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
Student Conference Beyond North
February 14th 2025 10:00 Room: Γ
Department of Architecture
University of Thessaly
Pedion Areos, Volos
The conference is organized by the elective course South: Space and non hegemonic paradigms of knowledge.
Tutor: Iris Lykourioti
Student work and research has been developed through presentations and discussions during winter semester 2024-2025.
Student organizing/coordinating committee:
- Alexandropoulou Deni
- Charalambidou Christina
- Geka Christina
- Goga Elpida
- Kottoros-Yarmas Markos
- Manolakou Dimitra
Click for the program and poster.
Blog with abstracts of essays written for the course ‘South: Space and non-hegemonic paradeigms of knowledge’
farasi.zine
issue 03 / Winter 2025
Guest editors: Temporary Academy of Arts / PAT (Yota Ioannidou, Elpida Karaba, Vangelis Vlahos, Despina Zefkili)
Graphic design: Stergios George Tsarouchas
Cover image: Katerina Komianou, Rapture, 2024 (detail)
“Pethnos: a new research art project by PAT or the third generation which mourns commits suicide” is part of the new research project “Pethnos” by the Temporary Academy of Arts/PAT (Yota Ioannidou, Elpida Karaba, Vangelis Vlahos, Despina Zefkili).
Participants: Athena Athanasiou, Marios Chatziprokopiou, Theodoros Chiotis, Phoebe Giannisi, Vangelis Karamanolakis, Alexandros Kioupkiolis, Katerina Komianou, Iris Lykourioti, Kostis Papaioannou, Chara Stergiou, Elena Tzelepis, Pati Vardhami. Many thanks to all of them for their generous contribution to the making of this issue.
Pethnos: a new research art project by PAT or the third generation which mourns commits suicide
How do we face the multitude of losses and the rhetoric of despair that surround us? How can we manage loss (waste/d) and grief to turn it into "joyful militancy”?
As part of this issue of farasi.zin three meetings-discussions were organised with participants theorists and artists (Athena Athanasiou, Marios Chatziprokopiou, Phoebe Giannisi, Vangelis Karamanolakis, Alexandros Kioupkiolis, Iris Lykourioti, Kostis Papaioannou, Elena Tzelepis, Pati Vardhami) which focused on the conept/neologism Pethnos, a challenging association of pethnos (mourning) and ethnos (nation) as a key to open up our contemporary historical condition.
At the same time, three artists (Theodoros Chiotis, Katerina Komianou, Chara Stergiou) were invited to respond to this conversations creating a work especially for this issue.
#03_φαράσι farasi_03 (2025) UTH for reading
#03_φαράσι farasi_03 (2025) UTH for printing
PAT (Temporary Academy of Arts, https://temporaryacademy.org/) is para-institution that works alongside the institutions, an artwork, a curatorial and pedagogical programme. Understanding the institution as procedural and critically subverting the term academy, PAT, through visual artworks and discourse production, tests self-institutionalized forms of culture and politics and explores the various methodological articulations and nuances between the institutional and the self-institutional, art and knowledge systems, practice and discourse.
Yota Ioannidou is an artist and researcher working in Athens. Her work focuses on storytelling-performance and the creation of research and performing groups. In her latest projects, Ioannidou explores the performative and dramaturgical aspects that emerge during the formation of documents in historical, political, cultural and institutional contexts, emphasising the ideological apparatus of classification itself.Her work has been presented at Communities in movement, kunsthal 3.14 Bergen (2023), When the Present is History, Museum of Contemporary art, Thessaloniki (2021) and Depo, Istanbul (2019); I’ ll open the door straight, dead straight into the fire, State of Concept, Athens and Gallery Nova, Zagreb (2019); A case of perpetual no, State of Concept, Athens (2018); ‘The kids want communism’ — Notes on division, ΜΟΒΥBat Yam, Ιsrael (2017); No need for references, WUK, Vienna, (2015), 3rd and 4th Athens Biennale a.o.
Elpida Karaba is an Associate Professor at the Department of Culture, New Media and Industries, University of Thessaly, Greece (https://cult.uth.gr/staff/karaba-elpida/). Her work and publications focus on art history and theory, feminist theory, performance, activist art, new media and research based art practices and curating and critical pedagogies. She works at the intersection of public art, critical theory, of art with systems of knowledge and emerging art, political manifestations in the public sphere. She is the founder and research member of the Center for New Media and Feminist Public Practices (CNMFPP), (www.centrefeministmedia.arch.uth) and of the collective Temporary Academy of Arts (PAT), https://temporaryacademy.org/
Vangelis Vlahos, born in Athens in 1971, explores the recent historical past of his country, aiming at a reexamination that may offer alternative narratives. His archives, texts, and videos create a network of references and relationships, testing the possibility of viewing and understanding different moments from the past outside of dominant narratives. His work has been featured in numerous biennials, including Manifesta 5, the 3rd Berlin Biennale, the 27th São Paulo Biennale, the 11th Istanbul Biennial, the 3rd Athens Biennial, and the 7th Thessaloniki Biennial. It has also been exhibited in institutions such as NGBK in Berlin, Witte de With in Rotterdam, Kunstverein in Stuttgart, Centre de la Photographie in Genève, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Depo in Istanbul, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOMus) in Thessaloniki and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. His works are part of collections including Tate Modern in London, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, and Magasin III in Stockholm.
Despina Zefkili is art critic, editor in chief Athinorama, and member of the Temporary Academy of Arts (PAT). She is interested in a critical understanding of art and its structures in a wider sociopolitical context as well as its educational aspects. She has published articles on the Athens art scene in various books and magazines including “On One Side of the Same Water” (Hatje Cantz), “The Way between Belgrade and Pristina” (Stacion Center), Art Papers, Third Text, Ocula, Field Journal, Art Review, Frieze, artnet, Flash Art, Art info, Camera Austria, South Magazine, [φρμκ]. She has co-curated exhibitions, projects and books, such us “Joyful Militancy Live”, “Waste/d Pavilion”, “Agreement Without Principles - Towards a History of Contemporary Greek Art”, 4th Athens Biennale AGORA (The Non-Serious Lectures), «Archaeology of Today?», Local Folk fanzine. The last 10 years she has been curating the art exhibition of the “Routes in Marpissa” festival in Paros.
© 2025 φαράσι/ farasi