This design celebrates the life and work of Greek actor, feminist, poet and revolutionary, Katerina Gogou, who was born on June 1, 1940 in Athens. She was an important influence there, especially for the radical political and cultural scene of the 1980s in the anarchist-influenced district of Exarchia. Katerina’s first years of life were marked by hunger and Nazi occupation, resistance and civil war. In 1978 she published her first collection of poems, Three Clicks Left, which was also translated into English. Inspired by her unfinished poetic autobiography, and in particular by the play “Civil War” contained in it, the June design reflects a childhood memory of Katerina. The part of the poem on which the design is based refers to an encounter with a resistance fighter and reads as follows:
I saw through the glass a bullet hitting my left hand palm, blood and the trash breathing. My mother was in the kitchen and my father I don’t even know where, I open the door and I go to the trash. And there I saw, and I don’t give a dime if you don’t believe me, the most beautiful boy I had seen in my life. He was covered there, holding a machine gun, he had a short blond beard and long blond hair. His eyes…I don’t know to tell their colour. He looked like or was the Christ. “Go little girl, go”, he told me, “away from here. They will kill me”. I took a deep breath to run fast. “Bend so I can kiss you”, he told me. I was already home. The first man and the last I ever loved was an urban guerrilla.
About the design: The design was realized by the Berlin-based Italian illustrator Anna Piera Di Silvestre.
