School Visits

After the first contact with the teachers, the members of the PALIMPSEST team started a series of visits to the six (6) schools of Primary and Secondary Education of Ioannina that expressed interest in participating in the project, namely the 1st and 2nd Experimental Primary School, the 7th and 26th Elementary School and 2nd and 3rd Middle School. The purpose of the visits was the personal contact of the Team with the students, the familiarization of the latter with the project, the answer of any questions that arose, the provision of instructions regarding the implementation as well as the treatment of any technical problems that may arise.
During the visits, it was widely discussed the role that students are invited to play in the project as well as their contribution to this new kind of museum experience, in which urban legends and stories can be collected, archived, reproduced and finally brought back to life in the public urban space with the help of digital technologies.
The students searched for stories, legends, fairy tales, narratives and memories related to the urban fabric of the city from elderly people in their familiar environment. Then, they transcribed them using the means of their choice, taking on the role of “director” themselves, guiding the narrators to the points that they considered to be interesting and worth pointing out, and then categorize and archive them.
In this way a digital archive of the stories was created, which was compiled by the students themselves, using a pre-existing structure, without however being restrictive or rigid, but on the contrary open and evolving. This archive, with the material collected, was the foundation for the subsequent design and progress of the project and its actions as well as the basis on which the artists relied in order to create their artistic installations in the public space of the city.