In the frame of the International Museum Day 2023, celebrated on May 18, the VAST project participated in the activities of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), with a joint educational activity along with the national Greek project House of Greek Ideas’ titled: Do values travel?.

An educational activity addressed to high school students and adults regarding values and how they are communicated and perceived by today’s citizens. Participants engaged in an interactive and experiential workshop inspired by the ancient tragedy of Sophocles’ Antigone.

Participants were invited to become part of the story in an interactive way, as judges, and were asked to decide whether Antigone was innocent or not based on the values depicted. As a follow up activity, they were encouraged to create their own mind map regarding the values represented by Antigone’s character.

The activity took place under the VAST Pilot: Values in Ancient Greek Drama.

The activity was hosted at the National Centre for Scientific Research ‘Demokritos’ and was included in the ICOM Greece activities on the theme Museums, Sustainability & Quality of Life.

 

 

VAST partners held one more physical plenary meeting, this time in Athens, Greece at coordinator’s NCSR Demokritos premises between 17 – 19 May 2023. The partner meet-up was enriched with field visits, workshops, presentations discussions and hands on sessions about the project.

On the first day, partners visited the innovative digital exhibition of partner House of Classical Greek Ideas, which is located in the building of the Athens Conservatoire, in the heart of Athens. In this space, the philosophical ideas of ancient Greek philosophers are revived in model exhibitions where visitors engage in a philosophical experience. The exhibits utilize cutting-edge technologies such as smart interactive digital walls, touch screens, visit customization tools and applications that collect data and feed it back into the visitor experience.

In this first exhibition namely Eudaimonia meets Democracy VAST partners had the opportunity to reflect on abstract ideas and values and ponder on the ever-current theme of how we can “live well together”.

On the same day, the next stop was at the Museum of Cycladic Art, where museum curators gave VAST partners a private guided tour of the museum’s permanent collections as well as the ReThinking Conflicts temporary exhibition which is set up in the frame of the H2020 project ReInHerit .

The museum tour concluded with a hands-on workshop regarding the values that derived from the artifacts seen earlier in the day.

On the second day, partners met at NCSR Demokritos’ campus where presentations on the status of all work packages took place and partners engaged in productive discussions.

On the third and final day, partners participated in additional hands-on workshops, engaged in fruitful conversations and set the project goals for the coming months.

 

Within the context of the VAST Pilot focusing on the Values in Ancient Greek Drama, the VAST project organised on 10 May 2023 an educational activity titled ‘The moral dilemmas through the heroes of the ancient tragedies” at the 2nd High School of Gerakas, in Athens.

During the activity, collaborating researchers of NCSR Demokritos Dr. Dora Katsamori and Ms. Konstantina Giovanopoulou encouraged the 46 students to reflect upon the concept of values and their importance in decision-making through the project’s educational activity, which entailed interactive activities and brainstorming sessions.

Students engaged in interactive activities and brainstorming, which resulted in the creation of customised posters focusing on the prioritisation of values that guided the tragedy heroes (Creon and Polynices) through their final decisions.

With the creative collaboration of the school’s teachers and the students, the activity provided a fresh view of how values emerging from ancient tragedies are perceived in modern society today.

In the context of the VAST project Pilot, which focuses on Ancient Greek Drama literature, the VAST Team was hosted at NOESIS Science Center and Technology Museum in Thessaloniki, Greece on 28 April 2023.

During the activity, Dr. Dora Katsamori collaborating researcher of coordinator NCSR Demokritos, encouraged the 44 students from the High School ‘Apostolos Pavlos’ to reflect on the concept of values and their role in decision-making, through brainstorming and interactive activities using exhibits from the NOESIS digital archive as a starting point.

Then, through an excerpt from ‘Antigone’ tragedy, the students annotated the text and created mind maps interlinking moral values between the past and the present.

With the creative collaboration of the High School Director and the students, the activity provided a fresh view of how ancient values emerging from this Greek Tragedy are perceived in modern society today.

We would like to extend a big ‘thank you’ to both the NOESIS Museum and to the NOESIS Education Officer, Mrs. Maria Karnezou for their warm hospitality.