Co-Creating a Rural Festival on a Remote Island

Ai Stratis – I Sea Art festival
Or how a 2-women venture – a Tandem – between a tiny municipality on the remote Greek island of Agios Efstratios and the tiny cultural association Dominio Vale do Mondego in an isolated Portuguese mountain valley resulted in a unique cooperation. How come? The rare chance to meet and to decide to cooperate is primarily due to the efforts of Tandem Europe’s specific ambitious objective to facilitate such rare and unique collaborations. You might call it love at first sight, which is usually not based on rational decision making. No, rationale had nothing to do with it, recognition all the more. Recognition of the similarities in being both located in Southern European countries, traditional rural areas, isolated and remote, with in-depth experience in their own local environments, not – yet -actively participating in national let alone international networks. But eager to open up, to gain new experiences, to attract attention, to create new stories, to demonstrate to the world the natural beauty of their ‘terra’, the intrinsic value of their rural community and the necessity to rethink the future for the following generations. And the conviction that artists could make a difference.

And so the two women, Stella and Catharina, – representing their organisations – met in Sofia, and supported by their colleagues, without much ado began their journey that would last nine months.

Now from the start, their Tandem showed willpower, vision and a very practical attitude towards operational issues. Besides, both women embodied two strengths: Catharina had a longstanding experience of organising small-scale art festivals in her rural valley, and Stella had direct access to all available resources of the island and a clear mind how to proceed. And without the usual bureaucratic inhibitions of larger organisations, they could act and decide immediately.

The outline for their project was immediately clear: Catharina would use her experience to organise a small-scale art festival on the island and thereby creating a blueprint, a prototype for rural art festivals in similar conditions, extending her opportunities to work outside her own region. And Stella would acquire experience in the production of such a festival, necessary for the research on how to engage local people in cultural activities and to strengthen the community potential and promote social inclusion.

The Tandem Europe method requires a so-called placement on both sides: to visit each other and immerse yourself in the daily organisational life of the other during a considerable period. So first of all, Catherina undertook the long journey to the island, flying to Athens, bus to the port of Lavrio and embarking on the Hellenic Seaways for an 8,5-hour ferry ride to Agios Efstratios, or as the locals call it: Ai Stratis (you can read more about this journey here).

The locals were expecting her: the experienced Amsterdam-born artistic director. This kind of news travels fast in a 200-souls community, where there are few distractions. But what they did not expect was the fact that this cosmopolitan lady turned out to be also a farmer’s wife, living as rural as they do, and well acquainted with sheep herding! Participating in the annual gathering of the lambs immediately closed the gap. Known amongst her own elderly neighbours in Portugal as Dona Catharina, she likewise gained the trust of the local villagers and set about to discover not only the infrastructure and logistics of the island, but most of all to understand the specific underlying stories that characterize the community in order to analyse its needs, wishes and fears.

Of course, Stella paved the way in every respect, introducing Catharina to the members of the council, walking together along the streets of the village, showing her around the natural beauties of the island and taking her up to the farms and their 8000 sheep.

Stella entered the Tandem programme on a mission: to research ways how to create a new story for the island, focused on future developments instead of being hampered by its impacting past. To understand this, we briefly have to tell you Ai Stratis’ history of the last century. Ai Stratis stands out from the idiosyncratic, attractive Greek islands frequented by tourists. Its remoteness resulted in becoming the stage for a troubled period in Greek history, functioning as a prison for exiles during the 40s, 50s and 60s. A few thousand progressive writers, musicians and other intellectuals spent years in harsh conditions, disrupting the common social balance of the population consisting primarily of fishermen and farmers. When finally the last prisoners left, and consequently also a large group of inhabitants searched for more prosperous living conditions, a devastating earthquake in 1968 destroyed almost the whole village, killing over 25 of its people. The village was never rebuilt, its ruins remain still visible on the hillside above the port. Instead, concrete cubicle houses were quickly erected, and they have been lived in until this day. Both the lack of the typical Greek acrhitecture and its remoteness keep tourists away.
But attracting tourists was not our objective. The focus of our project was completely on the community. That was the message of our Open Call for Artists. We requested artists to apply with a project, taking the history into account but stressing the need for two goals: social inclusion, engaging particularly women, children and elderly people in workshops and participatory activities plus local interventions to create new experiences in well-known locations, to use existing materials and natural resources in innovative ways, to co-create, to use art to communicate, stimulate the imagination, and to celebrate the beauty of life on the island.

The response to the Call for Artists was overwhelming. Both in the quantity and the quality of the applications. Most came from Greek artists who were emotionally touched to be given the opportunity to contribute to the cause of rethinking the story of Ai Stratis. We will never forget the young dancer who asked her mother where Ai Stratis was located, and thus learned that her grandfather had been exiled there. Or the artist who was born exactly in the night of the earthquake and always carried this association with him. Response came from countries such as Tunisia, Armenia, Ireland, France, UK, Portugal and Palestine. Two departments of Fine Art of the Universities of Thessaloniki and Western-Macedonia decided to extent their ongoing research to the island and sent their professors and a group of students.

Stella and Catharina choose to define their own curational conditions for participation, boiling down to non-complexity and feasibility of the project, the level of accessibility and participation by the community, the financial implications and of course its artistic output. They had to disappoint two-thirds of the applicants, and still inviting 45 artists and students to come to the island for a week at the end of August to jointly create the first Ai Stratis – I Sea Art festival.

What normally would have been produced by a professional team of artistic leader, production leader and assistants, technicians, communication and marketing team, and a large group of volunteers was in the hands of two women, living 3000 kilometers apart, communicating by means of Skype and mails. Fortunately the municipality of Ai Stratis doubled the budget of the Tandem organisation so that all artists could be offered a decent bed, a good meal at Thanassis’ restaurant and the required materials.

Stella’s placement strategically coincided with one of the small festivals organised by Catharina, giving Stella a direct and inside experience of the workload, stress and joy of organising a small scale art festival with resident artists. These few days and the fortunate decision of the Tandem team to locate the Interim Meeting on the island of Ai Stratis were the only opportunities to meet in person for the preparation of the festival.

But all went smoothly. A simple brochure was designed, a Facebook page, a schematic overview of all the participating artists and their projects, workshops, walks and performances. Beds were reserved, materials ordered, and local people instructed. Stella and Catharina occupied a ‘production-office’ and waited for the first artists to arrive.

What Stella and Catharina had hoped and worked hard for, happened: it was a true Celebration of Life on the Island. For all involved. Maybe for some hesitantly in the beginning, but the culmination of the last evening was amazing for everybody. A genuine community fest, with delicious food cooked by all the Ai Stratis women and shared by the whole community with the artists, two local musicians who never played together gave the village a traditional concert to whom young and old danced. And finally: the Lantern Parade! The workshop was attended by mostly children, and a few parents now attracted the whole village. It was an amazing sight and an emotional experience for Stella and Catharina, because it meant their mission proved sucessful. People from the village turned out a genuine community, enjoying each other, their village and this special celebration together.

The whole week one could encounter an artist on the square of the village of Ai Stratis, working with children (especially boys) providing an alternative to their digital screens by creating warrior attires out of carton boxes; wool of the many sheep on the island brought men and women together in acts of cleaning and felting, standing along a table their hands caressing the raw wool with water and soap and fabricating a strong soft cloth; sandsculptured dragons on the beach; video interviews of local people; making bread on the basis of the sourdough brought along on their travels through Europe by two Irish women; mansize games painted on the concrete floor of the port, art installations in the oak forrest; engraving workshop with all the children; crochet with grass and rafia; gilded stones and led lighted stones; dance with children; body music; yoga on the beach; jamsessions on the square; the sound of spoken word and flute in the dark of the night.

In hindsight the festival was successful just because of its limitations: its remoteness added to the magic for the artists who were extremely happy, and therefore hardly demanding, to participate; the limited capacity of the production team gave the artists space and freedom to create according to their own artistic insights (of course not all projects did work out as planned, some had difficulty in finding the right setting, or had a lack of participants, or needed more time to develop their artistic concept, but on the whole most projects and most artists produced and created as planned).

Mission accomplished, one might say. Sufficient input for the research of Stella and her municipality to consider future cultural projects as a social inclusion and rural development model. Sufficient output for Catharina for developing the Rural Art Week/Festival as a concept for art projects that enhance social, ecological, cultural and economic sustainability in rural, isolated and deprived regions.

Suffice to say that on a personal level the accomplishment of the Ai Stratis – I Sea Art festival had a benign as well impressive impact for both Stella and Catharina. They can look back in awe to realise that willpower, passion, practical attitude and the right network and support system can create miracles.
And if they look forward: the Ai Stratis – I Sea Art festival experience feeds their imagination of what might come. The story continues, just follow them.

Faia, Portugal, Catharina Sligting & Ai Stratis, Greece, Stella Spanou