The programme explores the concept of 'heritage' from both German and Greek perspectives. It addresses the recent surge of interest in fields such as academia, politics, cultural organizations, and the media. UNESCO has expanded its protective frameworks for intangible cultural heritage, enabling the safeguarding of customs, practices, and culinary traditions—like the Byzantine chant cultures in Greece and Cyprus, or the endangered club scene in Berlin.
This initiative is hosted by Goethe-Institut Athen in partnership with the Humboldt Forum.
On 27 November, the event series will focus on the topic of intangible cultural heritage. Berlin’s club culture (which was added to the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage in 2024) and the Athens cinema scene will be used to examine the effects of phenomena such as gentrification and overtourism – both fuelled by the increasingly commercial marketing of a defining aspect of cultural heritage – on the social fabric of cities. The death of clubs, the loss of cultural venues, and the standardisation of cultural offerings have now become buzz phrases, but they also elicit a powerful artistic response. READ MORE
Following the screening of the film Berlin Utopiekadaver[Berlin Eviction] and a discussion with director Johannes Blume, the panel, chaired by cultural journalist Cathryn Drake, will focus on the dynamics of gentrification and the constantly mounting pressure coming from investors, as well as the growing commercialisation of international tourism. Marcel Weber, chairman of the Clubcomission Berlin, and artist Linda Paganelli (who currently has an exhibition on gentrification at the Stadtmuseum Berlin) will join in the discussion with Athens-based architect and artist Sofia Dona, Maria Komninos, film scholar and president of the Greek Film Archive, and archaeologist and cinema owner Peggy Ringa. Together they will develop scenarios for how cities and their residents and communities can respond to these challenges, and how artists and activists can articulate their ideas and position themselves. The evening will conclude with a DJ set with DJ Irakli (Germany) and Ablaze Meursault (Greece).
18:00 Film Screening Berlin Utopiekadaver [Berlin Eviction], Johannes Blume, 2024, 95’ In the presence of the director
In German with Greek and English subtitles Q&A: Johannes Blume Language: English with simultaneous interpretation into Greek
20:30 Roundtable Discussion
Panel consisting of Sofia Dona, Maria Komninos, Linda Paganelli, Peggy Ringa,
and Marcel Weber
Moderation by Cathryn Drake Language: English, Greek with simultaneous interpretation
22:00 DJ Sets
Irakli, Ablaze Meursault
Sofia Dona / Roundtable Discussion
Sofia Dona is an artist and architect whose work bridges the gap between architecture and art, addressing social, economic, and political issues through an interdisciplinary, site-specific approach. Whether she focuses on the border region between Mexico and the US, various eviction strategies, or historically symbolic architectural elements of power, Dona creates installations and video works that challenge conventional perceptions of everyday life. Her works shed new light on situations and narratives, offering a fresh perspective that uncovers hidden, forgotten, or unnoticed elements. A key aspect of her artistic practice is the creation of a defamiliarizing effect, resulting in works that are both revealing and poetic. By constructing a replica of a border mountain range out of sand, extending a balcony, moving a streetlight, or enlarging a doorway, she transforms familiar objects into unexpected narrative elements. Through processes of defamiliarization, estrangement, and ostranenie, these transformed artifacts reveal stories and meanings, evoke memories, and heighten awareness through the extraordinary ordinariness of simulation.
Maria Komninos / Roundtable Discussion
Maria Komninos is an Emerita Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and President of the Board of Directors of the Greek Film Archive. She has conducted research and taught in both Athens and London, serving as an honorary research fellow at the Department of History of Art, Birkbeck College. Currently, she teaches in the postgraduate program "Film and Cultural Studies" offered by the Media and Communication Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. As the Artistic Director of the Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival, which is preparing for its 13th edition in December 2024, she is also responsible for the new laboratory for Digitisation and Restoration at the Greek Film Archive. Komninos has authored several books and articles in both Greek and English.
Linda Paganelli / Roundtable Discussion
Linda Paganelli is an Italian visual anthropologist, artist, and filmmaker who has been based in Berlin since 2017. Her work employs a sensorial and inclusive approach, combined with an anthropological, decolonial, and queer-feminist perspective. She explores themes such as migration and belonging, mass violence, memory culture, realities of post-conflict zones, eco-grief, and the relationship between humans and other species. Paganelli collaborates with museums, galleries, universities, educational institutions, and NGOs. She also co-manages the Berlin Independent Film Community.
Peggy Ringa / Roundtable Discussion
Born and raised in Athens, Peggy Ringa studied Archaeology and History of Art at the University of Athens and earned two Master's degrees in Egyptology and Classical Archaeology from the University of London. For nearly a decade, she worked as a contract archaeologist in various parts of Attica. After her father's death in 2013, she took over the family business, which includes four movie theatres: "Aavora" and the open-air cinemas "Athens", "Riviera", and "Vox". Despite participating in only one excavation since then, she still considers herself more of an archaeologist than a businesswoman.
Marcel Weber / Roundtable Discussion
Marcel Weber, the first chairperson of the Board of Clubcommission Berlin, is an experienced architect of change and a certified systemic business coach, specializing in shaping sustainable and diverse organizational cultures. Since 2022, he has served as Chairman of the Board of Clubcommission Berlin and was Managing Director of SchwuZ Queer Club until August 2024. With over two decades of experience in nightlife, Weber began his professional career by training as an office communications clerk. After holding various positions within and outside the SchwuZ cosmos, he was appointed Managing Director of this queer institution in 2012. Weber is passionate about advocating for the recognition of queer lifestyles, gender equality, and the sustainable development of club culture. His commitment spans social, ecological, and economic aspects. In his free time, he occasionally works as a DJ and has a great passion for house music and disco.
Cathryn Drake / Moderation
Cathryn Drake is a writer and art critic who has contributed features and reviews on contemporary art, design, and places to publications such as Artforum, e-flux Criticism, frieze, Metropolis, Men’s Vogue, Time, and the Wall Street Journal. She has written about the role of art in the public sphere, urban development coupled with historic preservation, and the culture and architecture of communal bathing from antiquity to the present. Drake curated "The Presence of Absence, or the Catastrophe Theory," which was shown at Izolyatsia in Kyiv and NiMAC in Nicosia. This exhibition explored themes such as landscape and memory, amnesia and nationalism, identity and resistance, fragmentation and displacement, alienation, and longing for places that may no longer exist, through the work of artists from Albania, Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece. Formerly the copy chief of the design magazine Metropolis and an editor at the Museum of Modern Art, she now edits publications for the Yale School of Architecture. Previously, she served as the publicity director for the Ann Arbor Film Festival and managed production for two feature film shoots in New York: the Swiss murder mystery "Morocco" and the Russian-American film "Beyond the Ocean." After earning a degree in political science and creative writing, she worked for several years as a legislative assistant to U.S. Congressman Timothy Wirth in Washington, D.C.
Johannes Blume / Filmmaker
Johannes Blume was born in Berlin. He dropped out of school and spent several years working as a bartender in one of the city's smaller theatres. He gained practical experience as a production assistant and assistant director on various films. He frequently created shorts and experimental works, and undertook film commissions for cultural and socio-ecological companies and projects. In 2013, he shifted his focus from practical work to academics: he completed his school-leaving exam (Abitur) and studied philosophy and film studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Since graduating in 2019, he has worked as a director and writer. His medium-length documentary "Strawalde" (60 min.) received positive reviews. He produced his first feature-length documentary "Berlin Utopiekadaver" (95 min.) in collaboration with Filmgalerie 451 for ZDF’s "Das kleine Fernsehspiel," and won the Max Ophüls Prize for Best Music in a Documentary.
Irakli / DJ
Originally from Georgia, Irakli Kiziria settled early in the German capital, where he developed a unique facet of the local scene and transformed it into an international phenomenon. In 2013, he founded STAUB, one of Berlin’s most renowned techno parties. As part of the production duo I/Y, he has been releasing music under the co-founded label. However, Irakli's true mastery lies behind the decks at Berlin’s iconic underground venues such as Tresor, Berghain, and Griessmuehle, spreading his vision of electronic music across Europe and the Americas. In 2017, he established the Intergalactic Research Institute for Sound, collaborating with artists like Stanislav Tolkachev, Natalie Beridze, Rezo Glonti, and many others. Irakli also leads a thriving network that explores ambient concepts inspired by the tones and colors of his homeland, Georgia. By incorporating orchestral collaborations and sound installations into his work beyond the club scene, Irakli’s expanding platforms and deep connection to Berlin have allowed him to venture into the more abstract, experimental realms of techno. With new projects and a diverse creative repertoire, Irakli’s DJ sets, labels, and parties consistently showcase unique qualities. Whether he is delving into beatless soundscapes or high-energy techno music, Irakli always manages to create something special.
Ablaze Meursault / DJ
Katerina P. Trichia, also known as DJ Ablaze Meursault, holds a BA in Theatre from the University of Peloponnese and an MA in Culture and Film from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her thesis, titled “DIY Record Labels in Greece during the 90s: A chronicle and a study of their activity,” delves into the vibrant independent music scene of that era. Her artistic endeavors span a diverse array of media, including music (Filament Zine), film curation (Boiling Films, Drama International Short Film Festival, Opening Nights - AIFF, Ios Festival, Syros International Film Festival), and photography through Studio Trichia.
BERLIN UTOPIEKADAVER [Berlin Eviction]
Johannes Blume
2024
92 min.
A wave of evictions grips Berlin. The squatting scene dissolves, and its members feel like they are supposed to leave the city. The film portrays a subculture through different generations. People open up, talking about their fights against oblivion, but they also stress how important it is to dance and cry together.
A cab driver drives through the city, talking about its rapid changes and the real estate boom. He is himself a punk and a famed character in the Autonomous scene. The stops on the journey are the most important places, such as Rigaer Straße, Liebigstraße, das Tuntenhaus, Potse, Drugstore, Syndikat, Meuterei, and Köpi, all struggling for survival. Young people like the Potse and Drugstore collectives fear for their self-determined lives. Women from Liebigstraße describe how important their house project was as a space for the LGBTQIA+ community. The last evictions have not yet been processed, and the next ones are already imminent: the Potse autonomous youth centre has to hand in its keys, and negotiations for the Köpi Wagenplatz are already underway. We look through the protagonist’s eyes at the world of the squatter scene. Together with them, we go to rallies, concerts, demonstrations, KüFas (kitchen for all), and through their private and professional lives. Again and again, a loud voice rings out from the megaphone and declares war on the city of the rich.
The second part of the "Heritage in Focus" series on February 6th focused on aspects of urban heritage. Both in Athens and Berlin, the handling of urban architectural heritage was intensely debated. In Berlin, the reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace as the "Humboldt Forum" sparked discussions about regressive architectural forms and the handling of German history. In Athens, the debates about the Polykatoikia – modernist apartment blocks from the 1930s to the 1970s – reflected the strong interest in the architectural heritage of modernism and its socio-political implications for the city. READ MORE
The well-known architectural theorist Anh-Linh Ngo from Berlin’s Academy of Arts will give a keynote speech providing insights into how Berlin is handling its planning legacy and looking at possible modes of participation given the political pressures and market forces in play. The panel discussion that follows will examine the urban planning situation in Athens and Berlin, focusing on major projects that are developing considerable momentum and have striking parallels: for many years the two cities had centrally located airports – Tempelhof in Berlin and Ellinikon in Athens, dating back to the 1920s and 1930s respectively – which had a lasting impact on the process of urban development. Their closure in the early 2000s piqued architects’ interest and raised questions about how the historical legacy of these central transport hubs should be handled. As part of the panel, moderated by Despina Zefkili, architects Malte Wilms (Leibniz University, Hanover) and Jolene Lee (Berlin), both members of the Architects4THF initiative, will report on civil society’s commitment to preserving the “Tempelhofer Feld”, an open expanse of green space in the city centre where the airfield used to be, flanked by the huge airport building dating from the Nazi era. Architects Iris Lykourioti (University of Thessaly) and Polina Prentou (National Technical University of Athens) explore the potentials and downsides of “The Ellinikon” development project in Athens. The architect and scholar Christina Varvia will present a research project that takes a personal approach to the history of Ellinikon Airport.
This will be followed by Heinz Emigholz’s documentary Slaughterhouses of Modernity, in which the filmmaker analyses the tension between avant-garde and political propaganda in modern architecture, using the Humboldt Forum in Berlin as an example.
The parallel exhibition on display in the Lower Foyer, Kilian Schmitz-Hübsch and Dimitris Kleanthis’s Athens Polykatoikias 1930–1975, examines the phenomenon of polykatoikias and their significant role in Athens’s urban development.
The programme concludes with two DJ sets by Minou Oram of the THF Radio, based close to Tempelhofer Feld, Berlin, and Kostadis, Athens.
20:30 Film Screening Schlachthäuser der Moderne [Slaughterhouses of Modernity], Heinz Emigholz, 2022, 80΄
The filmmaker will be present. In German with Greek and English subtitles
Q&A: Heinz Emigholz Language: English with simultaneous translation
22:00 DJ Sets
Kostadis, Minou Oram (THF-Radio)
Anh-Linh Ngo / Introductory Keynote
Anh-Linh Ngo (b. 1974) is a distinguished architectural journalist, curator, and editor-in-chief of ARCH+. He frequently curates exhibitions and research projects with ARCH+, including projekt bauhaus (2015–2019), Cohabitation (2021), and The Great Repair (2023/24). From 2010 to 2016, he served on the art advisory board of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa), where he developed and co-curated touring exhibitions such as An Atlas of Commoning (2018) and Post-Oil City (2009). Currently, he is a trustee for the IBA 2027 Stuttgart Metropolitan Region and the Akademie Schloss Solitude, and he sits on the advisory board of the Goethe-Institut. In 2023, he co-curated the German Pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. Ngo has been a member of the Academy of the Arts Berlin since 2021 and has become its vice president in May 2024.
Iris Lykourioti / Roundtable Discussion
Iris Lykourioti is an Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Greece. She has edited books, published articles, and exhibited architectural projects and research both nationally and internationally. Her current academic interests focus on the political dimensions that shape the design and production of material objects and spaces (Technogeographies), utilizing theoretical frameworks such as feminist theory and Epistemologies of the South. She is a founding member of A Whale’s architects and the Centre for New Media and Feminist Public Practices.
Polina Prentou / Roundtable Discussion
Polina Prentou is an architect, MSc Urban Planner (NTUA), and PhD candidate at the School of Architecture NTUA, focusing on gendered approaches to urban social movements for open spaces in Athens. She is a research associate at the Urban Environment Lab NTUA, contributing to projects such as the Hellinikon Metropolitan Park, the regeneration of Lipasmata Drapetsonas, and the refugee neighborhoods in the Piraeus area. Her research interests blend gendered approaches to urban planning with the social and environmental impacts of large-scale urban projects.
ETA: Jolene Lee & Malte Wilms/ Roundtable Discussion
ETA: Estimated Time of Arrival. Space exploration in the field of research and prototypes through discovery, probes, and deep dives. ETA: is a collaborative identity in constant alteration. It consists of Jolene Lee and Malte Wilms. They perceive themselves as active agents within a live network. Their strategic and analytical approach allows them to scale in and out of periphery interests and themes. Jolene Lee is an architect based in Berlin. Her research-based practice explores typological prototypes within adaptive transformation topics and consults on infrastructure management for resilient architectural offices. Malte Wilms is an architect based in Berlin. He is interested in systems that emerge from political, spatial, conceptual, economic, ecological, and virtual logics and evolve into prototypes. Together, they are the founding members of the Architects for Tempelhofer Feld network, which was initiated in response to the threat of development on the field.
Despina Zefkili / Moderation
Despina Zefkili is an art critic, editor-in-chief of Athinorama magazine, and a member of the Temporary Academy of Arts collective (PAT). She is deeply interested in critically understanding art and its structures within a broader sociopolitical context, as well as exploring its educational aspects. Zefkili 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 Prishtina and Belgrade… (Stacion Center), Art Papers, Third Text, Ocula, Field Journal, Art Review, Frieze, artnet, Flash Art, Art Info, Camera Austria, South Magazine, and [φρμκ]. She has co-curated exhibitions, projects, and publications such as Joyful Militancy Live, Waste/d Pavilion, Agreement Without Principles: Towards a History of Contemporary Greek Art, the 4th Athens Biennale: AGORA (“The Non-Serious Lectures”), Archaeology of Today?, and Local Folk fanzine. For the past ten years, she has curated the art exhibition of the “Routes in Marpissa” festival on the island of Paros.
Christina Varvia / Project Presentation
Christina Varvia is currently a Research Fellow and was formerly the Deputy Director of Forensic Architecture. Trained as an architect, she taught at the Architectural Association from 2018 to 2020. In 2018, she served on the Technology Advisory Board for the International Criminal Court and was a research fellow at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art from 2020 to 2023. Varvia lectures at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is pursuing her PhD at Aarhus University, focusing on feminist and neomaterialist concepts of the human body in investigative practice. She is a founding member and chair of the board of Forensis, a Berlin-based association established by Forensic Architecture, and co-founder and co-director of the Forensic Architecture Initiative Athens (FAIĀ). Her work on airstrikes, detention, right-wing politics, police, and border violence has been presented in courts and other political forums, exhibited, and awarded internationally.
Heinz Emigholz / Filmmaker
Born in 1948 near Bremen, Germany, Heinz Emigholz initially trained as a draughtsman before studying philosophy and literature in Hamburg. He began his filmmaking career in 1968 and has worked as a filmmaker, artist, writer, and producer in Germany and the USA since 1973. Emigholz has been involved in numerous exhibitions, retrospectives, lectures, and publications. In 1974, he started his encyclopaedic drawing series, "The Basis of Make-Up," and in 1984, he launched his film series "Photography and Beyond." From 1993 to 2013, he held a professorship in experimental filmmaking at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where he co-founded the Institute for Time-based Media and the "Art and Media" program. Since 2003, Filmgalerie 451 has been releasing editions of his films on DVD. His notable publications include "Krieg der Augen, Kreuz der Sinne" (War of Eyes, Cross of Senses), "Seit Freud gesagt hat, der Künstler heile seine Neurose selbst, heilen die Künstler ihre Neurosen selbst" (Since Freud said that the artist heals his neuroses himself, artists have been healing their neuroses themselves), "Normalsatz – Siebzehn Filme" (Ordinary Sentence – Seventeen Films), and "Das schwarze Schamquadrat" (The Black Square of Shame), all published by Martin Schmitz Verlag. Other works include "Die Basis des Make-Up" (I, II, and III), "Der Begnadete Meier" (Grace Jones), "Kleine Enzyklopädie der Photographie" (Small Encyclopaedia of Photography), and "Sense of Architecture," featuring over 600 photographs. Heinz Emigholz has been a member of the Academy of the Arts Berlin since 2013.
Kostadis / DJ
Kostadis Michail is a sound artist, self-taught multi-instrumentalist, and sound engineer based in Athens. Performing under the name Kostadis, he crafts DJ sets that feature a dynamic mix of electronic motorik workouts and expansive tracks.
Minou Oram / DJ
Berlin-based DJ and producer Minou Oram seamlessly blends decades and styles of music, effortlessly moving between meditative serenity and electrifying intensity to evoke catharsis through sound. Her expansive sets draw from a rich tapestry of influences, including psychedelic electronica, cosmic and exotic timbres, industrial post-disco, percussive breaks, sensual IDM, alienated pop, and personal field recordings. From 2016 to 2020, she championed gender diversity in electronic music through the “FEMDEX” project. In 2022, she joined “Cereals,” a collaborative platform for music, art, and design. She holds radio residencies with LYL Radio (Lyon/Paris) and THF Radio (Berlin).
Schlachthäuser der Moderne [Slaughterhouses of Modernity]
Heinz Emigholz
2022
80 min.
SYNOPSIS
The quasi-fascist architecture of Francisco Salamone’s slaughterhouses in the Argentine pampas, the utopian buildings by Freddy Mamani Silvestre in El Alto, Bolivia, and the restorative “City Palace” in Berlin are the cornerstones of an analytical documentary film that explores the dual character of architectural modernism in the field of tension between avant-garde and political propaganda. The actor Stefan Kolosko acts as a diver in the sunken city of Epecuén, where he paraphrases a text by Jorge Luis Borges, and as a curator in Berlin’s “Humboldt Forum”, where he enumerates the crimes of Wilhelm II. The architect Arno Brandlhuber comments on the reconstruction of the “Berlin City Palace”. The film was shot in Berlin, Bolivia, and Argentina in 2021.
The event on 5 June sees the Heritage in Focus series exploring new themes and geographies: human – and that includes European – heritage is to be decentred, and the spotlight will shift onto nature. Heritage in Focus #3 is primarily concerned with the element of water.
This focus on water gives rise to questions about how natural landscapes and cultural landscapes interact and connect with cultural heritage. Are the rules that apply to natural heritage also valid for cultural heritage? Do rivers, bodies of water, and seas have a legal status as entities that can be accorded the same rights and protections as humans? How can a Western understanding of nature shaped by the market economy connect with a view of natural elements based on Indigenous knowledge that sees these elements as a personified part of the community? READ MORE
As in previous editions of Heritage in Focus, these issues will be explored with a specific focus on Athens and Berlin – two cities in which the future of water is becoming an increasingly urgent concern in urban debates. Athens’s planned reactivation of its ancient water infrastructure shows that, with climate change looming large, the city is looking for a new approach to the legacy of antiquity. Berlin is likewise facing severe water shortages in the years ahead, brought on by structural changes in industry, and wants to find new ways of handling its water supply and its bodies of water. Activist groups in the capital are voicing the urban community’s wish to reconfigure its relationship with the metropolis’s rivers and lakes.
The burgeoning global debate on bodies of water as a “legal entity”, which is also under way in Greece, suggests that a solution may be found in a non-anthropocentric view of nature. The Berlin initiative Spree:publik illustrates the form an alternative, non-commercial, participatory approach to water might take. The debate looks beyond the European frame to include Indigenous know-how and perspectives, with an invitation extended to Brazilian artist and curator Walmeri Ribeiro, who presents the experiences of Brazilian fisherfolk in film and performative works. A visit to Athens’s ancient reservoir and a programme of short films are designed to help raise public awareness of the issue.
22:00 Film Screenings On the Other Side – Oil Islands
Walmeri Ribeiro, 2025, 24'
Layer of Destruction
Costas Vrettakos, 1980, 32'
Heracles, Acheloos and Μy Granny
Dimitris Koutsiabasakos, 1997, 29'
Music Selection: Max Bayer (Spree:Publik)
06.06.2025, DEXAMENI SQUARE
10:30 Educational Game Discover the Hadrian Aqueduct of Athens UrbanDig Project
180' Language: Greek, English
Ages: 8-70 years old RESERVE YOUR SPOT AT kultur.athen@goethe.de
MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 30
Registration is on a first come, first served basis.
Carola Hein is Professor of History of Architecture and Urban Planning at Delft University of Technology, Professor at Leiden and Erasmus universities, and director of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus PortCityFutures Centre. She holds the UNESCO Chair of Water, Ports and Historic Cities. She has published widely in the field of architectural, urban, and planning history, tying historical analysis to contemporary development. Her recent (co-)edited books include: The Hustle and Bustle of Port Cities: Introducing the Concept (2025), Port City Atlas – Mapping European Port City Territories: From Understanding to Design (2023), Oil Spaces: Exploring the Global Petroleumscape (2021), The Urbanisation of the Sea (2020), Adaptive Strategies for Water Heritage: Past, Present and Future (2020), and The Routledge Planning History Handbook (2018).
Thanos Andritsos / Roundtable Discussion
Thanos Andritsos is an Architectural Engineer from the University of Thessaly, with postgraduate studies in Urban and Spatial Planning at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), where he is also a PhD candidate in the Department of Urban and Spatial Planning. His research focuses on policies and practices for Sustainable Urban Development. He has participated in national and international research projects and has contributed papers to conferences and scientific publications both in Greece and abroad. He has extensive experience in the design and implementation of public and private projects and has received awards in architectural and urban planning competitions. With over fifteen years of international experience, he has worked on studies and projects in the fields of Spatial Planning, Sustainable Urban Development, Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI), Urban Planning Legislation, and Participatory Planning. He is a founding member of Commonspace and Participatory Lab, an interdisciplinary community that promotes participatory spatial planning and urban adaptation to climate change. He is the author or co-editor of several projects, including “Participatory Planning: City, Environment & Climate Change”, “Sustainable Urban Development: What is the Role of Citizens?”, and “Participatory Municipal Budgeting”, in collaboration with the Heinrich Böll Foundation. He represents Commonspace in the EU Urban Agenda Thematic Partnership on Water-Sensitive Cities and was the coordinator of the project “Sites of Water” within the Atlas of Mediterranean Liquidity, curated by Goethe-Institut.
Max Bayer / Roundtable Discussion
Max Bayer initially studied to be a teacher of politics and chemistry but ended up working in extramural education, where he has launched and overseen projects in which young people explore and design urban open spaces using artistic and craft approaches, both on land and on water. His pedagogic work focuses on participation and self-efficacy, and many of his projects are funded by the German Federation for Arts Education and Cultural Learning (BKJ). For over twelve years, he has also been involved, in a private capacity, in political and cultural initiatives centred on Berlin’s waterways. He is a member of the Anarche collective and one of the founders of Spree:publik, an umbrella organisation for houseboats and cultural boats in Berlin. Spree:publik is seeking to establish, on a long-term basis, a non-commercial cultural harbour that will give Berlin’s subculture a permanent base on the water, with a range of offerings for the public, consistent with a standing commitment to maintaining the city’s waterways. In addition to the annual festival on the Rummelsburger See and regular clean-ups of the lake, the members of Spree:publik put on year-round events of all kinds on a variety of boats – these include concerts, demonstrations, film screenings, and much more. To this end, they work together with several associations and initiatives that are likewise committed, away from the water, to alternative ways of designing the city to serve the common good.
Giorgos Sachinis / Roundtable Discussion
Giorgos Sachinis is a Civil and Environmental Engineer (MSc, UC Berkeley; BSc, Duke University) and currently serves as Director of Strategy and Innovation at EYDAP, the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company. He is also a theatre director (MA, Central School of Speech and Drama) and co-founder of the UrbanDig Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to arts and community engagement, with a recent focus on fostering a culture around water. Sachinis is a Board Member of Water Europe and serves on the Ad-hoc Task Group on Water Scarcity and Droughts, established under the EU’s Common Implementation Strategy.
Daphne Dragona / Moderation
Daphne Dragona is a curator and writer working in Athens and Berlin. In her current work, she addresses the ambiguous role of technology in times of climate crisis and the challenges of degrowth for art and culture. Her exhibitions and projects have been hosted at Onassis Stegi, transmediale, LABoral, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Akademie Schloss Solitude, and other institutions. She teaches Curating, Exhibition Design, and History of Digital Art at the Department of Audio & Visual Arts at the Ionian University. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Communication & Media Studies of the University of Athens.
Walmeri Ribeiro / Project Presentation
Walmeri Ribeiro is an artist-researcher, curator, and Associate Professor in the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at Federal Fluminense University (Brazil). Having a background in performance studies and media art, she is interested in research that focuses on dialogues between the arts and environmental issues, especially the Anthropocene, climate change, and its impacts on contemporary society. She searches for ethical-political and participatory forms of making art, building actions, workshops, and immersive research in collaboration with other artists, scientists, and traditional communities (Indigenous, fishing, and quilombolas) from local perspectives. Her artistic work is developed in the fields of performance studies, moving images, visual arts, and media art. Currently a FAPERJ’s Research Fellow, she developed her post-doc research at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada, Capes’ fellowship research), her PhD at the Pontificia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC/SP, CNPq fellowship research), and her master’s in arts at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). She is also a Professor of the Graduate Program in Contemporary Arts of Federal Fluminense University (PPGCA/UFF), where she is coordinator of the Laboratory Research of Performance, Media Arts, and Environmental Issues (BrisaLAB / CNPq) and director of the Sensitive Territories Platform. Author of some books, she has also written papers that are published in academic journals and collective volumes in Brazil and abroad, and participated in congresses, seminars, and art exhibitions. Her activities have been commissioned by Brazilian federal agencies, international agencies, and prizes for research and art production.
Dimitris Koutsiabasakos / Filmmaker
Dimitris Koutsiabasakos studied film and TV directing at the All-Russian State University of Cinematography in Moscow (V.G.I.K.). He is a Professor at the School of Film at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has directed documentaries, TV series, short and feature films. His works have received national and international awards. He is a member of the Hellenic Film Academy and the European Film Academy. Recent films include The Goals of August (2025), Daniel ’16 (2020), The Weavers (2020), Heracles, Acheloos and Mesochora (2019).
Costas Vrettakos (1938-2018) / Filmmaker
Costas Vrettakos (Athens 1938–2018) studied film directing in Athens and Rome, although he never completed his studies. Until 1980, he worked professionally in advertising and photography. At the same time, he occasionally engaged in journalism and published two poetry collections titled Anarithma. In 1980, he founded the publishing house “Three Leaves” and returned to cinema, initially directing documentaries such as The Layer of Destruction (1980), The Park Avenue District in Montreal (1984), Rescue of the Monument (1986), and one and only fiction film, the award-winning The Children of the Swallow, which deals with the Greek Civil War, starring Alekos Alexandrakis and Mary Chronopoulou (1987). He served as a film advisor for the Hellenic Ministry of Culture (1989), president of the Greek Film Centre (1991–1998), and Greece’s representative at Eurimages at the Council of Europe (1991–2006). In 2009, his first novel, Passing Through Reykjavik, was published (by Potamos Publishing), followed by Exercises in Curiosity (2016), which was awarded the Novel Prize of the Academy of Athens. In the final year of his life, Added Value was published (by Polis Publishing) – a book containing his youthful poems, selected and annotated by himself.
On the Other Side – Oil Islands Walmeri Ribeiro, 2025, 24'
Navigating the waters of Guanabara Bay, in Rio de Janeiro, means traveling through many landscapes, from the most bucolic to the most dystopian. This film, produced during the performative mapping by the Floresta de Marés project, shows a part of this Bay, made up of the so-called Ilhas do Petróleo (Oil Islands). Far from the eyes of the tourists and the part of the residents, hidden on the other side, are the islands that serve as warehouses for the oil and gas industries. With narration by fisherman, diver, and activist Thiago Caiçara, this film seeks to bring up the discussion about property and heritage.
Layer of Destruction
Costas Vrettakos, 1980, 32'
In the late 1970s, a reservoir is built on the River Mornos to supply the capital with water. An entire riverside village, Velouchovo, must be abandoned – a forced destruction that seems like a sacrifice in the name of progress. But there is another sacrifice, too: that of an ancient city that once flourished on the same banks and that now, just as it was beginning to be uncovered by the archaeologists, will be flooded forever. Insightful and elegiac, Costas Vrettakos’ film extends in multiple directions at once: a melancholy record of the decay of a traditional community in the mountains of Phocis and a thoughtful archaeological documentary, Layer of Destruction can also be viewed as a gripping thriller, an archetypal struggle of memory against oblivion, as the excavators fight to save the traces of the ancient city from the water level that rises day by day, swallowing everything in its wake. And if the film perceives History as a palimpsest of destruction, if it comments on indifferent and amoral nature that erodes everything, surrendering all to oblivion, its gaze is not a pessimistic one: it is from the viewer’s questioning of what is worth saving and what is not that the memory of the future will be born.
Heracles, Acheloos and My Granny Dimitris Koutsiabasakos, 1997, 29'
In Armatoliko, a mountain village in Trikala Province, high in the Tzoumerka mountain range, on the banks of the Acheloos, the 89-year-old Mrs Dimitra lives alone. She is the beloved grandmother of director Dimitris Koutsiabasakos, who visits her with a small crew of friends. The result of the visit is Hercules, Acheloos and My Granny, one of the most iconic Greek documentaries of recent decades. Through the unforgettable, laughing, down-to-earth figure of his grandmother, Koutsiabasakos’s lens captures the rugged and indomitable, inexpressibly tender and loving spirit of the Greek countryside, as well as the dark and turbulent history of the 20th century, the wounds of which are inscribed on the old woman’s body. Wounds which not only still gape, but on which new wounds are being piled up, as Armatoliko is shortly to be flooded by the waters of the Acheloos, due to the controversial dam being built in the area. Rarely has a short film captured the spirit of a place, and of a century, so vividly, bursting with emotion and love.
For some years now, people everywhere have been discussing the restitution of cultural belongings – a debate that is by no means confined to the professional museum setting. The question of who owns, exhibits, or uses cultural heritage is pivotal in granting the authority to interpret culture, defining national and cultural identities, and – ultimately – bolstering political power.
The “Global South” has been a frequent focus of attention in debates of recent years. The return of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria from Berlin, where they had formed part of the collection at the Ethnologisches Museum, made international headlines – partly because they betokened, in condensed form, the structures of violence that were inherent in European colonialism and have long been glossed over. However, Greece’s demands for the return of the Parthenon frieze (the so-called Elgin Marbles) from the British Museum show that stolen cultural properties can also be a source of controversy in European contexts. While this issue, which has been festering for years, has recently become more high-profile in Greece, both in the media and in society at large, the dubious acquisition history of ancient cultural artefacts in Germany has long gone unremarked.
What is the current status of the debate on cultural heritage? How do restitution claims relate to questions of national identity (or identities)? Do museums of ancient art need to address the same critical questions that ethnological collections, for example, are now faced with? And can the wrangling about plunder looted from the Global South during the colonial period enrich the debate on antiquities? READ MORE
The fourth (and final) edition of the Heritage in Focus series on 6.11. homes in on cultural heritage. Where previous editions tackled intangible heritage, urban heritage and natural heritage, the thematic spotlight shifts this time to tangible “objects”. The topic will be examined from a number of different angles during an evening featuring art, films and debates. Berlin historian Sebastian Conrad uses the example of the bust of Nefertiti, which originally came from Egypt, to show how a stolen artefact from antiquity can become a global icon and at the same time be an emblem of debates about looted property. Experts from Greece, Namibia, and Germany discuss the need for cultural heritage to be returned to its country of origin and consider the limits of such a process. Two artworks pose critical questions about the symbolism of the Acropolis and examine ways in which it is overused: Bill Balaskas’s video work Parthenon Rising (II) looks at the touristification of the landmark, while Eva Stefani’s film Acropolis explores the significance of the national symbol of Greece in creating a sense of national identity and engendering collective memory.
19:00 Screenings Parthenon Rising (II)
Bill Balaskas, 2011, 2΄45΄΄
Acropolis
Eva Stefani, 2001, 25΄ In the presence of the director
Language: Greek, with English subtitles
20:00 Introductory Keynote: Sebastian Conrad Roundtable Discussion: Christos Chrissopoulos, Sebastian Conrad, Golda Ha-Eiros, Ira Kaliampetsos Moderation: Sophia Handaka
Sebastian Conrad / Introductory Keynote, Roundtable Discussion
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Conrad holds the Chair of Modern History at Freie Universität Berlin. He joined the faculty in 2010 after teaching for several years at the European University Institute in Florence. He was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin, a visiting professor at École des Hautes Études in Paris, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at the New School, New York. Conrad is the director of the MA “Global History,” a joint-degree programme at Free University and Humboldt University, Berlin. Among his recent publications are Die Königin. Nofretetes globale Karriere (Berlin, 2024); What is Global History? (Princeton, 2016); German Colonialism: A Short History (Cambridge, 2012).
Christos Chrissopoulos / Roundtable Discussion
Christos Chrissopoulos (Athens, 1968) works in various genres of literature (prose, essays, chronicles), literary theory, and photography. He has published 19 books. He has been awarded the Academy of Athens Prize (2008), the Balkanika International Prize (2015), and the French Prix Ravachol (2013), and Prix Laure Bataillon (2014) prizes. In 2015, the French Republic awarded him the title of Knight of Arts and Letters. He is a member of the European Cultural Parliament (ECP), the Society of Authors, and an Iowa Fellow of the International Writers Program (IWP) (2007). He founded and directs the cultural organisation KAIROS POLITISMOU. He has given lectures and participated in dozens of festivals in Europe and the USA, and has edited collective publications and publishing series in Greece and abroad. His books have been translated into many languages. His photographic work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Greece and France. He teaches Creative Writing in combination with Narrative Psychotherapy.
Golda Ha-Eiros / Roundtable Discussion
Golda Ha-Eiros is a committed museum curator at the National Museum of Namibia (NMN), where she manages the ethnology collection and focuses on community research and decolonisation efforts. Her academic background in visual culture, postcolonial studies, and heritage conservation, demonstrates her commitment to addressing the legacies of colonialism in how cultural objects from Namibia are displayed and interpreted. Throughout her career, she has worked closely with various Namibian communities, to get a better understanding of their history and the importance of cultural objects from the perspective of the people associated with them.
Ira Kaliampetsos / Roundtable Discussion
Ira Kaliampetsos is a practicing lawyer and founder of the Hellenic Society for Law and Archaeology, a non-profit organisation established in 2006 that serves as a platform for all aspects of antiquities law. She earned her law degree from Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, and pursued postgraduate studies in “Art and Law” at Karl-Franzens-University in Graz, Austria. Her professional experience as a practicing lawyer includes working for the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the German Embassy in Athens, and the European Union Delegation to Turkey. She is a regular lecturer on Greek antiquities law at Sigmund Freud University in Vienna, Austria, and has organised various research projects and conferences on the subject. In 2019, she served as a member of the Expert Committee of the Greek Ministry of Culture for the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural objects.
Sophia Handaka / Moderation
Dr. Sophia Handaka serves as Curator of World Cultures at the Benaki Museum, Athens, and is Co-Founder and Host of the CoMuseum International Conference. In both capacities, she is dedicated to advancing collaborative practices and community empowerment, while advocating for the role of museums and culture as key drivers of sustainable development. She holds a DPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, with a specialisation in museums and material culture, and has over twenty-five years of professional engagement in the fields of culture, heritage, and creativity. Her work encompasses a wide range of activities, including exhibitions, scholarly publications, public programmes, research and development projects, cultural partnerships, consultancy, and teaching. Handaka is Co-Founder of KOΛEKTIVA, a non-profit organization for social innovation and culture; a member of the Bosch Alumni Network and of Culture for Change, and a 2019 fellow of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. In 2023, she contributed to a major research initiative commissioned by the think-tank diaNEOsis on the value of culture, co-authoring a collective study and extensive policy recommendations for the empowerment of Greece’s Cultural and Creative Sector (Απελευθερώνοντας τις δυνάμεις του πολιτισμού. Προτάσεις πολιτικής). Her most recent curatorial project, Africa Amongst Us* (Benaki Museum / Pireos 138, February–May 2025), was a community-based exhibition engaging more than forty members of the Greek Afro-diaspora – including artists, students, and activists. The project was appraised for its democratic procedures and innovative participatory methodology.
Bill Balaskas / Artist
Bill Balaskas is an artist, theorist, and educator based in London. Originally trained as an economist in Greece, he went on to study art in the United Kingdom. Informed by this interdisciplinary background, his practice interrogates socioeconomic and political systems through the lens of contemporary utopias and dystopias. His works have been exhibited internationally, including at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona; BOZAR, Brussels; EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid; Le CENTQUATRE, Paris; Transmediale, Berlin; John Hansard Gallery, Southampton; TENT, Rotterdam; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz; Whitstable Biennale; Almeida Garret Galeria Municipal do Porto; and the British Film Institute, London. Between 2012 and 2020, Balaskas was Editor of the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (MIT Press), and in 2020 he edited “Architectures of Education" on e-flux Architecture. In addition, his essays and articles have been published in the Journal of Visual Culture, Third Text, OnCurating, Revista Arta, Times Higher Education, and Espace Art Actuel, among others. His edited books include Fabricating Publics: The Dissemination of Culture in the Post-truth Era (Open Humanities Press, 2021), and Institution as Praxis: New Curatorial Directions for Collaborative Research (Sternberg Press, 2020). He is Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at the School of Arts of Kingston University, where he founded the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts (CePRA) in 2022. He is represented by Kalfayan Galleries, Athens – Thessaloniki.
Eva Stefani / Filmmaker
Eva Stefani was born in the USA and lives in Athens. She studied at the Political Science Department of Athens Law School and then completed postgraduate studies in Film Theory and Anthropology at NYU, and film studies with a focus on documentary at the VARAN School in France and the National Film & TV School in the UK. Her doctoral thesis is on representations of Greece in ethnographic cinema (Panteion University, 1997). Stefani has directed over 30 films exploring a range of subject matter and genres from the ethnographic to the experimental. Notable titles include Letters from the Albatross (1996), Housemates (1999), Acropolis (2001), The Box (2004), Athinai (2007), What Time is It? (2007), Bathers (2008), Manuscript (2017), Days and Nights with Dimitra K. (2021). Her films have been screened in numerous international film festivals (Oberhausen, Cinéma du Réel, Fipresci, etc.) and have earned international accolades. Film festivals such as the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen and L'Europe autour de l'Europe (FEAE), as well as academic institutions such as New York University and Columbia University, have organised retrospectives of her work. Since 2000, she has participated in international visual art exhibitions, including documenta 14. In 2019, she represented Greece at the 58th Venice Biennale, with Zafos Xagoraris and Panos Charalambous. A professor of film studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Faculty of Media and Communication Studies), her latest film is Bull’s Heart, a documentary about the celebrated Greek director, choreographer, visual artist and performer Dimitris Papaioannou.
Parthenon Rising (II) Bill Balaskas, 2011, 2΄45΄΄
Bill Balaskas, Parthenon Rising (II), 2011, Digital Video, 2’ 45’’. Courtesy of the artist and Kalfayan Galleries, Athens - Thessaloniki
Two centuries ago, the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley claimed, on the eve of the Greek Revolution: “We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece.” In the aftermath of the Eurozone debt crisis, however, the international climate became very different. As European politicians and media suggested that Greece should sell some of its most famous islands, or even, the Parthenon to pay back its debts, it became obvious that the nature of the economic crisis had come to question (even just nominally) fundamental elements of the Western world’s cultural identity. It is this deeper cultural crisis that underpins Parthenon Rising.
The work functions as a visual “crescendo,” which moves from total darkness and “perplexity” to total light and “clarity.” The original footage, edited in the video, was filmed on the only night of the year that the Acropolis is open to the public. Thousands of locals and tourists climb the ancient hill on this occasion to capture the relics’ images with their cameras. As all lights are off, all monuments, including the Parthenon, can be clearly seen only when the flashlights of the cameras momentarily illuminate them. It is a spectacle that illuminates an aspect of the monument significantly different from that of a familiar icon.
Eva Stefani’s Acropolis is a poetic, contemplative film that explores the significance of Greece’s national symbol – the Acropolis – in shaping of national identity and collective memory. Through a feminist lens, the work draws a parallel between the country’s most emblematic monument – the Parthenon (the “temple of the virgins,” as the ancient name of the monument goes) – and the female body, inviting us to reconsider established notions of Greekness and femininity, while challenging the ideologies that surround national symbols.
By weaving together Super 8 found footage with heterogeneous archival material – historical shots of state ceremonies and official celebrations at the foothills of the sacred rock, worn-out images from 1960s pornographic films, as well as newsreels, medical films, field recordings, radio clips, bourgeois melodies, and even a recording of the national anthem – along with a confessional first-person voice-over, Stefani creates a subversive collage that illuminates how History, identity, and desire are intertwined in the way we see and remember. At the same time, it reveals how both the temple and the female body have been exploited for political, economic, and propagandistic purposes. Stefani intervenes directly in the film itself – colouring it, burning it, cutting it – perhaps to emphasise the material decay and fragile nature of memory, as well as the bodily traces of time.
