EAD7  
DANCING WITH DISORDER: DESIGN, DISCOURSE & DISASTER  
  EAD07 AUTHORS   CONTACT  
     
ELENI TZIRTZILAKI  
Dancing with Displacement: The Conditions of Displacement in Athens
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Studied at the Florence Architecture School and then at the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage (ICCROM) in Rome. She later took part in workshops/seminars relating to architecture and urban issues in Paris, Lisbon, Prague and Havana. She undertook a research programme in collaboration with Nikos Kazeros entitled “Piraeus: the abandoned zones and their transformation” within the Architecture Faculty of Athens Polytechnic. She attended the post-graduate programme in the “Architecture, Spatial Design” department of the same school, writing her dissertation on “Experiences of nomadism: urban nomads dis-placed and habitation.”. Her doctoral thesis was entitled: “Urban nomadism, displacement: urban nomads and habitation. Contemporary issues of habitation”. She has taught at the Athens Architecture School in department III—Architecture, Language, Communication and Design, and teaches both under- and post-graduate programmes at AKTO (Athens Arts and Technology Group).
She maintains an architecture workshop in Psyrri, Athens.
She was part of the group that took first prize in the architecture competition for the remodelling of Monastiraki Square, and has designed homes, an office building, cafés. She has also taken part in architectural exhibitions.
She is part of the Urban Void group which stages actions around Athens, and of the “Nomadic Architecture” group, an open workshop that searches for modes of interaction in areas in crisis, and which is currently implementing a project in Gazochori. On Sifnos, she has set up the “FOS” workshop, which stages annual seminars/workshops addressing Landscape, Settlement, Action and Space. She also collaborated with the Italian Osservatorio Nomade network for the Egnatia Project.
She has taken part in exhibitions in Athens, as well as the 9th Vienna Architecture Biennale. She has also produced a series of videos and texts dealing with the city, with urban nomads, and with habitation. Her work has been included in uncommon place art, public space and urban aesthetics in Europe (the documentaries), and in the catalogue for the 26th Sao Paulo Biennale.