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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Amalia Zepou, Elena Lamprou, Sofia Handaka, Irini Gratsia, George Sachinis and Antonis Mbertos for the interviews they have kindly accepted to share with me. I hope I have succeeded to express effectively their views and experiences in the context of this essay.
Warmest thanks go also to the editors of this issue as well as the reviewers of my work for their constructive comments and the invaluable time invested in reading and critically assessing my work.
Notes
1 See https://rockproject.eu/news-details/116. The 100 Resilient Cities Project, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, ended on 31 July 2019, but a new project is being discussed. The organisation helped cities around the world become more resilient in the face of adversity. For updated information on the project, see https://www.100resilientcities.org/ For this definition see also the report Athens City Resilience through Culture, Palmer Citation2018, p.3.
2 Complexity theory is technically known as ‘nonlinear dynamics’. It was formulated and advanced in the 1960s and 1970s thanks to the development of powerful computers, which gave scientists the opportunity and the means to model the nonlinear interconnectedness characteristic of living systems. In the 1980s and 1990s, complexity theory offered new insights into biology, mathematics and other sciences that led to exciting new ways of understanding many key characteristics of life and to a coherent theory of living systems. Nonlinear dynamics represents a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach to complexity, a shift from objects to relationships, from measuring to mapping, from quantity to quality. For further analysis of the theory, see Capra & Luisi Citation2014, Chapter 6, pp.98-126.
3 Documenta14 was on view in Athens (Greece) from 8 April–16 July, 2017, and then in Kassel (Germany), from 6 June–17 September, 2017. The concept of Documenta14 is explained in the original press release of the institution. See http://newsletter.documenta.de/t/j-12C9729D2BF513CC#english (accessed December 2019). For a critical appraisal of Documenta14 shedding a different light on its intentions and outcomes, see Andrew Stefan Weiner, ‘The Art of the Possible: With and Against Documenta14’, Biennial Foundation, 14 August 2017, http://www.biennialfoundation.org/2017/08/art-possible-documenta-14/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2s3lnoKA1wIVD8ayCh3pyQpvEAAYASAAEgIW9PD_BwE [Accessed December 2019].
4 Athens was chosen as UNESCO World Book Capital 2018 for the quality of its activities and its vibrant book industry. For more information about this nomination, see https://studyingreece.edu.gr/Blog/tabid/93/ArticleID/18/Athens-UNESCO-World-Book-Capital-2018.aspx. For the institution of UNESCO World Book Capital see https://en.unesco.org/world-book-capital-city [Accessed 9 December 2019].
5 For a detailed presentation of this award, visit the European Commission’s website https://ec.europa.eu/commission/news/athens-european-capital-innovation-2018-2018-nov-06-0_en [Accessed 9 December 2019].
6 In the context of this essay, the term ‘liquid museum’ has come to the fore spontaneously and empirically through the experiences and opinions I shared with my six interviewees about the conditions that shaped social innovation in Athens during the period of crisis. In this sense, it is thus quite an original term for the purpose of this essay. Yet, the term ‘liquid museum’ is already known in museological literature, and is used in order to define new post-modern institutional museum forms, which go beyond the rigid and firmed museum ontologies we know to new museum entities and practices that are liquid, mobile, relational, non-linear, constantly open to new possibilities. See Cameron Citation2015; Schneider-Bateman Citation2015.
7 See Athens Culture Net. Available at https://www.athensculturenet.com/en.
8 The six informants are: Amalia Zepou (social anthropologist and Vice Mayor for Civil Society and Innovation in Athens Municipality City Council, May 2013-July 2019); Elena Lamprou (Lead of Impact Hub Athens’s ‘Impact Making Unit’ and the Kypseli Market project); Sofia Handaka (social anthropologist and curator in the Benaki Museum); Irini Gratsia (Archaeologist-Founder and Coordinator of MOnuMENTA, a civil non-profit organisation founded in 2006 for the protection of monuments at risk with currently its main huge project being the recording and promotion of the 19th and 20th century’s buildings in Athens; George Sachinis (civil engineer and theatre director/Director of the Urban Dig Community Project which works closely with neigbourhoods to identify solutions for collective management and expression through artistic activities); Antonis Mbertos (psychologist, dancer and choreographer, supervisor trainer in Connect Athens-Youth Center). All interviews have been conducted in July 2019.
9 Accessible at https://www.britishcouncil.gr/sites/default/files/athens-city-resilience-through-culture-full-report-april-2018.pdf
10 See https://www.100resilientcities.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Resilience-Strategy-Athens-English.pdf
11 It also is a slight pun: ‘With the goddess Athena’ alludes to the ancient patron goddess of the city of Athens, and it perhaps also hints to ancient popular saying that ‘the goddess Athena helps those who help themselves’.
12 According to the report Lessons learned from synAthina, ‘the Mayors Challenge encourages cities to generate bold new ideas that solve urban challenges and improve city life, as well as have the potential to spread. The competition invites hundreds of cities to define a serious problem and develop a bold, new idea to solve it. The City of Athens was one of five winners of the Bloomberg Philanthropies 2014 Mayors Challenge’. This is no slight achievement if one considers that in 2013 only 13 per cent of Greek citizens trusted public institutions, and were only slightly wary of corruption. The participation of Athens in the competition also aimed to devise a project that would rebuild trust between citizens and the municipality. synAthina was the answer.
16 See http://victoriasquareproject.gr/ On the website, the concept of ‘social sculpture’ is defined as follows: ‘It is what people make of it and it implies caring for society as if it were a collective work of art. Working with various community initiatives, local businesses, institutions, the municipality, artists and other individuals and groups, Victoria Square Project seeks to elevate the cultural and historical assets of this vital crossroads in Athens. Each participant helps us better understand the cultural, historical, and political dynamics in this area’.
17 See http://www.polis2.thisisathens.org/en/katastimata/ where the project is explained at length (also in English)
18 See the project’s platform: https://www.athensopenschools.gr
19 See https://www.synathina.gr/en/curing-the-limbo-en.html and https://www.synathina.gr/en/curing-the-limbo-en.html#curing-about
21 For instance, the repair and recycling of computers for social purposes, the production of fresh juice by local organic farmers, the social integration of staff members who belong to communities at risk, etc. For more information, see the Market’s bilingual website and social media channels https://agorakypselis.gr/welcome-to-the-agora/?lang=en
22 Such as the Lycabettus Hill programme, The Present and Future of Athens’ urban forest (https://www.archisearch.gr/press/lykabettus-hill-athens-press-conference/), the Open Schools Programme, the redevelopment of the National Garden in Athens, among others.
23 For a definition of each city category, and further explanation, please refer to the dedicated website, available at: https://www.100resilientcities.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Athens_Resilience_Strategy_-_Reduced_PDF.compressed.pdf
24 To reflect on Orhan Pamuk’s Modest Manifesto for Museums and his call for small-scale museum organisations in the neighborhoods and homes, see Pamuk Citation2012, pp.54-57 and Mouliou Citation2016, p.48. There is certainly a long tradition in the creation of small community neighborhood museums, yet this practice is not at all common in Greece. For this museum type, one can read older relevant essays such as Kinard Citation1985 or more recent ones such as Sheppard Citation2013.
25 MOnuMENTA is a team of archaeologists and architects from Greece and Cyprus involved with the natural, architectural and cultural heritage, who joined forces to create a non-profit civil company (founded in 2006) that aimed at the awareness, protection, management and enhancement of the natural and architectural heritage of Greece and Cyprus. For more information about its activities, see Mouliou Citation2014, p. 4, as well as its websites: https://www.monumenta.org/article_list.php?perm=1&IssueID=5&lang=en&CategoryID=22 and https://monumentakatagrafi.wordpress.com/about-the-program/
26 For more about the UrbanDig Project, see the online website at: https://www.urbandigproject.org/
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Marlen Mouliou
Marlen Mouliou is Assistant Professor of Museology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Since 2016, she has been Member of the Panel of Judges for the European Museum of the Year Award and Vice-Chair of the European Academic Heritage Network (UNIVERSEUM). From 2010 to 2016, she has served as Secretary and Chair of the International Committee for the Collections and Activities of Museums of Cities (CAMOC). She has worked as an archaeologist-museologist at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture for 16 years. Her research focuses mostly on the social values of museums, on museum archaeology, urban museology, museum training and professionalism.