“Taking responsibility for intervention-sabotage at the Varvakeio market on Ash Wednesday
CONSUMING ANIMALS IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT. FUCK TRADITIONS AND MEAT-EATING.
EATING ANIMALS IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT
SHIT ON TRADITIONS AND MEAT-EATING
Tradition, customs and traditions are an informal framework of values that are still observed in modern culture. In Greek tradition in particular, the killing and mass consumption of non-human animals according to the Christian calendar is deeply rooted. One of these days is Tsiknopesthuy, on which countless animals are tortured and murdered on the altar of human profit and entertainment. While it has been translated as a day of celebration, it is nothing less than the human species’ tendency to dominate, dominate and torture other species. Ash Wednesday is yet another point in the capitalist system in which man, industry and corporations enrich themselves at the expense of non-human animals in the most cannibalistic way. On that day and beyond, millions of animals are taken to slaughterhouses because of demand. Massively people tend to uncontrolled consumption of carcasses because of tradition.
The Varvakeios market of Athens, apart from the central meat market, was for many years a slaughterhouse, where hundreds of animals, mainly chickens, were killed every day. People from all the suburbs flocked there with their live animals to turn them into pieces of meat. In recent years, the operation of the Barbican had shrunk mainly due to the massive expansion of super markets in the neighborhoods and price competition. But one thing hasn’t changed, the dismembered animal carcasses inside its windows. In the time of the economic crisis, the surrounding area was deserted and today it is a “fillet” in the hands of the respective investors. With the rapid touristization of recent years, an attempt is being made to gentrify the area, followed by a fashion of “embracing” – exploiting – traditions, creating a nostalgic atmosphere around the “traditional” professions. In complete harmony with the tourist guides of other European cities, in Athens too, tourists are invited to take a stroll through the Kenyan market and shop for traditional products against a backdrop of skinned carcasses hanging from the tongs. In this way the butcher’s stalls become a background for a photo shoot.
In full agreement with this grotesque situation comes the opening of a pop-up night club in the third arcade of Varvakeion. Suddenly some nights, dazzling spotlights, luxury cars, doormen, railings pop up. The whole scene of nocturnal Athens is transported between the showcases that in the morning were adorned with dead animals, people of all ages dancing wildly on the floor that in the morning will drip with the blood of the beasts. Commodity, money, alienation. No one thinks at that moment about the dead animal, the one being dismembered, the one being sold, the one being roasted next to them – just for effect. In this process, the marketplace acquires a new meaning and content, purifying its true commercial function.
We thus decided, on the evening of Ash Wednesday 20 February 2025, to intervene in this capitalist fiesta with ampoules of stink, causing a small proportional economic sabotage of the businesses that profit on the torture, slaughter and exploitation of animals. On a symbolic level, we hope it served as a reminder to patrons of what space they are in by simulating the stench of the ampoule to that of slaughterhouses and butcher shops. This little intervention lasted only a few minutes, but it was enough for everyone to run away and empty the space. A place where since the morning of Ash Wednesday, with the help of the Municipality of Athens, the bodies of many sentient animals were roasted.
The discomfort of the night users of the Barbican strongly reminded us of the discomfort we feel as we walk outside in the mornings, smelling the death of slaughtered flesh.
FREEDOM FOR ANIMALS HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN
NOT TO GET USED TO DEATH FEASTS”
via: unoffensiveanimal.is