Through this collaboration, Archipelago Network contributes local knowledge and its audiovisual archive on craft practices, ecology, and maritime futures, supporting a design-led inquiry grounded in the lived realities of the Cyclades.

As part of this ongoing exchange, we were pleased to welcome students and tutors from the RCA to Syros for their first field visit. During their stay, the group engaged with local boatyards (karnagia), maritime histories, and the layered realities of the island — from vernacular craft traditions to contemporary environmental and infrastructural transformations shaping the Aegean today.

Further updates on this evolving collaboration between Syros and London will be shared soon.

The post RS4: ANEMOI – Cycladic Currents appeared first on Archipelago Network.

Free admission with pre-registration. Limited seats available.
Sign up by December 12 here

Before cell phones and digital cameras, and long before TikTok, Instagram and selfies, various forms of community-scale media-making narrated decades of everyday history. Home movies, audio recordings and photographs captured fleeting moments, constituting a precious record of local memory and culture which grows increasingly vulnerable with the passage of time.

In the context of its 2023-4 project “Maritime Trades of the Cyclades,” Archipelago Network collaborated with the Amorgos Fishing Association to digitize photographic archives belonging to fishermen across the island, hosting an exhibition at the Nautical Association of Amorgos during the 2024 Fishermans’ Feast. Now, in the context of its 2025-6 project “Digital Cyclades,” it presents a collaborative workshop with the aim of cataloguing this photographic material, inviting community members to contribute information about the photographs and upload material to Archipelago Network’s in-development open-source cultural heritage repository. 

The workshop, led by Markellos Stevis (founding member, Wikipedia Community User Group Greece) will demonstrate the basics of cataloguing and uploading material using Wikidata, an open source data tool that is part of the Wikimedia application ecosystem.

“Digital Cyclades” safeguards local, vernacular, and community-based knowledge systems rooted in Cycladic traditions through the creation of a bilingual (GR-EN) open-access data infrastructure. It centers cultural heritage preservation and digital engagement as part of an open, community-driven continuum, promoting the contemporary digital cultural heritage of island Greece as a vivid asset with large yet untapped artistic, creative and research potential.

For more info contact info@archipelagonetwork.org

Partners: WikiEllinisti, Amorgos Municipal Library, Amorgos Professional Fishing Association “Hozoviotissa”

“Digital Cyclades” is implemented under the auspices and with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture, as well as with the financial support of the Ministry of Digital Governance and the General Secretariat of the Aegean & Island Policy of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy.

The post Digital Cyclades: Documentation Workshop in Amorgos appeared first on Archipelago Network.

Building on the organization’s ongoing research and creative output across eleven Cycladic islands, the project serves as a hub for documenting and disseminating local, vernacular, and community-based knowledge systems rooted in Cycladic traditions. By placing cultural heritage preservation and digital engagement at the center of an open, participatory, community-oriented initiative, the project presents the contemporary cultural heritage of island Greece as a vivid asset with significant—yet still underexplored—artistic, creative, and research potential.

“Digital Cyclades” is implemented under the auspices and with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture, as well as with the financial support of the Ministry of Digital Governance and the General Secretariat of the Aegean & Island Policy of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy.

Multi-Site Workshop Series

In collaboration with local partners and communities, Archipelago Network organizes three participatory documentation workshops on Amorgos, Milos, and Syros, inviting residents, researchers, students, and cultural practitioners to contribute to the preservation and sharing of local heritage. Each workshop includes a day of practical training followed by online documentation sessions. Participation is free of charge, with pre-registration required.

WORKSHOP PROGRAM

Workshop I: Amorgos (December 2025) – Documentation of the photographic archive of the “Chozoviotissa” Professional Fishing Association, in collaboration with the Ioannideos Municipal Library of Amorgos.

Workshop II: Milos (March 2026) – Documentation of photographic and audiovisual archives concerning the island’s mining history, in collaboration with the Milos Labor Center and Milos Mining Museum.

Workshop III: Syros (April 2026) – Documentation of photographic and audiovisual archives concerning traditional boatbuilding, in collaboration with the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering, University of the Aegean.

The workshops are carried out in collaboration with WikiEllinisti, a newly established initiative promoting the Greek presence on Wikipedia and the participatory creation of Greek-language and Greece-related content.

A Living Archive Linking Local Knowledge with Global Networks

“Digital Cyclades” integrates community-generated heritage data into Archipelago Network’s collections, linking these assets with Wikidata and the Wikipedia ecosystem. Through this connection, Cycladic cultural heritage becomes part of the global digital commons, enhancing its visibility and accessibility worldwide.

The “Digital Cyclades” platform, launching in 2026, brings together for the first time the audiovisual collections from all of Archipelago Network’s projects. By aggregating and interlinking these archives, the platform serves as a central hub for the cultural and scientific mapping of the Cyclades—bridging local knowledge with global access.

The post Introducing Digital Cyclades appeared first on Archipelago Network.

This experimental documentary explores the largely unknown history of the crucial role women played in the 1916 miners’ strike on Serifos. The film is produced by Archipelago Network in collaboration with Kotoki Art Space, within the project “Extraction in the Cyclades: Digital Traces.”

SCREENING INFO
Sunday 7 December 2025, 19:00
Greek Film Archive, Hall A
Tickets here

AAGFF 2025
The 14th Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival will take place December 3–18 and includes premieres, special screenings, silent films with live music, discussions, masterclasses, and distinguished guests.
Full program here

The post Sofia Dona at the 14th Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival appeared first on Archipelago Network.

AN’s Participation:

18:45 | Jacob Moe, founder and director of Archipelago Network – Talk: Fishing in the Cyclades, 20th century–today: community archives and oral history, Jacob Moe, founder and director of Archipelago Network

19:00 | Documentary screening, Fishing Tourism in Santorini (Production: Archipelago Network · Direction: Jacob Moe · Duration: 15’)

About the event:

Marking World Fisheries Day, the forum focuses on the sea as a primary provider and a defining element of identity for island and coastal communities, as well as on fishing—once a cornerstone of the Greek economy and still an integral part of the country’s history and local traditions. In recent years, interest in recovering and studying historical data related to fishing activity has grown significantly. This shift highlights the role of fishers as stewards of marine resources: a valuable natural capital that forms part of the national wealth, both economically and ecologically.

Info:

Friday, 21 November 2025 – 17:00
PIOP Historical Archive – 2 Doridos 2 & 14 Eirinis Ave, Tavros
Free admission. Reservation required.

For more information and the full program, visit piop.gr

The post AN at the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation appeared first on Archipelago Network.

Conceived by Archipelago Network under the artistic direction of Jacob Moe, Echoes of the Aegean celebrates the communities of captains, fishers, and boatbuilders of the Cycladic islands. A durational soundscape featuring island songs of work and leisure, narrations, boatyard ambiences and fishing expeditions is broadcast simultaneously in Piraeus and in Syros in collaboration with Aigaio FM 95.8. Excerpts of historic and contemporary films sourced from islands throughout the Aegean form a parallel screening program, linking the Cyclades, Dodecanese and mainland. As the sun sets on Piraeus, ingredients sourced from land and sea appear around a shared table in a culinary journey prepared by chefs Theodoros Kassavetis and Stelios Theodorakis of “Lygero” restaurant in northern Syros.

Commissioned by: Art Explora
In collaboration with: Traditional Boat Association of Greece, Aigaio 95.8 FM
Sponsors: Mitsis N’U Piraeus Port, Makryonitis Syros Distillery, Parakopois Winery, Blue Star Ferries 

The Art Explora Festival, a traveling cultural festival across the Mediterranean, makes a ten-day stop at the port of Piraeus from October 3–12, 2025. Visitors can explore exhibitions, concerts, screenings, and workshops on board the world’s first museum boat, the Art Explorer, as well as the quayside at Gate E8. Curator of the Greek stopover of the Art Explora Festival is Katerina Tselou.

Art Explora Festival
October 3-12, 2025
Piraeus, Gate E8
Free admission

Explore the full program at https://www.artexplora.org/en/festival/city/le-piree 

The post “Echoes of the Aegean” at the Art Explora Festival appeared first on Archipelago Network.

Milos Labor Center
19.30 | Friday, September 19 2025

How does the labor history of Milos reflect itself in the images, oral histories and videos produced on the island over the last century? In this participatory event, Archipelago Network founder Jacob Moe highlights photographs and audiovisual materials digitized by the organization in the context of its 2024-25 project “Extraction in the Cyclades: Digital Traces,” presented in Milos for the first time. Selected images depict mining infrastructure, labor and labor organizing across Milos taken between 1930-2000, while excerpts of video and audio interviews conducted with mine workers in the late 1990s-early 2000s convey a wealth of historical and biographical information.

Miners’ protest against unsafe workplace conditions. Source: Milos Labor Center Source: Milos Labor Center

The post Participatory Event in Milos Labor Center appeared first on Archipelago Network.

17 – 20 of September 2025
Milos Conference Center “G. Iliopoulos”, Adamantas, Milos

On Wednesday, September 17, Jacob Moe, co-investigator of the project “Extraction in the Cyclades: Digital Traces”, presents findings during Session II, contributing to the discussion on environment, tourism and development at this year’s conference.

Showcasing photographic archives and oral histories digitized from Milos alongside contemporary photographic documentation of the island by visual artist Ignacio Acosta, the presentation interrogates the role of labor and environmental history in localized understandings of place.

The 5th International Cycladological Conference is organized by the Society of Cycladic Studies, which was founded in 1958 on the initiative of Professor Stylianos G. Korres and other prominent figures of the Cyclades, uniting Cycladic people in a common effort to study and promote the cultural life of the Cycladic islands.

Check the full program here (in Greek).

Loading manganese ore at Vani bay. Source: Milos Mining Museum

The post AN at the 5th International Cycladological Conference appeared first on Archipelago Network.

This newly formatted version of “Crafts of the Sea” containing archival collages and photographic documentation, designed for the Goethe-Institut Athen’s office spaces, opens to the public for Open Day — a one-off chance to explore stories, images and practices that bring the maritime heritage of the Cyclades and the Aegean to life.

Limited seats available. Reservations required at kultur.athen@goethe.de

Markos Drossos via Santorini Archive Project

The post Crafts of the Sea: Tours at Goethe-Institut Athen Open Day appeared first on Archipelago Network.

In this context, Moe presents a screening and lecture based on the “Maritime Trades of the Cyclades” project, offering insight into traditional maritime practices in the Aegean Sea with a focus on environmental and non-human concerns.

More info: https://visibleevidence.org/conference/visible-evidence-xxxi/

The post Jacob Moe at Visible Evidence Conference in Philadelphia appeared first on Archipelago Network.