New publication by the Centre of New Media and Feminist Public Practices

Care in Conflict: Artistic Reflections on Broken Worlds/Words

This publication seeks a rapture with the way we speak, taking language-as-care as the starting point for a reflection on what could critically resist the emergence nowadays of “care” both as a buzzword in the contemporary cultural scene and as an, often aestheticised, representation in various artistic and theoretical contexts.

The Centre of New Media and Feminist Public Practices commissioned texts from Gigi Argyropoulou, Ethel Baraona Pohl and Lisa Maillard, Elke Krasny and Svetlana Milevska who, in the context of this publication, strive to re-read care and its discontents and clarify antagonistic understandings and significations of care. They aim to better understand the fundamental role of care in the contradictions of social cohesion and social emancipation while addressing issues such as the Global South, care and curating, feminism, situated knowledge and affect. Informed by and based on a feminist perspective, they try to differentiate and raise consciousness on how these exact values are extracted by the globalised market to be invested in the rally of profit. As an epilogue, bell hooks’ “Teaching New Worlds/New Words” which has been included in its Greek translation (“Γλώσσα: διδάσκοντας νέους κόσμους, διδάσκοντας νέες λέξεις”), urges us to embrace new words as pathways to new worlds, as both a critical reflection and a heartfelt call to action, opening up possibilities for reimagining collective futures through language and care and underlining the understanding of our work as part of critical pedagogies.

The publication also includes a feminist index that operates as more than just a cataloguing or referencing system; it is a dynamic practice that brings to light otherwise peripheral or ec-centric positions, pathways, relationships, and interconnections of the partners of the Care Ecologies programme: The Centre of New Media and Feminist Public Practices, Mamidakis Foundation, State of Concept, Idensitat and WHW/ What, how & for whom. The publication has been realised as part of the Care Ecologies project, funded by the Creative Europe Program and the European Union.

As the double-faceted care (both radical and capitalized) tricks us, it is imperative to think about care ecologies, power relations and the cultural and geopolitical hegemonies as these are revealed by language and to take care of these ecologies in order to speak differently.

Care in Conflict: Artistic Reflections on Broken Worlds/Words
Edited by Elpida Karaba, Valia Papastamou, Marianna Stefanitsi, Ioanna Zouli
Contributions by Gigi Argyropoulou, Ethel Baraona Pohl, bell hooks, Lisa Maillard,Suzana Milevska, Elke Krasny
Translation by Afroditi Christodoulakou (English-Greek)
Copyediting and Proofreading by Damian Mac Con Uladh
Designed by Studio Lialios Vazoura
Printed by Kostopoulos Printing House
Bound by Androvik Dimitra

Published by University of Thessaly Press
ISBN: 978-960-9439-98-5
© Copyright, 2025, The Authors, CNMFPP and University of Thessaly Press, Volos.
All rights reserved
Τhe publication has been realised as part of the Care Ecologies project,funded by the Creative Europe Program and the European Union.

You can download the book as a pdf.
See the cover.

Λecture by Nikos Katsikis entitled Geospatial Metabolisms on Thursday 23/10/25 at 15:00 in Amphitheatre and online.

How can we understand the spatial dimension of urban metabolism?
How does the resource supply of dense urban centers shape interdependent, operational landscapes of primary production and transform planetary space?
And in what ways can this relationship be reimagined in a sustainable, resilient, and just manner?

Nikos Katsikis is an Assistant Professor of Urbanism at TU Delft, where he coordinates the Critical Environments research group , and a founding member of the Urban Theory Lab-University of Chicago. His research combines urbanization theory, spatial design, and geospatial analysis, aiming to understand and transform the spatial dimensions of urban metabolism. He holds a professional degree in architecture from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and a Doctorate from Harvard GSD, where he served as editor of the journal New Geographies and lecturer in Urban Planning and Design. He has also taught at the Royal College of Art, the Architectural Association, and the Politecnico di Milano, and serves as an external advisor to the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. His forthcoming books include Data-spheres of Planetary Urbanization and Environments of Planetary Urbanization (Jovis, 2025).

https://criticalenvironments.nl/
http://www.terraurbis.com/

In the framework of the course
EKTOS POLIS: Researching the Urban Otherwise - Wanderings across Extended Urbanisation
Observatory of the Countryside
Tutor: Metaxia Markaki

For the connection link, please contact memarkaki@uth.gr

See the poster.

The international workshop RE/CONSTRUCTIONS: Histories, Politics, Futures is part of the two-year research project Contested Reconstructions in Global Perspective: Spatial Histories of Conflict and Expertise in 1940s Greece (HFRI, 2023–25 Project Number 15122), which combines architectural history and digital humanities to examine the entanglements of expertise and conflict. It will be held in person between 17-19 October 2025, at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly in Volos.

Scheduled for the final trimester of the research project, this workshop will publicly present its findings and serve as a platform to foster discussion on the histories and politics of post-conflict reconstruction—a field that, needless to say, has become a central challenge in contemporary research and design. Building on the productive conference session Revising Histories of Post-Conflict/Disaster Reconstruction (SAH 2025, chaired by P. Phokaides and F. Abreek-Zubiedat), this workshop aims to place the paradigmatic case of post–World War II reconstruction in Greece in dialogue with the contemporary politics of post-disaster recovery following the recent catastrophic floods in the city of Volos and the wider Thessaly region. The primary aim of this workshop is to broaden discussions on the histories and politics of post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction by foregrounding marginalized perspectives and experiences. It invites researchers working across diverse temporal and geographic contexts to engage with the following broader questions:

• What major shifts have occurred in the practices and paradigms of post–WWII reconstruction, decisively shaped by Western values, technocratic expertise, and developmentalism?
• How has recent scholarship shifted from positioning architects, planners, and other experts as the central protagonists of reconstruction histories, to foregrounding bottom-up processes led by builders, inhabitants, and other agents—such as animals, plants, infrastructures, and machines, among others?
• What would it mean to radically revise the historiography of reconstruction to include the perspectives of marginalized humans and more-than-humans as co-constitutive forces in environments under reconstruction?
• And, given the escalating frequency and scale of contemporary catastrophes, how might we reimagine reconstruction as a project of spatial and environmental justice—one grounded in practices of care and healing, articulated from a planetary perspective?

This workshop aims to reconceptualize post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction as a broader epistemic inquiry. Through public lectures, scheduled and informal discussions, a fieldtrip and screenings we seek to foreground critically situated investigations of reconstruction processes and case studies. In doing so, we aim to interrogate dominant epistemological frameworks and explore alternative research methodologies—including critical archival analysis, digital mapping tools, ethnography, oral histories, autobiographical narratives, and relational writing—as well as diverse modes of dissemination, such as film, exhibitions, and other public-facing formats.Ultimately, we ask: what new modes of perception or knowledge production are required to account for what has been silenced in the histories of reconstruction, while also registering what continues to echo beyond conventional forms of evidence? Beyond crafting more just historiographies, how might critical research help us reimagine the political stakes of reconstruction—both historically and in relation to unfolding futures?

Amid ongoing wars, protracted military conflicts, and escalating ecological catastrophes—including earthquakes, floods, and wildfires—post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction projects are proliferating globally, demanding deeper historiographical and theoretical engagement. This workshop brings together an international group of researchers to foster future collaboration, including the development of a collective publication critically examining the histories and politics of reconstruction in post-conflict and post-disaster contexts.

Workshop Participants

“ContestedReconstructions” Research Team:
Petros Phokaides (PI), Polymeris Voglis, Eleni Gkadolou, Dimtris Skaltsis, Stavroula-Maria Micha, Giota Pavlidou, Fatina Abreek-Zubiedat, Panayiota Pyla, Ijlal Muzaffar.

List of Invited Participants:
Kalliopi Amygdalou, Christos Filippides, Aslihan Gunhan, Stylianos Lekakis, Fabiano Micocci, Penelope Papailias, Maryia Rusak, Antonis Petras, Loukas Triantis, Vaso Trova.

Workshop Public Program

Friday 17 Oct 2025 / 18:00 – 20:00

Welcoming message
Kostis Paniyiris, Department Head

Introduction to the Re/Constructions Workshop
Petros Phokaides

Polymeris Voglis
The Burden of the Past in Shaping the Future
The Politics of Reconstruction in Postwar Greece

Panayiota Pyla
Reconstruction and Reconciliation: Varosha's Long Wait

Ijlal Muzaffar
Land-dreams: Meaning, Memory, and Belonging in a Reconstructed Landscape

SCREENINGS
Friday 17 Oct 2025 19:45
Metamorfosi - A Settlement in Flux (19min)
(Thanos Karanikas, Dimitra Kosma)

Saturday 18 Oct2025 20:00
Floodmarks: A Video-Chronicle (22min)
(Penelope Papailias)

Download the poster and the programme.

Lecture
UTOPIAN HOURS Luca Ballarini & Stratosferica
Wednesday 15 October 2025 12:00 EET
Hall Δ και Teams

Luca Ballarini will present the programme and the curatorial strategy for the upcoming urban festival Utopian Hours—an international festival of city making and urban innovation— which he hosts in Torino 17-19 October 2025. The festival offers ideas for city imaging and how to develop and contextualize visions about the future of cities, but also community building, place making and social innovation. In addition to keynote speeches, Utopian Hours offers workshops and immersive exhibitions to explore a diverse range of experiences and expertise for the future of urban innovation and life.

Stratosferica is an organization that produces and disseminates urban knowledge with projects that range from research to storytelling, from education to placemaking. They work in cities and territories alongside businesses, public administrations and communities to redefine the positioning of places starting from the ideas of those who live them. 

UTOPIAN HOURS
Meeting ID: 331 985 502 771 0
Passcode: en3AF27m
Join the meeting now

Ears to the Ground
a sonic lecture byLudwig Berger

With the lights turned off, we listen
to glaciers melting,
the breathing of a peat bog,
the pulse of a highway.

Sound narrates places beyond the city,
and listening becomes a tool
to explore climate change
and the entanglement of bodies and places within it.

Auditorium
Thursday, 2 October, 14:00 — duration 16'

In the framework of the course

EKTOS POLIS: Researching the Urban Otherwise - Wanderings across Extended Urbanisation

Observatory of the Countryside
tutor: Metaxia Markaki

Ludwig Berger is a sound artist and composer based in Zurich, Montrealand Milan. In his installations and performances, he engages playfully with more-than-human worlds such as beehives, glaciers, water infrastructures, and trees. In his musical work, he produces intimate sonic eco-fictions through synthesis and sampling. He has released various albums of field recordings, improvisations, and electroacoustic music, and composes for film, theatre, and radio. He is the curator of the tape label Vertical Music, runs a monthly radio show at Radio Raheem, and teaches sound and field recording at the Institute for Landscape Architecture at ETH Zurich, where he studies the sonic dimension of Japanese gardens, alpine glaciers, and urban landscapes.

Within the framework of the Erasmus+ program, the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly co-organized with Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture de Nantes (France),  Universita Luigi Vanvitelli (Italy), Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Eindhoven Technical University (Nederland) and Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Italy) the Blended Intensive Program entitled "Hybrid Urbanscapes" from July 1 to 6, 2024.

The program fostered a dynamic exchange of ideas, encouraging participants to explore forward-thinking urban strategies that integrate ecological principles, climate resilience, and the evolving interplay between human settlements and natural ecosystems.

Through lectures, site visits, and collaborative design work, students engaged with real-world urban and environmental challenges.

This volume brings together the knowledge and creative explorations that emerged from the workshop. It includes a collection of lectures delivered during the workshop, as well as documentation of field visits to critical sites affected by extreme flooding in September 2023 – the Giannouli neighborhood in Larisa, Lake Karla, and the village of Mikro in Pelion. These locations, deeply impacted by climate-related disasters, served as case studies for envisioning resilient urban and territorial futures.

Additionally, the volume showcases a series of student design projects developed in four design studios at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, during the winter of 2023 and spring of 2024. These projects, which were presented and exhibited during the workshop in Volos, propose innovative approaches to reimagining the delicate balance between river systems, water management, and the built environment, offering critical insights into sustainable urban futures.

Read the volume.

Join us on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, at 19:00, at the Museum of the City of Volos, for the screening of a short video-chronicle (dir. Christos Schoinas) from the exhibition Floodmarks (April 2 – May 9, 2025). The exhibition was organized at the same venue by an interdisciplinary team of social anthropologists, architects, geographers, artists, and activists.

The event has a twofold aim: to reflect on and gather feedback on the exhibition as a public intervention within the continuing afterlives of the flood, as well as to discuss possible future actions; and to announce the establishment of the Diachronic and Experiential Landscape Observatory at the University of Thessaly’s Department of Architecture (TAM) and Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology (IAKA).

Floodmarks was co-organized by members of the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology (IAKA) and the Department of Architecture (TAM) of the University of Thessaly, the Pelion Summer Lab (PSL) for Cultural Theory and Experimental Humanities and the Volos Art Association, with assistance from the staff of the Museum of the City of Volos. For more information, see here.

Graphics: Katerina Giannitsi 

The 4th International Workshop in Theory and Sound "Waves", 26-28/08/2025 at the Paou Monastery, is co-organized by:

• The “Mobility Studies” Postgraduate Programme and the Social Anthropology Lab (Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology), University of Thessaly,
• The Department of Culture, Creative Media and Industries, University of Thessaly,
  
• The Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly,
  

In collaboration with MOMus Experimental Centre for the Arts.

theoretical ↔ artistic workshop

The 2025 ISTW focuses on the topic of “waves”, exploring its analytical potential for the study of music and sound in the (Eastern) Mediterranean and across their transnational trajectories and resonances. The wave, a performative materiality enacting sound’s reproductions, transmissions, diffractions, dispersions, vibrations, interferences, velocities,  echoes,  periodicities, frequencies  and oscillations.

The workshop is aligned with the sound festival organized by MOMus Experimental Centre for the Arts in January 2026. The festival also focuses on the topic of “wwwwavessss”  and will host projects designed in the context of the IWTS workshop.

Invited speakers:

• Jessica Swanston Baker (University of Chicago)
• Gavin Williams (King’s College London)
• Jean Paul Thibaud (AAU Cresson, University Grenoble Alpes)

For more info please refer to the website and the programme.

Student Projects Final Presentations ΑΣ1512_ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN IV-VI IB: Collective Inhabitation Models: Architectures οf Care

Students presenting their projects:
MARIA AGIOPETRITI / ILIAS KALOGRIAS / KATERINA MELINA-KARAGIANNIDOU / EMILY KOUREMENOU/ MONIKA NIKOLAIDI / ELEUTHERIA NTENEKOU / GEORGIA PETRIDOU / MARINA PLARINOU / NIKOLETA SAMARA / GIANNIS SILITZOGLOU / ANTONIETTA STEFANI/ VASILIS STYLAS / DANAI TASIOPOULOU / MARIA TSERVENI / KONSTANTINA HATZIFOTIADOU / ASIMINA HRISTOFILOU

Commentary:
Dimitris Gourdoukis, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Arch., AUTh

Instructor:
Petros Phokaides, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Arch, UTh.