Just For Today - 29 october

The third day kicked off with another triptych of workshops, some continuing from the previous day: a) the felt processing with Julie Loi crowded the courtyard of DDRC with children from the local community on Sunday morning, b) the silkscreen printing on t-shirts held by rosanayaris and Nyamnyam, which was inspired by Raymond's philosophy of learning a craft and sharing it and not merely “fixing things” as in DIY contemporary practices, c) the workshop 'Five Seasons' attempted a rather short, immersive participatory experience of the five elements from Chinese culture. Napoleontas Xifaras demonstrated some of the core principles of this philosophy through the perspective of tai chi, but as in every somatic practice, getting to know and benefiting from the knowledge that is stemming from such a rich, diverse and resourceful culture comes only with everyday engagement. Apropos, engagement and coalition were at the heart of the rest of the day.

Andreas Sell spoke of his Hermitage Sykaminea residency, allowing some fruitful and conflictual experiences to come to surface: how do we engage with the local community in the periphery of Greece, such as Lesbos, where multiple humanitarian crises have altered the lives of people and the cultural landscape of the area? How to build trust with others without neglecting one’s own wishes and needs? On the same trajectory, the heartfelt and truly inspiring story of Samantha and Ermis Savvantoglou, educators from Northern Greece, couldn’t be a better epilogue; they spoke of their father and how his idea to move to a remote location near Mt Kaimakchalan (on the border between Greece and North Macedonia) has inspired them to establish a school in which playful learning and imagination in education are reapproached wholeheartedly, making meaningful changes on a minimal scale. The stories they shared spoke of collective history and trauma, but also of possible ways to reconciliate with the present, which seems to be the ground where both past and future could be brought in a purposeful dialogue.