UrbanDig Project: A discussion on performative tools to socially (re)design space and social relations at MDFF Greece — Athens 2020 | First Edition

The UrbanDig Project at the 1st edition of Milano Design Film Festival World Tour Greece—Athens: A discussion on performative tools to socially (re-)design space and social relations 

Speaker: Maria Logiotatidou

The UrbanDig Project is an actions programme established by the Performing Arts non-Profit Company ‘Ohi Pezoume’ (Όχι Παίζουμε), arising from the need to approach performing arts from a different angle. During the period 2014-2015, the group decided for the first time to take theatre and dance off the stage, and away from any texts, and allow the urban space to narrate its stories. Life in the city inspires the dramaturgical composition of site-specific performances; the artistic approach creates ‘design tools’ for the communities in order to redesign urban spots in a natural manner, through participation; social planning is achieved under new terms, with a view to co-existing in the city and experiencing it. At the MDFF, UrbanDig Project will use its experience in artistic / community programmes to address the following:

• ‘Designing communities and communities as designers’: How is the UrbanDig Project introduced to different communities of the neighbourhood? How and why does it introduce communities for its programmes?
• ‘Designing new methodological tools’: How is each area being approached through new artistic and research tools?
• ‘Personal, collective, and common space’: How is the city re-introduced to its inhabitants through a spectacle and vice versa?

UrbanDig Project is an artistic/research/community platform, developed by the NPO ‘Ohi Pezoume Performing Arts Company’, based in Athens, Greece. Behind the project lies the motivation to compose and present a site-specific performance as a final festive finale of a rigorous period of research and community engagement based on the cultural capital of certain urban neighborhoods. In this way, the performing arts of theatre and dance exit their typical setting, the theatrical scene, and the pre-constructed plot, in order to meet urban space and local communities in real life/material environment. The central philosophy of the UrbanDig Project is that art can be the sparkle to start improbable encounters and cooperation among stakeholders of a particular area and beyond. Locals (either native or migrants), researchers, academics, artists, shop-owners, public administration representatives, etc. sit around the same table, having a common aim: to unearth bottom-up narratives of the area’s past, present, and future. 

Maria Logiotatidou
Maria Logiotatidou holds a degree in Pharmacy from University of Athens and a Masters Degree in Health Economics from City Univesity, London. She has been involved in the field of culture since 2010, having attended several seminars on Production of Radio Broadcasting, Music Editing, History of Cinema , Theater Communication, and also she used to have  her own broadcast on Internet radio stations. In 2014 he completed two training seminars in Cultural Management, one from Athens College and one from the Hellenic American Union. She is a member of the UrbanDig Project team in which she participates in domestic and international projects and also belongs to the coordinating team of Metadeftero Internet Radio (www.metadefetro.gr), where she mainly deals with.