As part of the course ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN IV-VII: Designing Emergency: Relocation of settlements after the disaster in the Thessaly Plain, on Tuesday 8/5 at 18:30 a lecture entitled "Earthquake and reconstruction. The case of the urban relocation of Gibellina” will be held by Angela Badami, University of Palermo (Italy), in the attic.
Earthquake and reconstruction. The case of the urban relocation of Gibellina
Lecture topics:
- Gibellina before the earthquake: the restitution of the image of a disappeared city
- The 1968 earthquake in the Belice Valley, Sicily
- Bottom-up popular activism and top-down State reconstruction
- Urban planning technique vs idea of the city
- The project for the new city and the urban planning variants
- Towards a new idea of the city: architecture and contemporary works of art
- The Great Cretto: epilogue of the city destroyed by the earthquake
Angela Alessandra Badami, architect and PhD in Urban and Regional Planning, is Full Professor of Urban Design at the Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo. She is in charge of the Urban Planning Laboratory 2 at the Master's Degree Course in Architecture and of the Laboratory of Analysis, Communication and Design of Urban Space at the Degree Course in Design. She conducts theoretical and applied research on urban regeneration, social innovation and the enhancement of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. She has conducted applied research for public bodies, including: the research on Local Cultural Systems, commissioned by the Regional Department of Urban Planning of the Sicilian Region for the drafting of the Regional Urban Territorial Plan of Sicily; the researchRisk Map at local scale – The waterfront from criticality to feeder of urban quality, commissioned by the Regional Centre for Restoration of the Sicilian Region. She is the designer and scientific manager of the European project Creative LAB–Alcamo, PO FESR Sicily 2007/2013. She directed the drafting of the Guidelines for the Colour Plan of the Egadi Islands, on behalf of the Municipality of Favignana.
Lecture by Konstantinos Pittas entitled "Towards the Democratization of Cultural Institutions: Methodological Approaches" on April 29th at 20:30 at the Dept. ARCH amphitheater.
In a time characterised by the increasing erosion of democratic institutions, this lecture presents different modes of engagement with cultural institutions in the attempt to democratise them. Konstantinos Pittas (architect & researcher), drawing on his ethnographic research, will present various case studies that attempt to envisage an open, dynamic, and self-reflective model of institutionality. These include, firstly, attempts of decentering hegemonic mega-institutions, such as documenta 14 in Athens, which foregrounded decolonial narratives and dissident histories from the periphery. Secondly, endeavours of inventing new flexible organisational arrangements, such as alter-institutions that introduce novel parliamentary formats, spatial settings, and decision-making processes. Finally, modes of critical engagement with museums that set out to seize and reform them, such as artistic activist initiatives in the U.S. that center-stage questions of museum governance and arts sponsorship. Some conclusions will be drawn at the end on the possibilities and limitations of the methodologies that take place within, at the threshold of, or outside cultural institutions in the attempt to democratise them.
On Tuesday 29-4-2025 at 14:00, there will be a lecture by Alexandros Christodoulou, civil engineer, computational designer and PhD Candidate at UTH titled "Reshaping the Digital Toolkit of Architecture", as part of the courses Computer Aided Design I and Architecture Design Studio II
The lecture will take place at the Amphitheatre of the Department of Architecture
You can download the poster here.
On Tuesday, April 29, 2025 at 1:00 PM in the postgraduate hall (ground floor) and within the framework of the Erasmus+ BIP Cross-Mythologies and Anthropocene, a lecture by Professor Zisis Kotionis entitled “Every Bone in You _ Every Stone is You” will take place.
Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Program
Cross-Mythologies and The Anthropocene
Mesopotamia and Greek Mythos - Interdisciplinary Exploration through Performance, Space and Poetics
Volos, 28.4. - 3.5.2025
This Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), as a unity of two individual events, brings together people engaged in research in various disciplines, such as anthropology, architecture, literature, performance, and cultural studies, around a common theme: the connection between humanity and nature. It aims to explore the relationship between nature and human activities through different critical perspectives. The main aim is to familiarize the members of the research team with a more informed view of the life around them.
This time, with a focus on Volos, the Project aims to promote interdisciplinary collaboration between students and scientific teams from Turkey, Italy, and Greece to explore the manifestations of global mythologies with an emphasis on performance, spatial dynamics, poetics, and ecological consciousness. Through workshops, discussions, and practical exercises organised and coordinated by people specialised in various fields, this double event aims to promote cultural exchange and collaborative research.
Poster designed by Marialena Kanelli, student arch.uth
Photo: Evaggelia Apostolou, architect (participation in Floodmarks-exhibition)
The Floodmarks exhibition, a product of collaboration between social anthropologists, architects, geographers, artists and activists, invites the citizens of the city of Volos and the wider region of Thessaly to the Volos City Museum (17 Feron) from April 2 to April 27, with the aim of co-creating a common space for testimony, dialogue and reflection on the devastating floods of September 2023 and the intensifying climate crisis.
As part of the course ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION IV-VII: Designing Emergency: Relocation of settlements after the disaster in the Thessaly Plain, on Tuesday 1/4 at 18:30 a lecture entitled "Relocated communities. Reconstruction processes in Italy” will be held by Monica Musolino, University of Messina (Italy), in the attic.
The seminar proposes an analysis of the relocation processes of some Italian isolated towns following devastating disasters. In particular, the results of a sociological research centred on the comparison of case studies will be presented. The analysis focuses on the dynamics of material reconstruction, but also on the difficult mechanisms related to the identity and symbolic reconstruction of the communities of inhabitants affected by these processes.
Monica Musolino is currently Assistant professor at the University of Messina (Italy). She is urban and environmental sociologist and Phd doctor in “Theories of Political, Social and Communicative Institutions” (2009, at the University of Messina). In 2023 she carried out a visiting research at the Université Paris Cité in Paris (France), Department de Sciences Sociales, as part of her studies on renewable energy communities and energy transition in Italy. From September 2007 to June 2008, she conducted a period of specialization and research at "École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales" (EHESS-CNRS) in Paris (France).
Her interests and research activity include themes and sociological backgrounds analysis of urban space; urban, socio-economic and environmental transformations in the Southern Italy; post-disaster reconstruction processes; memory and trauma studies; territorial changes and globalization; cohousing and social housing; participatory processes and methods; renewable energy communities, energy citizenship, energy transition.
She is the author of many publications including
Territories of abandonment: landscape, ruins, and memory in a sociological perspective, in Oteri M. A. (Ed.), Lost and Found. Processes of abandonment of the architectural and urban heritage in inner areas: Causes, effects, and narratives (Italy, Albania, Romania), ArcHistoR EXTRA 13/Supplemento di Archistor 19 (2024), pp. 374-395. http://pkp.unirc.it/ojs/index.php/archistor/article/view/1015
Communities and inhabited environment in the socio-spatial reconstruction after a disaster: two Italian stories, in “Sociologia Urbana e Rurale”, 111, pp. 95-110, doi: 10.3280/SUR2016-111006.
Wednesday March 26th 2025 12:00 Auditorium
The Centre of New Media and Feminist Public Practices of the Department of Architecture University of Thessaly, and the Department of Culture + Creative Media and Industries of the University of Thessaly invite you to the event:
FIERCE. A Discussion around the Feminist Mania
Alexandros Kioupkiolis, Christina Grammatikopoulou, Eleni Lazaridou as the research team of the FIERCE research program will talk about feminist mobilizations and networks of feminist movements and organizations against the new world order of exclusion, of witch hunts and the alarming rise of the far-right worldwide.The program is about producing common best practices of feminist mobilizations across Europe, of strategies for confronting the far-right in the face of a growing anti-feminist and anti-racist movement, of discourses, activities and the creation of a strong network of feminist movements and public institutions capable of defending and promoting women's rights.
Brief Description of the Program
The FIERCE research project ‘Feminist movements revitalising democracy in Europe’ purports to revitalise the alliances between the feminist movement, civil society and political decision makers. It envisions to rekindle the movement-institution relationship by means of a multidimensional, bottom-up and impact-oriented approach. To this aim, it sets out to provide an in-depth understanding of feminist and antifeminist / anti-gender movements, activities and discourses, and their impact on the institutional arena and on policy outcomes, focusing on the period between 2010-2021.
The project is funded by the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation programme (2021-2027). It focusses on the systematic construction of eight national case studies including Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey. Going beyond the specific country-level contexts and their similarities/differences, the research project has designed in addition a comprehensive and cross-cutting comparative analysis based on five policy areas: Labour Market, Health & Reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, Migration, Gender based violence.
Presentations by
Alexandros Kioupkiolis
Gender politics of equality and freedom, Greece, 2010-2023: action and reaction
Overview of the main findings of the research. The main features of gender movements in this period: emphasis on gender violence, queer, intersectional and performative turn, close interaction between grassroots and the academia, the mobilizations of mourning and rage/affection, from Ζ. Kostopoulos to Tempi, main organizational patterns (NGOs, autonomous grassroots collectives). Key features of the reaction dwelling on the ‘active dads’ campaign marked by international alt-right tactics.
Christina Grammatikopoulou
Femicides in Greece: Discourse and documentation
This presentation is based on research conducted within the FIERCE program on public discourse surrounding femicides in Greece. It will first analyse the Critical Framework Analysis methodology used in the study, exploring how it can be combined with other approaches, such as data feminism.Next, the key findings of the research will be presented, focusing on the contrasting perspectives on femicide: on the one hand, the punitive approach that dominates political discourse, and on the other, the systemic perspective advocated by feminist and LGBTQ+ movements.Finally, the presentation will highlight initiatives aimed at documenting and increasing the visibility of gender-based violence, with a particular focus on projects such as femicide.gr.
Eleni Lazaridou
Discourse Network Analysis (DNA) of antifeminist rhetoric in Greece: the ‘menacing’ Metoo and the ‘perilous’ immigrant women.
The application of Discourse Network Analysis (DNA) can highlight the convergences in anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ+ discourses utilized by various social and political actors.One issue identified with DNA is the discourses against feminist and LGBTQ+ collectives, such as MeToo, against the rights of immigrant women.As can be seen from the annual charts, there is a gradual increase in ‘statements against’in the articles of each year, while in 2021 an upsurge against the protection of women's rights is also identified.Arguments of nationalist networks seem to focus on the diachronic protection of the nation from issues such as islamization, while at the same time actions of feminist and LGBTQ+ movements are targeted as intending to castrate men on one hand and on the other hand they are presented as a danger to traditional Greek values.
CVs
Alexandros Kioupkiolis is Professor of Contemporary Political Theory at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. He has studied Classics (BA, University of Athens), and Contemporary Political Theory (MA, Essex University, DPhil, Oxford University). His research interests are focussed on radical democracy, the commons, social movements, and the philosophy of freedom. He has directed an ERC COG project on these topics (Heteropolitics, 2017-2020) and has published numerous relevant books and papers, including the monographs Τhe Common and Counter-hegemonic Politics (Edinburgh University Press 2019), Common Hegemony, Populism, and the New Municipalism: Democratic Alter-Politics and Transformative Strategies (Routledge 2022). He is the Principal Investigator of the FIERCE project.
Christina Grammatikopoulou is an Art Historian / Theorist (PhD, University of Barcelona (2013). Her postdoctoral research focused on the aesthetics of feminist resistance under the supervision of Professor Fotini Tsibiridou at the Department of Balkan, Slavic & Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia (2020–2023). She has taught courses on digital culture at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Western Macedonia. She is a member of the technofeminist collective #purplenoise. She currently works as a research associate at the University of Macedonia, at the Culture – Borders – Gender / LAB and a researcher at the FIERCE project.
Eleni Lazaridou is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Social Anthropology of the Panteion University and her doctoral research lies on the multimodal ethnographic approach of queerness, death and aging in digital cultures. She has completed her postgraduate studies in “Semiotics, Culture and Communication” in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and she is currently studying in the postgraduate program “Gender, Culture and Society” in the Department of Social Anthropology and History of the University of the Aegean. Her research interests are related to the study of sexuality, gender construction and self-representation, queer and transgenerational relations, and gender discourse in digital cultures, with particular regard to online game communities and network sites, as well as in the design of interactive social media narratives. She is currently participating in the Horizon project “Feminist movements and revitalizing democracy in Europe”.
Cross-Mythologies and The Anthropocene Mesopotamia and Greek Mythos
Interdisciplinary Exploration through Performance, Space, and Poetics
Batman University, Turkey | University of Thessaly, Greece | Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Batman, 7-13/4/2025 | Volos, 27/4 - 4/5/2025