The third round of the Evοia Local Urban Lab marked a significant evolution in Turning the Tide’s approach to artistic engagement with climate-affected communities. For this iteration, Artit made the strategic decision to blend the Local Urban Lab with the International Lab in Evοia, creating an unprecedented opportunity for local and international artists to work together, share activities, and maximize collective impact.
This integrated approach allowed international artists to explore the landscape and its climate realities through the informed perspectives of local artists, who brought intimate knowledge of the territory, its history, and its communities. Simultaneously, local artists benefited from fresh perspectives and diverse methodologies brought by their international counterparts, fostering cross-cultural dialogue and enriching the artistic research process. The lab focused on the multifaceted impacts of the 2021 wildfires and subsequent floods in Northern Evοia, exploring how climate change intersects with political negligence, economic opportunism, administrative failure, and gaps in climate knowledge.
Immersive Learning and Community Engagement
Artists embarked on study visits to local villages across the affected region, including a powerful visit to the point where the devastating 2021 Evοia wildfires originated. These journeys through scarred landscapes and resilient communities provided crucial context for understanding both the scale of the disaster and the human stories behind the statistics. Visits to local museums enriched the artists’ appreciation of the area’s cultural heritage and the deep-rooted relationship between communities and the forests that have shaped their identity for generations.
The learning experience was further enhanced through educational webinars featuring Marilena Gidarakou, an atmospheric physicist, who helped artists understand the scientific dimensions of the climate events that have reshaped Northern Evοia. These sessions bridged art and science, ensuring their work spoke to both the emotional and factual truths of climate change in the region.
Íchni: Memories of the Future
For the final showcase, Artit organized the public exhibition “Íchni: Memories of the Future,” presenting the works of local artists Eleni Vrettakou and Froso Papadimitriou alongside those of international artists in a three-day event, with the final exhibition taking place in Tetartokyklion. This venue was specifically chosen for its unique position overlooking the Euripus Strait, where visitors could witness the extraordinary tidal phenomenon—the rapid reversal of water flow that occurs multiple times daily. This natural phenomenon of constant change served as a powerful metaphor for the themes explored in the exhibition: transformation, instability, resilience, and the unpredictable forces of nature that communities must learn to adapt to. The exhibition was free and open to the public, inviting residents of Chalcis and the broader Evoia region to engage directly with artistic responses to their shared environmental reality.
Froso Papadimitriou – The Golden Pine Cone and Co-existence
Froso Papadimitriou developed two interconnected works based on extensive engagement with the communities of Northern Evoia. “The Golden Pine Cone” (2025), created in watercolor, fine line pigment ink on paper, and digital prototype, takes the form of a fairy tale constructed from testimonies collected during her visits to the villages of Kourkouloi, Kexries, and Skepasti. Rather than offering escapism, the fairy tale format serves as a powerful reframing device, revealing how political negligence, opportunistic economics, administrative failure, and lack of climate knowledge converged to transform a natural disaster into devastation. “Co-existence” (2025), created in collaboration with children from these same villages using threads and acrylics on canvas, draws on the ancient Greek myth of the three fates. White threads on white canvases—barely visible and almost obsolete—serve as metaphors for how many have forgotten our shared place in one ecosystem. Through the children’s act of coloring, these connections regain meaning and visibility, emphasizing that only through care, attention, and participation can we reconnect with the natural world.
Eleni Vrettakou – Un/Making Ground
Eleni Vrettakou created “Un/Making Ground” (2025), a multimedia installation that gathers what remains of Evoia’s recent floods and wildfires—charred pine trees whose root systems once stabilized rivers, and silted mud accumulating inside vacant buildings long after the water has receded. The work examines erosion as both a physical process and a methodology, reflecting on how environmental trauma, human intervention, and material memory intersect. Burnt surfaces are slowly sanded away, re-written by time, care, and contact, with their dust archived. Clay sediments are reshaped into objects that recall architectural fragments—thresholds, sills, remnants of disrupted domesticity. Rather than resisting decay, the work embraces it; the sculptures remain unfinished, exposed to touch, time, and weather. Through working with unstable matter, Vrettakou asks what it means to make with care when permanence can no longer be assumed.
Looking Ahead
Round 3 of the Evoia Local Urban Lab has shown us the extraordinary potential that emerges when we break down boundaries—between local and international, between art and science, between past trauma and future possibility. The works created by Froso and Eleni, enriched by their collaboration with international artists and deep engagement with Northern Evoia’s communities, stand as a testament to the power of art to hold complexity, honor lived experience, and spark essential conversations about climate, justice, and resilience. As Turning the Tide continues, we carry forward the lessons learned from this innovative blended approach, knowing that the most meaningful change happens when diverse voices come together in genuine dialogue. The journey continues, and Evoia’s story of resilience and transformation remains far from finished.
Don’t forget to explore Froso’s and Eleni’s works in detail. Stay tuned; there’s so much more to come!
