The Pelion Summer Lab (PSL) for Cultural Theory and Experimental Humanities convenes an interdisciplinary group of graduate students, researchers, academics, artists and cultural producers for a ten-day period of intensive exchange and exploration regarding the pressing problems and questions of our worlds.
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The Pelion Summer Lab, founded in 2017 is an initiative of the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly, directed by prof. Penelope Papailias. So far, we have conducted six successful summer labs - Democracy & Dissent (2017), Liminal Lives & Para-Sites (2018), Data & Power (2019), After/Lives in 2022 (after a hiatus of two years due to the pandemic), Ec/o/ntologies (2023) and (after a post-flood "Pause" in 2024), Anthropo-scenes in 2025.
Our use of the term lab, rather than school, is deliberate. In our mountain village perch and refuge, in the optimistic early days of Greek summer, we actively work to blur traditional academic borders and hierarchies between students and professors, research and performance, learning and creation, the university and the local community.
Pelion Summer Lab culminates in a public experiment that opens our ten days of collective work to peers, residents, and passers-by. Each year it takes a different form—past cohorts have schemed an escape room, designed a trio of serious/critical games, created a multimodal shrine, plotted a sound walk and staged an eco-drama.
The experiment is intentionally open-ended: its direction depends on who shows up, how they participate, what they add. Indeed the invitation and the creation of a hospitable space of exchange is the critical first step of the experiment. Neither a final product nor a simple presentation, the experiment inevitably produces new methodologies, further questions, inspiration for the next lab.
Pelion Summer Lab culminates in a public experiment that opens our ten days of collective work to peers, residents, and passers-by. Each year it takes a different form—past cohorts have schemed an escape room, designed a trio of serious/critical games, created a multimodal shrine, plotted a sound walk and staged an eco-drama.
The experiment is intentionally open-ended: its direction depends on who shows up, how they participate, what they add. Indeed the invitation and the creation of a hospitable space of exchange is the critical first step of the experiment. Neither a final product nor a simple presentation, the experiment inevitably produces new methodologies, further questions, inspiration for the next lab.
Faculty seminars and directed readings are interwoven with screenings, artistic activities, critical games, performative exercises. The core program is enriched by a number of other activities: hikes in the countryside, swimming at the gorgeous local beaches, visits to nearby villages, attendance of local cultural events and, of course, eating and talking late into the night. The cohort is tasked from the first day to stage a public experiment on the last day of the lab (followed by the annual reunion dance party :).
Over the years, PSL has proved to be a safe place and a refuge. Intellectually rigoorous but friendly, intense but chill, PSL works as an antidote from the stress we may carry with us from the normal academic semester and a platform for making unexpected connections and discovering new pathways for the research, writing, art and activism we hope to do in the future. Each of our unique labs has attracted stellar faculty and participants from Greece and around the world and created enduring networks of collaboration and friendship.
For 2026, we are coming back to Neochori for the second time, from June 26th to July 6th for an exciting lab. Stay tuned for details within the month of March.
Looking forward to our next experiment together!
PSL organizing committee
Penelope Papailias, Pantelis Probonas, George Mantzios, Penny Paspali, Dimitra Morosou, Conor Smith, Antonios Petras
For 2026, we are coming back to Neochori for the second time, from June 26th to July 6th for an exciting lab. Stay tuned for details within the month of March.
Looking forward to our next experiment together!
PSL organizing committee
Penelope Papailias, Pantelis Probonas, George Mantzios, Penny Paspali, Dimitra Morosou, Conor Smith, Antonios Petras