This online virtual museum theatre programme for secondary school students explores the life and work of celebrated Greek stage and screen actress Katina Paxinou. A series of short YouTube clips introduce ‘Sophia Antoniou’: the fictional character that the students will meet during the live workshop. She ‘sets the scene’ for their encounter; telling them that it is 1950, that Katina Paxinou has just returned to Greece and that she, a news reporter and huge Paxinou fan, has been tasked with conducting the first interview. In the live workshop itself, students are welcomed to the Paxinou-Minotis Museum via the Museotek virtual learning platform and, using the ‘mini archives’ that their teachers have printed out for them, they set about helping Sofia to prepare her interview; filling in the gaps in her knowledge through their own research.
Carried out within the context of Dr. Foteini Venieri’s fellowship with HISTOLAB (a joint project between the European Union and the Council of Europe) ‘I Am Pilar!’ bought three partner organisations together to explore the potential of museum theatre within online/virtual learning for the history classroom. Thanks to funding from the Greek Ministry of Culture, the resulting performance-based educational workshop was delivered free-of-charge to 24 Greek public secondary schools during the Autumn and Winter of the 2023-24 academic year. Heterotopia’s research explored both the needs and requirements of working in partnership to create this kind of programme, as well as the technical and operational considerations of its delivery. We set out to understand, from the perspective of schoolteachers, what the perceived value and potential impact would be, and what adaptations and improvements – to the technology, the provision of services and/or the content itself – might further enhance the offer.
Funders / Partners: The Greek Ministry of Culture, The European Union & the Council of Europe, Museotek and “MIET” The Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece (Paxinou-Minotis Museum).
Production Team: Foteini Venieri, Rebecca Shelley, Katerina Holi (Sofia Antoniou) and Nikoleta Dimopoulou (performer-facilitator), Kelly Papakonstantinou, Vassilis Tsetsos, Athina Poursaitidou, Elia Vlachou and Sophia Peloponnisiou.
Watch the project presentation film here
