Islands of Exile: the Case of Leros

ISLANDS OF EXILE Authors & Curators Beth Hughes, Platon Issaias, Yannis Drakoulidis Exhibition Design & Production Valerio Massaro Collaborators Seyithan Ozer, Cosimo Campani Booklet Design Marios Diamantis Supported by The Royal College of Art, London Special Thanks General Archives of the State, Dodecanese County Archives, Rhodes, Greece. ELIA — MIET: Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive, Athens, Greece. ASKI: Archives of Modern Greek History, Athens, Greece. Exile Museum — The Museum of Political Exiles of Ai Stratis, Athens, Greece. Thanassis and Yannis Paraponiaris Private Archive, Leros. ARF fund UCL/Bartlett School of Architecture, thanks to all the psychiatrists and social workers that anonymously shared information about the facilities with us, Enzo Bonanno, Mario Damolin, Vangelis Zacharias, Stefanos Levidis, Marios Diamantis, Adrian Lahoud, Godofredo Pereira, Susana Caló, DPR Barcelona — Ethel Baraona Pohl, Cesar Reyes Najera. ISLANDS OF EXILE THE CASE OF LEROS RATIONALISING BETH HUGHES VIOLENCE PLATON ISSAIAS REFUGEES ON AN ISLAND OF EXILES On January 20, 2014 Fadi did they start rescuing survivors from Mohamed, a teacher and displaced the water. They also reported that coast individual from Afghanistan stood still guard officers fired in the air and pushed in the concrete peer of an island he didn’t and kicked people away from the rescue know the name of. The island is Leros, boat.1 Greece. In a video issued by Greek With an area smaller than 4km2 NGOs, he seems lost and stays silent the and with a population of 10 people, entire time coast guard officers wearing according to the 2011 population survey, surgical masks and gloves deliver protein Farmakonisi belongs to the Leros cans and water bottles to him and a few municipality. The entire municipality others on the peer. Fadi had just lost his includes mostly unpopulated islands, and wife and three children, when Gönzuru, covering an area of 74 km2 its total the small fishing boat that was carrying population is 7,900 people. Like the them from the Turkish shore to Greek entire Dodecanese cluster of islands and territory and the ‘safety’ of European soil the Turkish coast on the other side of the capsized near the island of Farmakonisi, sea, it’s heavily militarised. The small 12 nautical miles northeast of Leros. army unit, stationed on a 10-day rota on In total 11 Afghan civilians, 8 of them Farmakonisi’s isolated grounds, belongs children under the age of 12, died to the special forces engineering regiment that day. located in Partheni, a camp in the north In a press conference that followed of Leros island. Partheni is one of the on January 25 in Athens, the 16 survivors most notorious military installations in overwhelmingly blamed the Greek Greece, a ground marked by postwar maritime security force for this tragedy. political conflicts — a space of Together with many Greek and European displacement, incarceration and torture. NGOs, Amnesty International argued During the 1967-74 dictatorship, that there was sufficient evidence to bring left-wing citizens were exiled in Leros as this case to court, or at least to further political prisoners. Detained across the investigate serious human rights island these men and women experienced violations that took place in the cold, an institutional violence occurring within wintry waters of the Aegean Sea. a rather peculiar architecture. White, The migrants claimed that the rather simple, rationalist private coast guard not only did not help, but buildings, properly designed public caused their already sinking boat to infrastructure that included among others capsize when attempting to tow them back to Turkish waters at high speed. 1 These descriptions resonate with many similar cases in the Aegean and Libyan Sea. This dreadful event is only one among They also testified under oath that the hundreds, which surface, or remain unknown, every month in the coast guard, when realising that the vessel media to illustrate the migration crisis in Europe. Ongoing wars and conflicts in North Africa, Asia and especially the Syrian civil war have was rapidly sinking, cut the rope and pushed thousands to flee and find refuge on European soil, often with devastating consequences. The extremely important work of Forensic let them to drown. Only after stronger Oceanography, led by Lorenzo Pezzani and Charles Heller, has shown migrants fought back and started how the very protocol of ‘search-and-rescue’ missions and the extreme militarisation of the European security apparatus have climbing onto the coast guard boat, profoundly increased the risk of dying at sea. 7 a market, a generous theatre, a church, to further expand British colonial rule two schools and a tower clock, organised in the East Mediterranean.3 In his plans, a regular yet exotic township. Large the deep, natural port of Lakki/Portolago military barracks were scattered opposite was considered an essential asset for the of the town and the camp of Partheni, Royal Navy in an attempt to destabilise a with their facades often covered by post-WWII Turkey and eventually control characteristically large letters and their the waters from Bosphorus Strait and the interiors full of Fascist, Nazi and Greek Dardanelles to the port of Haifa and the nationalist propaganda and wall Suez Canal. paintings, some dating from the 1930s. Back in the early hours of January Before arriving to Leros, the exiled 20, 2014, the coast guard departed from would have heard of the Royal Technical Aghia Marina, Leros’ main port. This was School that operated in Lakki between the first European soil the 16 devastated, 1949 and 1964. Moreover, they were likely freezing refugees stepped on. Refugees to know of another equally notorious on an island of exiles. facility, the psychiatric hospital. In any More than four years later, in the case, its distributed facilities would have spring of 2018, more than 1,000 people been unmissable when entering the Lakki are kept in the so-called ‘Leros hotspot’, bay by boat. or ‘hospitality centre’ as the Greek The camp in Partheni and the little government calls temporary refugee town of Lakki were designed and built camps. Two different prefabricated unit during Mussolini’s Fascist regime, when types, organised in a series of streets the Dodecanese islands were part of on a regular grid system and confined the Italian sovereign territory. Between within a perimeter of a barbed-wire fence, 1912 and 1943, Leros was one of its most are placed in a large open field defined precious military stations in the Eastern by two large 1930s abandoned buildings. Mediterranean, with its heavy artillery In one of them, one can still read the and well-protected, hidden port of Lakki, large painted letters, now fainting: or Portolago as Italians called it, ‘Caserma Avieri’ (aviators barracks). becoming a myth in itself between naval The camp is enclosed by the coastal road officers, pilots, commandos, paratroopers of Lakki and the southwest limit of one and spies on all sides.2 Famously, Leros of the three sites of the Psychiatric was one of Winston Churchill’s Department of Leros Hospital, known obsessions in his attempt to intensify and as the ‘villas’. This essay presents the key findings 2 Its legendary status was captured in Alistair MacLean’s 1957 novel ‘The Guns of Navarone’ that was based on the battle of of a research project that started in early Leros, an event considered the last defeat of the Allied Forces in WW 2014 into architecture and urban form II. J. Lee Thompson’s critically acclaimed movie of 1961 based on the book, made the small island of Leros known internationally, possibly in light of contemporary militant for the first time in its recent history. Famously, Leros was one of Winston Churchill’s obsessions in his attempt to intensify and to further expand British colonial rule in the East Mediterranean. 3 This has been captured and discussed in many instances, In his plans, the deep, natural port of Lakki/Portolago was most importantly in: Anthony Rogers, Churchill’s folly : Leros and considered an essential asset for the Royal Navy in an attempt to the Aegean : the last great British defeat of the Second World War destabilise a post-WWII Turkey and eventually control the waters (London : Cassell Military, 2003). from the Bosphorus Strait and the Dardanelles to the port of Haifa and the Suez Canal. 8 9 institutional analysis, mental healthcare the Rationalist town of Lakki/Portolago. and political history. Leros’ politicised What kind of architecture accommodates and traumatic existence has been defined military, security and mental healthcare by its service under various regimes. The institutions? What kinds of relations exist project focuses on the last century, from between these institutions and their the Italian occupation of 1912-1943 until architectures? Most importantly, today, covering a rather neglected case how does the particular military set up of Italian Rationalist architecture, namely of the town, the masterplan, and singular the plan of the town of Lakki/Portolago.4 buildings organise social relations, The project follows the transformation employment and an entire ecology of the infrastructure built by the Italian of detention, confinement and care? fascist administration, to notorious Finally, what is the role of mental mental healthcare facilities, camps for healthcare protocols in the development political prisoners and violently displaced of cities and towns? 5 children from mainland Greece, to The presence and influence of

Load more