KOUTROULOU MAGOULA
Educational Programmes at the National Museum of Contemporary Art
As part of the exhibition Afresh. A New Generation of Greek Artists
Within the framework of the Afresh exhibition and the Greek National Museum of Contemporary Art’s educational programmes, in 2013 we organized a series of activities for children and teenagers, around an alternative approach to the material past and the conjunction of theatre and archaeology:
- A workshop for high school students, that introduced them to the interdisciplinary tools of our project.
- A discussion with high school students about archaeology, its meanings, its use in Greece today, and the dimensions of a conjunction with contemporary art.
- A workshop for primary school pupils who worked creatively on reproductions of photographs and drawings from the excavation at Koutroulou Magoula.
- A workshop with 6–8-year-old students of the Intercultural Primary School of Athens, with little knowledge of Greek, at the “Lyceum of Aristotle”, in a collaboration with the Greek Archaeological Service.
In addition to the above, a booklet was created with suggested activities for schools that aimed to introduce the children to the basic tools for creating a theatrical/archaeological performance. At the Museum’s initiative, these were included in a program run by the Ministry of Education, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and the 2nd evening middle school of Athens, for 20 students aged 17-69 from Greece, Albania, Iraq, Nigeria, Russia and the Philippines. According to the program coordinators, “the choice of the art piece […] was a catalyst […] the present-day reality of food met with the past of the archaeological site and all that it revealed. Meanwhile, the cultural food heritage of each member of the group, who proudly, and in a personal and joyful way shared with the other students, allowed the emergence of previously unknown elements of similarity and/or difference”.
For the detailed description of the last program see here