Vanishing Landscapes is an interdisciplinary research programme led by Tavros within Transformative Territories Project, centred on the fragile lagoon of Aitoliko (Messolonghi)—a shifting ecosystem shaped by complex interactions between human activity and natural processes. Initially conceived as a research-driven initiative, the project expanded thanks to additional support and collaborations, culminating in a four-day public programme held on-site from 6–9 March 2025. Drawing on the legacy of Vasso Katraki—whose early prints documented the lagoon and its fishing communities—the programme brought together artists, scholars, and local residents to explore the environmental vulnerability of this unique wetland landscape.

Yiannis Papadopoulos — People descended from Trees and Deer

Visual artist Yiannis Papadopoulos, whose practice merges installation, printmaking, and archival research, led a three-day workshop at the Center of Engraving Arts – Vasso Katraki Museum. Papadopoulos often works with overlooked histories and material traces, using acts of collecting and reproducing as methods for bridging past and present. His connection to Katraki’s work is longstanding—he credits his encounter with her prints as a turning point in adopting printmaking as a central artistic method.

For Vanishing Landscapes, Papadopoulos returned to Aitoliko—Katraki’s birthplace—to guide Fine and Applied Arts students from the University of Western Macedonia (Florina) in an exploration of the lagoon’s natural surroundings through printmaking. Working with archival materials, woodcut matrices, and reproductions from the museum’s collection, participants developed artistic responses inspired by the lagoon’s ecology, local narratives, and environmental transformations. In this context, printmaking becomes sediment—a material imprint of the project’s geographic, historical, and ecological layers.

Together with artist and lecturer Maria Varela and the Institute of Audiovisual Arts of the University Research and Innovation Center, Papadopoulos revitalised the museum’s long-unused printmaking studios. Twelve students travelled from Florina to Aitoliko, engaging in intensive artistic research that combined technical printmaking with reflections on ecological decline and human intervention in fragile wetland systems.

Thanks to targeted funding, social and economic barriers were reduced, allowing sustained participation. Students interacted with local residents, listening to stories from fishing families and integrating the lagoon’s environmental particularities into their works. The resulting prints convey contemporary interpretations of environmental degradation, viewed through the aesthetics of the imprint: the landscape as a palimpsest of memory, disappearance, and resilience.

The workshop reactivated local cultural pride by foregrounding Vasso Katraki as a key figure of regional heritage. It also deepened ties between the community and the museum’s artistic legacy, opening pathways for future initiatives rooted in collective art-making, ecological awareness, and shared responsibility for the lagoon’s cultural and natural environments.

Nuno da Luz — Skylarking (Long Play) & Skylarking (Short Play)

As part of Vanishing Landscapes, Tavros hosted Nuno da Luz, recipient of the COAL 2024 Transformative Territories Award mention. Da Luz is a Lisbon-born sound artist whose practice moves between the aural and the visual, manifesting through installations, performances, and printed matter. With the collective ATLAS (Lisbon), he explores noise-making ecologies and publishing pedagogies grounded in attentive listening. Currently pursuing a PhD titled Echologies of Noise at the School of Arts UCP (Porto), da Luz has presented widely across Europe and hosts a monthly show on Stegi Radio (Athens).

In Aitoliko, da Luz investigated the soundscapes of the lagoon, a critical habitat for more than 250 bird species, many protected or endangered. His field recordings—ranging from birdcalls to underwater cycles and even seismic activity—became the foundation for two interconnected works:

• Skylarking (Long Play): A 72-hour immersive sound installation, combining real-time and composed environmental audio. Installed in and around the Vasso Katraki Museum, it sonically intertwined the lagoon’s natural rhythms with the cultural layers of the site.
• Skylarking (Short Play): A participatory workshop exploring the shared origins of speech and music through birdcall imitation, collective vocal improvisation, and embodied listening. Open to all ages, it cultivated an intuitive relationship with non-human sonic worlds.

The installation was further activated through two listening and birdwatching performances developed in collaboration with environmentalist Giannis Roussopoulos. These events invited participants to tune into the lagoon as an acoustic ecosystem, blending artistic sensibility with ecological pedagogy. Da Luz also produced a publication on Aitoliko’s seasonal migratory birds, extending the project’s reach beyond the site.

Da Luz broadcasted live from Aitoliko for his monthly Onassis Stegi Online Radio show in an episode titled “MED Futures • Aitoliko • Skylarking (Long Play) Pt.3”. The broadcast weaved field recordings, real-time streams, and on-site observations, creating a layered sonic composition in which micro-geographies, biodiversity, and shifting temporalities merged. By blurring distinctions between night and day, present and deep time, the piece expanded the ecological and sensory dimensions of Vanishing Landscapes.

The episode is available online :  https://stegi.radio/show/med-futures-aitoliko-skylarking-long-play-pt-3-2025-03-08 

Through the contributions of Yiannis Papadopoulos and Nuno da Luz, Vanishing Landscapes deepens understanding of the Aitoliko lagoon as both an ecological threshold and a cultural archive. By activating the Vasso Katraki Museum, engaging local communities, and combining artistic, scientific, and pedagogical approaches, the project foregrounds the lagoon’s fragility while cultivating new forms of collective attention and ecological imagination. It is an invitation to see, listen, and care for a landscape at risk—one imprint, one sound, one story at a time.

Read more at the partner’s website : https://tavros.space/