Prometheus in Athens

NAME: DIMITRIS PSAROU    

AGE: 80

PLACE OF RESIDENCE: KALLITHEA

BIRTHPLACE: AYIASOS, LESVOS    

ORIGIN: AGIASOS, LESVOS

ON THE NIGHT OF THE PERFORMANCE HE WILL TAKE THE BUS THAT'S GOING TO LEAVE FROM THE K.A.P.E. KALLITHEA (SENIORS DAY CARE CENTER) AND DRIVE THROUGH ELEFTHERIOS VENIZELOS AVENUE, LAGOUMTZI, FRANTZI, ZINNI, ZACHARITSA AND ERECHTHEIOU STREETS TO REACH THE HERODEION THEATRE.

Dimitris Psarou was born in 1930 in Agiasos, in Lesvos Island.  He went to school up to the third grade, because the war started and the lessons were interrupted.  Each individual had to save himself.  He came to Athens in January of 1961.  In the first years because of a serious accident (a broken vertebra in the back), he was a rural constable in Ayia Paraskevi, and after that he worked in building sites as an artist of floor mosaics.  He knows his art well and feels proud for practicing it. “ No one does mosaics anymore.  One will find a mosaic technician very difficult.  Back in the day, Piraeus Avenue was full of mosaic factories. Now everyone uses tiles.  The difference is that mosaic is an art.”

He worked in construction sites from June 1961 to May 1988: “I started as a worker.  At lunch break when others were sleeping I was practicing with the tools for mosaic creation and that’s how I learned the art.  At some point I had a 10 people crew, and during that time an Italian asked me to quit in Greece and go to Italy to work with him.  I denied because I didn’t want to work as an employee.”  He was married twice but both times he lost his wife.   He has four children, 9 grandchildren and 1 grand-grand child.  He is not very optimistic about Greece’s’ situation because prices have risen dangerously.  “The huger of 41/42 was the greatest.  We had money but no food.  Now we will end up with full shelves and no money.”