The origins of the game
(2024)
Zoe Panagiota (aka Betty) Nigianni
Happening, 2016. Participant's empirical research, including improvised full recorded interview with first generation Albanian immigrants to Greece, images, and thematic text. The research was conducted for the workshop, "Logics of Worlds", inspired by Alain Badiou's work and organised by architect Filippos Oraiopoulos, at Athens School of Fine Art (ASFA), Master of Visual Arts (Marios Spiliopoulos, Giorgios Xiropaides), December 2016.
Adopting on own initiative the political approach of Badiou's "L' Organisation Politique", to apply direct intervention for societal problems, including immigration and labour, I used play as a method to facilitate improvised discussions. People share and respond more freely when participating in structured, but playful interactions, such as those a game involves. Albanians speak three languages, Albanian, Italian and, only a few of them, Greek, so I wasn't able to translate parts of the conversation. Avlona is an English now obsolete name for Vlore, an Albanian seaport and former ancient Greek colony Aulon. Albanians came as non-EU refugees in Greece initially in the 1990s, after the fall of communism in their home country. Religion was banned in communist countries; nowadays, Albanian-Muslims consist of 59% of the Albanian demographics, with other religious denominations, such as Christian Catholics, taking smaller percentages of the country's population. The democratisation of Albania began shortly afterwards, in 1994, when Albanians started protesting for political and religious pluralism in their country. At the beginning of the transition period after communism, under the Democratic Party government, Vlore became a port through which smuggling, mainly from Italy, was taking place.
Notably, the men I spoke to didn't want to be visualised. Hence, the exposition aims to juxtapose the experimental and the conceptual in the fine arts; and to make the 'invisible' visible.
Badiou is also known for his philosophy of metaphysics of the four "truth procedures": Politics, Science, Love and Art.
The workshop was slightly interrupted by a performing arts student, who brought a live hen to slaughter in the studio. This can be taken as a metaphor for scapegoating non-EU refugees, by symbolically re-assigning the gender of male, or female persons, who are not non-EU refugees.
For this exposition, I include an essay by Pantelis Boukalas, in Kyriakos Katzourakis, O "Dromos Pros Ti Dysi" (The Way to the West), 2001, as well as Kyriakos Katzourakis' introduction in English.
I don't have any personal or other familial connections with Albania - or Kosovo, or North Macedonia, which are both former Yugoslavian countries, all the nationalities, including Albanian, shown on fifteen (15) fake non-EU passports, used illegally in the UK since 2013 and 2014. I had never even visited those countries before the summer of 2024. The 2016 project was for the purpose of researching and documenting, in an artistic ethnographic manner, the refugee and immigration crisis, as I experienced it in my native Greece, as well as to voice my opinions on this topic from my perspective as a native Greek. I spoke to non-EU economic refugees, who must not be confused with political asylum seekers: those are people who encounter persecution for political and ideological reasons from their countries of origin and citizenship - rather than illegal or legal economic immigrants, such as the men I spoke to.
Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, all the nationalities on the fake non-EU passports, including Albanian, used in the UK successively, since 2013 and 2014, are non-EU countries. Greece, my native (and my parents' and grandparents' native), has been in the EU since 1981. I have also been a UK national, by naturalisation, since 2011, for the purpose of voting and for political participation in the UK, where I have spent most of my adult life.
Paradoxically - or not so paradoxically, because I had also been investigating this case - this project's political outcome, since 2020 and 2023, was that three fictitious "daughters" of mine had been on the Met police's databases, as 17, 22 and 23, Italian/Albanian female sex offenders. Supposedly, I must had been given birth to a daughter, of an unknown father, in Albania in 2001, 2002 and 2007! (!!the "prostitutes"; that's believable!!) Or two "schizophrenic" sons, Panagiotis Nigiannis, both, Albanians!; born in 2003 and 2004! as well as a son from Kosovo! born in 2009! - all of unknown fathers, because children take their father's surname.That is simply Golden Dawn's, the BNP's (the XRW UK component), and others' cultural "imagination" with regards to Albanians and Kosovo Albanian citizens, scapegoating them, in order to cause me a serious case of digital identity fraud. Saying this, it hadn't crossed their minds that it's not possible to have more than three citizenships - and that is dependent on the countries of citizenship.
Factually speaking, in 2002, I was living in Athens, Greece, engaged to be married to my former husband, a Greek left-wing national, while I was working at MOB (Mauve) Architects, as an architect designer, with an international cohort of colleagues. I got married in 2003. I lived in Athens until 2004, where I also worked for R.C.Tech architects. In 2001 and the period after 2004, I lived in the UK, working as an architect and in higher education; I don't have children. I gained my first practical experience as an architect in the UK, working in private architectural practice from 1999 until 2002.
The police files with the fake IDs were finally corrected by September 2024, including records of falsely alleged children of mine born between 2002 and 2004, when I lived and worked in my native Greece.
Notably, in 2007, I was living in London since 2005, working as an EU/Greek university lecturer. When the G20 summit demonstrations took place in London, in 2009, with the known criminal case of the death of Ian Tomlison by a police officer, named Simon Harwood - the journalist, Paul Lewis, conducted the investigation and Sir Keir Starmer was the prosecutor - I had lived in the UK since 2005, working as an EU/Greek lecturer at the University of East London, where I was also known as Betty Nigianni (aka) by my students and colleagues. I never participated in any public demonstrations in the UK. However I have attended demonstrations in my native Greece and, in 2019, in the Netherlands. It is not uncommon for politically-minded cultural producers and left-wing academics, to participate in public demonstrations about causes they support.
There are no children in my medical records, during the whole time I have lived in the UK, which is a total of seventeen years, plus, twelve of those being a British citizen. Greek children (Italian, Albanian, almost all children, besides those of British parents, who take whatever name) take their father's surname. Greeks don't have many (or any) children, they're suffering from a shrinking population for economic reasons, despite being in the EU since 1981.
My concerns about serious international organised criminal activity (not even honouring children's basic rights) were reported and confirmed by the Greek, Scandinavian and Albanian state authorities, as shown in documents that I made part of this exposition, from 2022 until 2024. The British authorities have been lagging behind for a long time; intentionally, with their impossible, unverified "stories", bashing the left and the liberals - or whatever is left of them - and whoever is decent - whatever has been left of that, too. The Greek police confirmed in 2024 that all claims about children of mine, also between 2002 and 2004 when I lived in my native Greece, have been dismissed; they wanted to know what details of mine had been stolen.
The Greek Golden Dawn - with their "Big Idea" (Megali Idea) of conquering foreign countries, like North Macedonia and the Southern part of Albania, as well as their chronic attacks on immigrants and refugees in Greece - was convicted as a criminal organisation in October 2020, after a five year long public prosecution, which started in 2015, with the then left-wing SYRIZA government, and was concluded in autumn 2020, under the 2019 elected New Democracy government. Golden Dawn invented the 'concept' of the 'Real Greek', dependent on any Greek's political orientation. They also dig up their target's ancestry: in my case, covering three generations, there are seven (7) Greek ancestors on my father's side, plus one (1), who was an Italian ancestor, my father's grandfather, with the first name Gianni, surname unknown; and eight (8) Greek ancestors on my mother's side. Golden Dawn has been losing their sixty seven (67) appeals and early releases, because of my international work that has been very risky, due to the organised crime methods followed in this case and all of Golden Dawn's criminal cases.
The conversation included in this exposition took place during the period Golden Dawn was prosecuted in the Greek High Courts of Justice (Areios Pagos). I was living in Athens at the time, from the summer of 2015 and remained until 2017, during the period the SYRIZA left-wing Greek party was in government for the first time in Greek politics, which was historic on its own. Despite the fact they were frightened, many non-EU immigrants to Greece provided testimonies in the courts during that same period.
Manolis Glezos was the only Greek politician, who went to visit Magda Fyssa, Pavlos' mother, in the Greek courts.
For Pavlos Fyssas, aka Killah P; assassinated at age 34.
For Alain Badiou, a communist-Maoist political philosopher, and the OP.
For the abducted Albanian and of Albanian ethnicity immigrants.
For Michalis Katsouris; assassinated at age 29.
For the "Other Greek Left".
Thanks to the Albanian embassy in London, the General Directorate of the State's Police in Tirane, as well as the Durres police, mentioning I am not tax subject in Albania, and the Durres prosecutor, who took my case in autumn 2024. Thanks to Edi Rama and his Socialist Party, a coalition of left-wing parties, government, for all the work that was done in the summer of 2024, during my first ever visit to Albania. Thanks to the Norwegian Labour Party of Jonas Ghar Store and left-wing coalition government. Thanks also to Skopje police and Prishtine police; as well as the newly elected Socialist Party in North Macedonia. Thanks to the Italian police at Bari. Last but not least: thanks to the Greek police chief, Marinos Stagakis, and the Greek police organised crime division, specifically Ioannis Papakostas, who spoke to me on the phone in the summer of 2022, offering a starting point. Thanks to the Swedish London embassy and the Norwegian London embassy that confirmed the identified and reported NRM membership. Thanks to the US London embassy that came in late, in the summer of 2024; the work hasn't finished. Thanks to the Oslo Greek embassy, autumn 2024, for handling my application for my new Greek passport within a short time frame. Thanks to the French police, autumn 2024. THANKS to the Swedish police, autumn 2024. Finally, thanks to the exceptionally few Met police officers, who eventually figured it out, as well as those British, such as the current British prime minister, Keir Starmer, since 2023, which is when I first got to know of him - special thanks - and others, working behind the scenes for the last three years or so; but also more recently in Albania, Germany, and Sweden. It would not have been possible without them. It has been a long process with many obstacles along the way, seemingly insurmountable, but as proven not. For peace and for safeguarding democracy and everything that comes with it.
Investigatory research, with legal and political activism, surrounded by artworks, 2016-2024. The text is written like a very long rap song.
References:
Fred C. Abrahams, "Modern Albania: From Dictatorship to Democracy in Europe", New York: New York University Press, 2015.
Counterextremism Project, "Violent, Right-wing Extremism and Terrorism - Transnational Connectivity, Definitions, Incidents, Structures and Countermeasures", November 2020, available online.
See all expositions under Art and Activism Exposed as Blog: "Debris", "The Loot" and "XRW (Implicature)".
The Loot
(2024)
Zoe Panagiota (aka Betty) Nigianni
Islington studio flat 4, at 14 Barnsbury Road, London, 2022, privately rented. Interior design as an art installation. Looted, 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_(magazine)
My personal belongings were still at the property for two months, after I left on 27 March 2024 and was asked to collect them by 3 or 4 April from Woolwich. After I left, the landlords moved in two or three under aged, who I have never met, so that they pretend to be my daughters. Subsequently, they must have been removing them one by one over the last few months and until October 2024.
14 Barnsbury Road was deemed illegal through the courts, on 22 April, shortly after I was forced to leave in March. The maintenance employed many Polish citizens, all dressed in black with black caps, following the XRW supporters' fashion code.
Twenty-one (20+1) digital photographs for twenty (20) missing Albanian and of Albanian ethnicity, non-EU immigrants, as well as one (1) missing Italian citizen. Golden Dawn has taken responsibility.
The twenty-one persons whose details got stolen were abducted by mainly Golden Dawn and, secondarily, the NRM; they are deceased. My personal details were stolen, too. Was I going to be the twenty-second victim?
Golden Dawn were originally pagans, drawing from the ancient Greek mythology and ritualistic practices, also of human sacrifice.
Investigatory research with artworks. The art world has been traditionally male dominated. This has changed a bit in contemporary art, but not dramatically. Female artists have sometimes adopted male attitudes or personas to break into the art scene; see Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin from the YBA movement. I hold the view that art is not gendered, that there is no art for women or so-called women's art. Good art transcends such categories, tapping into more universal experiences. Saying this, I would like to quote Nancy Spero, who doesn't crudely distinguish between male and female art, as follows: "What if the default gender for 'artist' were female? What if, when we looked at a work by a woman, we said to ourselves, "That is art," and when we looked at a work by a man, we automatically identified it in our minds as 'men's art'?"
In 1999, I wrote a long essay about the architectural uncanny that I submitted as my graduation thesis for my first MA in architectural theory. I called it "Space as a 'Bad' Object: A criminal investigation on the notion of space". I got inspiration from detective novels and real-life crime stories. The long essay was about the role of architectural space in crime. It was completely unsupervised: I received a distinction by a Bartlett staff member. I took the digital photographs in conceptual adherence with that essay.
I was a postgraduate philosophy student 9/2017-11/2019 at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
In this exposition, I include two new photographs from a series of digital photography called "Forensics", taken with my mobile phone, after I was forced to leave the property I was renting on 27 March 2024. I gave the photography series that name, because it has served the purpose of investigating, recording and tracking a crime, for which architectural space has been used.
For Chris, who was suddenly transferred by his employer, from London, where his daughter lives, to somewhere outside of London; and for Lawrence, whose temporary post was prematurely terminated, though he was planning to return to his legal studies. To all those who don't just "play" the cultural and racial diversity clause; they don't just rely on identity politics, because the class problem has not been resolved for them, either.
See exposition in connection with "The Origins of The Game", "Debris", and "XRW (Implicature)".