The Square draws a parallel between the popular squares with vital democratic functions: La Plaine in Marseille and Omonia in Athens while taking into account the importance of places where bodies and voices come together around the world. It explores the idea of public squares not only as physical spaces but also as products of relations of natural and social objects. They have been conceived as spaces of encounter and exchange since the time of the Greek Agora and the Roman Forum. Since 2011, we have witnessed important citizen’s movements located in public squares. Both places have been closed with a “wall’’ at the same time as a result of important sociopolitical and financial transformations. We attempt to show how the closing and beautification of public squares shapes the social fabric and alienates the different layers of society. Square also refers to Pegasus, the winged horse, a Greek mythological creature and its constellation, the Great Square of Pegasus. Celestial bodies are agents of our histories and mirrors of our Otherness.

SPLIT WINDOW is a series of events and exhibitions scheduled throughout the biennal around an authentic dialogue between Athens and Marseilles. By making the Mediterranean Sea a new axis of European identity, an area of contiguity, the project focuses on the issues of North / South duality inherent to the positioning of SISSI, while opening a horizontal space of exchange between East and West. A rare symbolic power emanates from Athens and Marseilles.

Ancient cities, marked by their history, they anchor their identity and prestige in their antique roots. Cradle of European civilisation for one, oldest French city for the other, they have in common the fact that they are both large trading and transit ports. They are today, by their spirit of resistance and their « outsiders » image in the contemporary world, real experimental plateforms for the future. Oracular, predictive, even pre-apocalyptic cities, they invite us to think about both the collapse of Western societies and the outreach of marginalised populations.