is unique for Greek standards!
The location of the mural was not chosen randomly. Apart from being outside a primary school it is on a downhill road with high speed cars leading to a critical crossing of the Municipality’s pedestrian network. The unique visual intervention aims to attract the attention of drivers, make them slow down and thus ensure safer pedestrian crossing, including many children. This summaries pretty much the purpose of asphalt art, a method brought by CIVINET Greece-Cyprus from the American continent to Greece, based on the experience and the technical guidelines of Bloomberg Philanthropies.
In the afternoon of the same day, a big music and dance event was organized at the Asymatos Park with the participation of two student groups from the Agios Dimitrios Municipal Conservatory and the Alimos Music School, and the presentation of three more high quality performances with:
In between the performances, there were interventions by volunteers from Karditsa and Volos in order to inform the local community about the situation in the area of Thessaly Region and the catastrophic effects of the Climate Crisis.
Allying with not one, but many forms of art, the Outta Climate Festival team sent its own message on Climate Crisis and Road Safety, with a promise not to stop here, but to move soon to other cities, mountains and islands of Greece that share the same values.
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