“This Monday i’ve radiation treatment, thus I’m hectic 12 to 5 p.m. I am hoping when I can be form of fine, exactly what time are you presently cost-free?” published
Maria “Cyber” Katsikadakou
when I requested to interview their in her home town of Athens finally thirty days.
Photo by due to Maria Cyber
Maria Cyber, as she’s nicknamed, is actually a pioneering Greek activist with a listing of honors so amazing that final October she was awarded together with the greatest difference in the French Republic,
the medal associated with Knight of Letters and Arts
, on her behalf contributions for the rights and exposure of LGBTQ+ men and women and those with handicaps.
Through different mediums â picture taking, videography, journalism, stand-up, discussions, celebrations and workshops â Maria changed the physical lives of countless people. Having appeared from the LGBTQ+ scene at period of 16, Maria is now considered to be one of the first and most seminal lesbian activists in Greece. She is in addition invested the very last two decades fighting for equivalent recognition and state-support for all those with diabetic issues and people who require medical care care.
Now, at the ages of fifty-two, she’s battling for her own existence: two years before, Maria’s physician identified their with a hostile situation of lung cancer, recommending she could have only three-years to live.
Photo by thanks to Maria Cyber
Despite Maria’s determination to generally meet right after chemo â a
carpe diem
mindset which is recharged the woman activist job â we chose to wait a few days; time for Maria to sleep, time personally to replenish on N95 masks, to get tested and re-tested for Covid.
It was raining seat feet (the Greek equal for raining cats and dogs) at the time Maria and I also found. Her mummy, who’s today the woman primary care-giver, started the doorway to Maria’s apartment. In correct Greek mom fashion, she stripped out my personal wet jacket, place me in a pair of slippers, gave me a huge slice of do-it-yourself meal, and decided me into a chair during the part of this area. Maria sat in the exact middle of the woman apartment a few yards from me, on a large sofa in comfortable garments, a heater roaring at her shins.
Maria relayed story after tale of her abundant life, highlighting a variety of times she is been empowered by advancement someplace else â whether it is standard songs at lesbian events in Berlin, medical care treatment in Oslo or state benefits for all with handicaps in London â and introduced it returning to Greece. By generating and proliferating visual and social networking, Maria tries to spread consciousness, “like small seed products in the general public, with the intention that voices increases, multiply, and perhaps one day, we now have it inside my country too,” she states.
Maria’s vocals is actually deep and entirely genderless in tone: an apt outward phrase of Maria’s identity. Having never believed satisfied by conditions âlesbian’ or âdyke,’ Maria recounts the profound experience of checking out Radclyffe Hall’s ”
The Fine of Loneliness”
when she had been more youthful. “we began to cry, i really couldn’t end my rips, cascades running down my personal face, when Hall writes â and I also however think [like I want] to cry â when she writes of âthe wilderness area between two men and women,’ we felt this within my cells, in my blood⦠it absolutely was conversing with my personal cardiovascular system.”
Picture by courtesy of Maria Cyber
Her baritone sound often breaks as myths merge with tears; the mighty activist is extremely happy to show her inflammation. Probably this inflammation is unavoidable today, whenever ailment calls for the continuous contemplation of life and death. “a person stated we’ve two lives, our very own next life begins once we realise we’ve one,” claims Maria, talking about a quote attributed to Confucius, “and so I in the morning within my next life now.” Though she releases the peculiar pained sound and groan, Maria is actually bursting with life, always providing these knowledge, frankness and mirth to the woman stories.
“While I pass away,” Maria claims, emphasising the âwhen,’ as she, alongside numerous, hope she wins this fight like she has numerous other individuals, “i would like âI’LL SURVIVE’ composed back at my headstone.” The woman trifold thinking: “it’s a gay hymn,” she states. “Second, I can not show how often I have sensed this track with all of my center, tears, blood, after a break-up. And thirdly, it’ll make someone make fun of. I nevertheless should make men and women have a good laugh once I’m no more right here.”
Maria’s apartment, which doubles right up as the woman workplace, is actually filled with memories of Maria’s life as an activist. Stills through the countless brief films she’s developed, videos from articles she is created (Judith Butler is actually amongst her interviewees), cartons upon cardboard boxes of Maria’s photography that she, until now, had not had time for you look through. The space is actually peppered with flyers from advertisments: Safe Intercourse for females, Trans Women Are Females, promotions on her behalf Gay and Lesbian broadcast Show and for the basic lesbian celebration in Greece, Cyber Dykes, which Maria birthed in 1995 (“cannot shag With lifestyle â Fuck With A Glove,'” checks out a collection of the flyers).
Nestled among this queer paraphernalia are leaflets portraying pricked fingers that read in Greek, “avoid being Shy. Speak Openly Regarding The Diabetes.” Though Maria’s spent a lot of the woman life creating iconic events such as the
Gay & Lesbian Pornographic Art Film Festival
, the
Outview LGBTQI+ Movie Festival
,
and the newest portal
lesbian.gr
back 2000, she has already been an instrumental sound and glue for your diabetic society of Greece.
In 2007, whenever she was actually diagnosed as Diabetic kind 1, she watched that the diabetic society was “very introverted along with the closet,” she states. Whenever she informed friends that she was recognized, Maria was actually shocked having countless individuals enjoy their into diabetics’ dance club. “i am want, will you be major people, the trend is to state you’re a diabetic?”
Maria continues on to spell out that diabetes is just one of the leading long-term diseases worldwide. “i did not know anything regarding it before I happened to be detected, and that I think the majority of the population does not know. But it’s so simple and therefore essential to know how to save somebody that has, quickly, a necessity for orange fruit juice, for sugar. Everyone should be aware of these things,” she claims. So Maria proceeded to the office the woman magic, “duplicating the things I performed for lesbian visibility, in order to make for diabetic exposure.” She produced
glykouli.gr
(âsweetie’ in English), a virtual area for many with diabetic issues to fairly share methods, hook up and arrange reunions. She in addition produces a diabetic talk radio tv series, panel conversation, workshops, and quick films. By publicizing the heavy-weight the disease bears, Maria tries to eliminate the added fat of silence and discernment.
Even now, with Maria’s diagnosis, she’s trying to start crucial tasks people with cancer tumors. “In every time period my entire life, the things I are, I make it public. I strongly believe and practice the motto of the old feminists: âthe personal is actually political.'” This viewpoint gives Maria’s activism a specific spontaneity; she rises in order to meet the swells that come her way. “I never ever realised everything I ended up being doing. We never counted the thing I ended up being performing as essential, i did not realise how much I assisted adjust the things in Athens. I really could cry for this,” she says, bringing down her gaze. “it had been about performing just what felt right⦠i did not realize that this could assist a great deal.
“and it is merely now I realize,” she goes on, “it is a lot like you dressed up within place everyday, nevertheless lack time and energy to tidy or organise so it is in pretty bad shape. And you just keep tossing and tossing clothes. With the malignant tumors, I just saw the area and all sorts of these parts abandoned here, most of my personal pieces.” She sighs seriously. “and that I’m love, âsomebody needs to tidy the area.’ So that’s the things I’m undertaking now. You should do it when facing demise.”
We sit with Maria all day that mid-day, the rainfall pattering highly on the skylight as she candidly recalls the challenges and achievements having marked the woman life. With glee, she shows a
few the woman small flicks
on a theater-sized dull display screen. Particularly, “pals With Advantages,” about a punk from Camden city, who’s had gotten several sclerosis, however seizes every single day, every night down, every can of lager and every toke of a spliff, and “So silent: The Performativity of a Pussy,” an 8-minute quick movie about, yep, you guessed it. Pussies dance, quivering and basking when you look at the spotlight, which Maria defines as her declaration when it comes to, “the necessity to give room on cunt, provide exposure into pussy. Cocks are every where, they’re noisy, taking on plenty area⦠you have to pay attention to the cunt. You are going to find out another way of live,” she states.
Picture by thanks to Maria Cyber
Lost in talk of punks and twat, it’s not hard to disregard the almighty battle Maria is currently embroiled in. “I really want we ensure it is,” she claims, “because this time, not totally all enough time but at the least 1 / 2 of it, i have had a wonderful time. I understand it is insane but to operate during your traumas, to realize circumstances, having loving folks close to you,” she states, referring to the woman family, the woman mom pottering across the apartment, the woman sweetheart â whom appeared during one of the movie tests â organizing vegan snacks.
“to really be there in your self,” Maria continues, “and contained in the amount of time, not to ever be all across the spot. This existence provides this type of glee in the human body and mind. There are occasions, without cortisol â since the cortisol tends to make me extremely hyper and extremely optimistic â but without cortisol, discover minutes I encounter plenty pleasure, I can not go,” she says, as those gorgeous, sensitive tears fill the girl eyes yet again.
Though it’s traditional for choose identify people by their particular last brands, we consider Maria Katsikadakou by her known moniker, “Maria” for “Maria Cyber.”