Anna Stroulia is a visual artist, researcher and initiator. Her practice explores environmental interconnectedness, the symbiosis of technological and traditional tools and the creation of symbolic systems, codes and alphabets. Her current research investigates the intersections of contemporary art, traditional craftsmanship and communal rituals in a post-colonial perspective. She is co-founder of ististist.project a multidisciplinary artistic platform, focusing on the interaction of art and education and the correlation between artistic creation, research and knowledge. She holds a BA in Greek Literature (AUTH), a MA in Linguistics (Paris 8), a MA in Anthropology of Education (Paris 5) and a MFA from the Athens School of Fine Arts.

Athanasia Papadimitriou is a forester currently studying for an MSc in New Technologies in Environmental Education and Sustainability at Ionian University while completing a BA in Wood Technology & Furniture Design. With a background in public forest services and long periods living in protected natural areas such as Samaria Gorge, her path has been shaped by immersive experiences in nature, participatory theatre games, and a growing interest in walking, sensory, and creative practices. She is currently developing a narrative soundwalk along Pinios River, exploring how such approaches can foster reconnection, reflection and resilience.

Conor Smith is a postgraduate student in the Master’s program “Mobility Studies” at the Department of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly. He completed his BA at the University of Michigan in history and political economy, graduating in 2021. His interests lie at the intersection of historical and environmental ethnography and black radical theory, particularly the concept of the plantation. Currently he is researching transformations of landscape and ecosystems in Thessaly in connection with the floods Daniel and Ilias that hit Thessaly in 2023, with specific historical/ethnographic sites being the draining of Lake Karla and the works of land reclamation (ο αναδασμός) in the plain of Karditsa.

Dennis Gupa an Assistant Professor at the Department of Theatre and Film, University of Winnipeg. He is a theatre director, Performance Studies and applied theatre scholar. He obtained his PhD in Applied Theatre at the University of Victoria as a Vanier scholar, MFA Theatre (Directing) degree at the University of British Columbia, and MA Theatre Arts at the University of the Philippines. His dissertation centered on climate change, Indigenous ecological knowledge, and applied theatre where he did his field research on island communities in the Philippines that have been impacted by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and other climate crises.

Dimitra Papourtzi is a graduate of the Dilos drama school and of the department of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology of the University of Athens. She is currently completing her thesis entitled: "Can applied theater help combat incidents of gender-based violence?" of the postgraduate program at the department of Theater Studies of the University of Athens. Since last year, she has been teaching theater to elementary school children at the Erasmeios school, writing and directing plays for the final performances. She has participated in theatre plays and choreographies as an actress and performer. Last one was a remake of Alice in Wonderland focused on nowdays war. She has been dancing modern dance and ballet since the age of five. She loves swimming and hiking in nature. She has published poems in the Oropedio magazine. She does yoga and meditation. She travels as often as she can.

Giorgos Melissourgos holds a B.Sc. in Accounting & Finance from the University of Macedonia and an M.Sc. in Social & Solidarity Economy (SSE) from the Hellenic Open University. He is currently a PhD student in Political Sciences at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Through community-based and prefigurative action research — conducted from, with, and for SSE initiatives, as well as through his role as Coordinator of the SSE Program at the Heinrich Böll Foundation – Thessaloniki Office — he explores and (auto)ethnographically documents potential pathways toward heteropolitics. He is also involved in initiating, governing, and managing SSE initiatives — though, more often than not (and somewhat regrettably), he ends up handling the bureaucratic side of things.

My name is Lampro and these days i go through the mixture of feelings knowing these are one of the last experiences of this collapsing world and the bloom of new, maybe better ones. I spend my time trying to play around literally and very seriously, to form ties on new terms and hopefully make us into something better. All this has brought me to Pelion Summer Lab 2025 and we shall see where it leads me next!

Markela Koniordou has a background in public and planetary health and is currently studying Art & Science at dieAngewandte (Vienna). She works with video, sound, and performance in early stages of development. Her interests include participatory methods, collective experience, and socially engaged research, shaped by previous work in public health and community-based projects.

Markia Liapi is a philologist and art historian. She has studied in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (MSc in Comparative Literature, MSc in History of Art, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), she is an undergraduate student in Theatre Studies in AUTH and a PhD candidate at the Department of Modern Greek Literature AUTH. She has worked in public education, as a digital editor in AUTH and as an oral project field manager in Istorima. She participated as Princeton research fellow in the 2024 Summer Institute of Ancient Greek Tragedy. She was rewarded with the New Professional Award in the 2024 Textile Society of America Symposium.

My name is Nina, I live in London where I recently graduated from SOAS and am now dedicating part of my time to community organizing with the London Renters Union. Through oral history and ethnographic projects I try to resist neoliberal narratives of urban austerity and environmental crisis. Soon, I’ll be starting a PhD in Anthropology at LSE, exploring how the future of two former oil refineries in the Caribbean is being imagined by residents and planners. I love dancing, climbing mountains and making miniature drawings!

Karolina Rybačiauskaitė is a researcher and writer. Since 2021, she has taught aesthetics and contemporary art theories at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. In 2024, she defended her PhD dissertation, “The Problem of the Reinvention of Practices in I. Stengers Thought”, at Vilnius University. In 2023 and 2022, she was a visiting fellow at Leiden University and KU Leuven (with the ERC project Homo Mimeticus), where she considered the meaning of affective mimesis in the creation of artistic and therapeutic practices. Her research focuses on the problems of ecology and relational practices in the French ontological aesthetic tradition and its contemporary interpretations. As a researcher and writer, Karolina regularly collaborates with various contemporary art institutions and residencies (e.g. Mustarinda (2023), Petrohradska kolektiv and Rupert (2020).

Tsovinar Kuiumchian is a doctoral candidate at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford. Her research draws from the intersection of visual, material, and museum anthropology with political anthropology to examine the social and political significance of contemporary art and creative practices in the global Armenian community. She conducts her multi-sited ethnography in the US, Europe, Turkey, and Armenia. Part of the Armenian diaspora, she was born and raised in Ukraine.

Yara Malka: I'm an essayist first and editorial fiend second.  I want to make people feel things with words. I go by anthropology like it's a way of living and motion, rather than just a means to an end. I look for narratives, be they fictional or 'real,' mine or someone else's; if I can weave them into a compelling written word, then I am sold. My interest in theater stems from the same vein as my interest in reading and writing: They are vessels for melding the personal and universal into something that makes us all feel less different.

​

Marianna Lupina is a cultural worker, herbalist, and performative walks enthusiast, exploring new forms of being with the more-than-human world. For seven years, she has collaborated with NGOs promoting contemporary culture and reading. She believes collective reading is a powerful act of resistance to the crisis of imagination. She works with art-nature collectives and cultural centers, organizing workshops and collective methods of knowledge-making rooted in foraging, sensory plant experiences, and ecosystem immersion. A member of the herbal-art collective Chwaściarnia and an enthusiast, trainee, and propagator of wild swimming, which she sees as one of the best ways to form an intimate bond with a body of water. Currently involved with Fundacja Bęc Zmiana and often found in their bookstore, recommending books on architecture, visual arts, design, and urban cultures.