THE STORY
St. Spyridon Chapel lies right next to the Center of the Karoussos Archives and as a pre-revolutionary monument, it is protected by the laws of Cultural Heritage. In 2021 Karoussos Archives undertook the revival of the chapel, to reinstate the monument, considering its artistic and cultural values. The project transcended standards across all artistic and religious fields to initiate the groundbreaking visualization of hybrid frescoes that contain important metanarratives reflecting the chapel's cultural context. The church of St. Spyridon in Verga is a global model of creative cultural heritage management, developed as part of the organization's aim to reinstate Byzantine monuments. Freed from a linear framework of knowledge production, hybrid frescoes, and their linked metanarratives provide several powerful possibilities for cultural initiatives.
THE RESEARCH
To open up the possibilities for cultural initiatives, Karoussos Archives proceeded to the next phase of the chapel’s regeneration, which addresses its reintegration into modern society. For this reason, Karoussos Archives welcomed three artists who work across the fields of art, culture, and humanities to build together strategic cultural policies of cultural participation, social cohesion, and innovation to promote better access and wider connection in the chapel’s new cultural framework. The residency was held under the Creative Europe programme and Goethe Institute.
​
Research questions:
​
Back in Byzantine times, the people and the land were united. They lived in a unique environment where agrarian, spiritual, and artistic elements were linked and subscribed to a seasonal cycle regulated by planting, harvesting, growth, and decline. As the villages were always protected by divine spirits, this cycle coincided with a calendar of ritual celebrations. Thus, the church served as a landmark and the beginning point for all the events in life.
Aiming to reintegrate the chapel into contemporary society and having all its metanarratives at its disposal, numerous significant questions are applied to the residency project:
Considering the new St. Spyridon church as our contemporary landmark, how might this holistic setting be transformed into our transhumanistic era?
In light of climate change, is it possible to develop a new seasonal cycle? If so, with what elements should a holistic and sustainable ecosystem be linked? What are the types of the new agrarian, spiritual, and artistic elements?
What would a post-humanistic ritual celebration look like? What would be the character of panygeries (fests) today, as they were one of the key ritual celebrations that kept the elements inextricably tied and the seasonal cycles sustainable?
Assuming that religious ideas such as miracles, epiphanies, transfiguration, and multidimensional aspects intersect with metaverse elements, how can they be expressed in our contemporary context with our modern thinking without losing their cultural identity?
THE SYMPOSIUM
THE OUTCOMES
SPYRO
The Spyro Residency Programme is the second phase of the Karoussos Archives' "Archive 1.0" project, which seeks to identify new ways of connecting Byzantine culture and its footprints with contemporary society, as well as to make some of the fundamental elements of Byzantine ideology essential again by highlighting some of the already existing connections with early 21st-century life. These objectives were met by developing metanarratives based on the regeneration of St. Spyridon Chapel.
A new approach to the figure of Saint Spyridon was required to define the project's target audience and aim. It was also an important step towards increasing the project's relatability factor.
A "Spyro persona" was established, serving as a guide by revealing the relationship between Byzantine and contemporary thinking.
The main ideas regarding that persona are the following:
Spyro is viewed as a cultivator, although not in the traditional sense of farming processes. He also cultivates minds and spirits. He curates his social media pages using "fresco" techniques. The feature of social media profiles contains conflict because the virtual self coexists with the real one. Spyro strives to make connections to find relevance and complete his numerous identities.
He can partially morph into numerous roles, is an activist, and aspires to planetarian love. His marvel is that he is creating an ecosystem, and the essence of hybridity is his superpower.
​
All three techniques present Saint Spyridon, the Chapel, and Byzantine philosophy and spirituality in novel ways that speak to modern audiences and their needs.
-
The narration of "A Myth About the Lost Hero" builds a novel narrative around dichotomization and offers a new perspective on culture and spirituality.
-
Saint Spyridon's vision as an activist, by putting the essence of a miracle into a practical deed, makes participation in social and environmental activities essential and
-
Finally, the correlation of the Saint Spyridon Chapel with the aspect of liminality and the Fluxus’ ideas, transforms the monument into an ideal place for meditation processes. The potential for digital involvement in all initiatives opens the path for future research.
PARTICIPANTS
Lydia Angelopoulou
Assisntant to Coordinator
Scientist
Aleksejs MalisÌŒevs
Participant
Artist
Catarina Simão
Participant
Theorist
Dominika Jezewska
Participant
Artist
THE PROJECTS
Lydia Angelopoulou
-
Country of residence: Greece
-
University:
-
University of the Peloponnese, Kalamata, Greece
-
MSc Cultural Heritage Materials & Technologies
Spyro Residency Programme Report
​
For the Spyro Residency Programme, the participation of four participants with diverse academic backgrounds was deemed ideal for the successful conduct of multidisciplinary research. Dr. Katerina Karoussos organised the programme into daily sessions comprised of research meetings, mind map sessions, and interviews, followed by critique coordination conversations. During the research meetings, the researchers were given an overview of the project and its objectives. The mind map sessions comprised open discussions between the coordinator and the researchers, to generate new ideas and successfully connect each member's various perspectives to a single goal. The coordinator conducted interviews with each member to help organise the initial concepts. During critique coordination sessions, conversations were started between the researchers to grasp their concepts and to improve the overall collaboration process. Following that plan, the researchers opted to devise three potential approaches to achieving the project's principal goal. The structure chosen for the three weeks of research suited the cybernetics methodology, which was subsequently chosen.....
Aleksejs MalisÌŒevs
-
Country of residence:
-
The Netherlands
-
University: The Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague
-
Major: Architecture & Design
"A Myth about a Lost Hero"
​
Steep mountains. On the slope was a village named ***. It was prospering a long time ago. A person Spyro called lived here and he was submerged in the deepest grieving for three days in a row. Unfortunately, and exceptionally tragically, his father passed away. The father Jorgis named, however, people often referred to him as Goat, as a Mountain Goat. He was half-man half-goat and proud was very to be a mixture of another nature. Jorgis Mountain Goat was a nobleman in the village, he was the last of those who had a connection with the powers of the natural surroundings. As Mother Nature often provoked chaos; however, has given many, many revelations and insights to those who were to signs attentive. Having the appearance of a goat, Jorgis climbed the olive groves so fast as if a thunder was. He had some hooves but also golden fingers. Whenever he touched the soil of Mother Nature the earthly creatures prospered in marvellous appearances. Whatever in the ground was planted immediately was growing, and many people came to have some treats of his, such as vegetables, bread, and olives.
Suddenly, left alone, Spyro the only child of Jorgis was burdened with tremendous mourning. His dad had left so many questions to answer for himself. In the last years of his life, The Mountain Goat lost his vivid sense of humour and eventually, in dementia entrapped, has lost the link between his mind and...
​
Further development:
Podcast, Graphic novel, Anime, Video game
Catarina Simão
-
Country of residence: Portugal
-
University: Goldsmiths University
-
Masters: MA Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy
-
Major: Humanities
"A stillness that moves: a Spyronian take on Spiritual Activism and Radical Interconnectedness"
​
In light of the dynamic retelling of the miracle of the flood in St.Spyridon church, and for the scope of this artistic investigation, we explored the potentialities of Byzantine culture and heritage for ecological and social transformation through a rebirth of Spyro. This reconceptualization reflects contemporary aspirations and concerns, whilst inheriting elements of Byzantine philosophy that provide historical context for the saint-turned-activist...To this effect, Spyro can emerge as a hybrid figure that retains the old and the new, the obsolete and the cutting-edge, the traditions and the revolution, the here and the there (where?), the spiritual and the material. He/she/they Spyro is reconceptualized as a vessel of ancestral knowledge and futuristic eco-utopias, calling for a practice of spiritual activism and radical interconnectedness. The many facets of Spyro’s persona, as represented in the Byzantine cultural framework, render him an open vessel for the transference of ecological and socio-political concerns toward...
​
Further development:
St.Spyridon Chapel as a Ministry Centre (activities)
Dominika Jezewska
-
Country of residence: Poland
-
University: Parsons School of Design at the New School, New York
-
Major: Fashion Design
"Please Enter. - A Study on Perception in a Liminal Space"
​
Perception of a space is always defined by and centered around the one perceiving it. It is an inherently subjective and immersive experience, whether one realizes it or not. We experience the world through our senses from the very first moments. A liminal space can be a physical or a mental space, it can be both at the same time, yet neither. First conceptualized in the early twentieth century by Arnold van Gennep, a French ethnographer and folklorist, liminality, from the Latin word lÄ«men, meaning "a threshold”, is defined as a state of ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy where one’s sense of identity is relaxed, to some extent opening the potentialities for something new and unexpected to materialize. It was later explored by Victor Turner, who explained liminality and liminal entities as “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial. As such; their ambiguous and indeterminate attribute are expressed by a rich variety of symbols in the many societies that ritualize social and cultural transitions. Thus, liminality is frequently linked to death, to being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality, to the wilderness, and an eclipse of the sun of the moon”. Thus a liminal pace can be understood as the transition space existing in the in-between, a limbo. A metaphysical place and...
​
Further development:
Series of sessions with instructions/prompts cards.
​
Katerina Karoussos
Supervisor of the Spyro Residency
A Note about the Spyronians
When a cultural asset is separated from its birthplace and then relocated to a new context, it is subjected to a double deterioration, both material and cultural because it is charged with countless associations, not all of which are legal. For example, some Laconic sculpture examples are on display in Sparta Museum's Room VII. Leonidas, a Spartan warrior discovered at Athena Chalkioikos (Αθηνά Χαλκίοικος) temple, is depicted in the centre. The temple was one of the most important sanctuaries of Sparta and functioned from the 8th century BC until the 2nd century AD. The excavations brought few, and mostly insignificant, finds to light because the temple had been looted in the past. Standing in front of this marvelous statue, the museum visitors make thoughtful connections by recalling historical or any other knowledge they may have. The prevailing knowledge originates from the most powerful source of information whereas in this case, it is unfortunately the movie 300, released in 2006 in which King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fight against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. The most iconic movie line from 300, namely, ‘This is Sparta’ comes early in the movie and has been used as an internet meme...
​