FELLOWS

Maria Chrysoula Petala

2017/18 Thessaloniki

Maria Chrysoula has a BA in finance with a particular interest in innovative management and human-centered approaches. Chrysa has begun to collect experience in the field of project management in socio-cultural initiatives through volunteering and professional work. Her socio-cultural collaborations started in 2013 as a core member of TEDx University of Macedonia and continued with Erasmus+, the International Student Festival in Trondheim (ISFiT) and the Humanity in Action Fellowships. Meanwhile, as a core member of Youthnest, Chrysa researches creative training methods and designs workshops for social impact.

By participating in the START program and collaborating with the QUARTIER in Bremen, she wanted to gain international experience and good practice in the field of cultural management in order to facilitate her project in Greece. Τhis participatory project will bring her one step closer to her dream; a world where everyone has equal opportunities and in which social and cultural differences facilitate learning from one another.

Project Title

Eat Art In Blumenthal

The mini project consisted of five workshops, a film documentation and the presentation of the mini project.

For the purpose of the workshops, artists used some of the methods of eat art (a culinary extension of the arts) to inspire and present simple and creative methods that teachers can integrate into their classes. Vegetables, fruits and margarine were used to create ornaments, sculptures, decoration, clothes and poems. The five workshops were the first part of the program “Kreativpotentiale Bremen” at the Blumenthal School.

The film and the book helped the dissemination process after the project was finished; the presentation of the mini project was followed by a participatory activity. People from the audience were invited to an eating challenge. Groups of four randomly selected participants sat together at a table where each participant could only feed the others. Later, they reflected on what they had learned.

Host Institution

QUARTIER

In close collaboration with artists and culture makers, QUARTIER gGmbH creates cultural education projects that are especially focused on the living situation of our fellow citizens in their respective neighborhoods. Children, young people and adults with a variety of social and cultural backgrounds produce art and culture together. The results of this collaboration are presented in theater productions, exhibitions, performance and (even) fashion shows.