FELLOWS

Effrosyni Proikou

2017/18 Thessaloniki

Effrosyni has studied Greek philology and pursued a master’s course in cultural management. She has attended training sessions on journalism, alternative ways of tourism, refugee integration and EU projects.

Currently, she is working in the cultural sector as a freelancer. In collaboration with local associations and municipalities, they organize cultural events and international folk and choral festivals in different Greek cities. They also organize the participation of Greek groups in festivals abroad.

START was an opportunity for her in order to widen her cultural horizons by taking the social impact of art into consideration.

Project Title

People are the Story

People remember, create and participate. The faces and the acts of people are behind the stories. We conducted 15 interviews with people that are connected with St. Spiritus. We took photos with eight of them and we shared their thoughts with the local community via postcards. 1,000 postcards from each story were printed (for a total count of 8,000). We also created a Facebook page for the project.

The aim of the project was:

- To create bonds in local society

- To make people aware of local history and local creation

- To promote and making St Spiritus visible

- To encourage people to take part in creative activities

- To make people feel the importance of human beings in history and creation

- To open a dialogue for individual contributions behind the institutions, structures and facts

The postcards were first presented at the intercultural café of St. Spiritus. Then they were shared throughout the town (town hall, tourist office, museums, the library, et cetera) and St. Spiritus. The sharing of the postcards has brought new stories and discussions.

Host Institution

St. Spiritus

Sozio-kulturelles Zentrum St. Spiritus offers an atmospheric platform for numerous events with a concert stage in the historic chapel and the open-air stage in the courtyard. The spectrum comprises live music, puppetry, theater, cabaret, readings and other live events. Associations and organizations value St. Spiritus as a gathering place and performance venue. Changing exhibitions in the "gallery in the chapel", artistic workshops, rehearsals of the St. Spiritus choir, regularly occurring art classes and the intercultural café all round out the offering.