The MARes in Hybrid Arts program of the Department of Audio & Visual Arts, Ionian University, cordially invites all interested parties to attend the public defense of the following Master’s thesis:
Thesis Title:
Applying Principles of Degrowth and Slow Media in Curatorial Practices
Candidate:
Foteini Vergidou
Supervisor:
Daphne Dragona
Date & Time:
18 September 2026 - 18:00 Greece
Join via Zoom:
https://ionio-gr.zoom.us/j/94707439438
Examination Committee
- Daphne Dragona - Assistant Professor, Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University
- Dalila Honorato - Professor, Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University
- Tania Tsiridou - EEP, Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University
About the Thesis
Applying Principles of Degrowth and Slow Media in Curatorial Practices examines how slow and low-impact curatorial practices can respond to the constant pace and heavy resource demands that define contemporary art production in Greece and internationally. The research draws on three intersecting bodies of theory: degrowth, slow media studies, and critical accounts of algorithmic insecurity. Rather than treatingslowness as a matter of taste or retreat, this research approaches it as an intentional method, rooted in material limits and collective ethics. At the same time, a central driver of this research is the socioeconomic privilege gap of slowness: the ability to withdraw from constant production and visibility is unevenly distributed across class, geography, and employment status, and slowness is therefore treated as a structural question rather than an individual choice. The dissertation tests these arguments through Art in the Park, a small-scale exhibition that relied exclusively on pre-existing artworks, local resources, and analog communication, applying principles of degrowth within curatorial practice and exhibition-making. Interviews with five cultural practitioners reflect the wider realities of creative labor, revealing ongoing precarity and fatigue linked to digital visibility. Finally, this dissertation centers on one key argument: individual efforts to slow down art-making are valuable, but lasting change must happen collectively, because access to time, rest, and low-resource practice is unequal. Experiments like Art in the Park demonstrate that modest, intentional choices encourage collective care and reflection. While these practices do not resolve systemic inequalities, they suggest alternative models of curatorial care that can protect both people and the environment.
About the Candidate
Foteini Vergidou is a curator, cultural project manager, and researcher based in Athens, Greece. Her work focuses on digital culture, advanced communication theory, cyberpsychology, and the impact of new technologies on both artistic production and everyday life. She investigates the social, emotional, and political dimensions of digital existence, exploring how intimacy, identity, and embodiment are shaped by technological infrastructures, particularly in relation to algorithmic control, surveillance, online commodification, and gendered power dynamics. Vergidou’s approach bridges artistic experimentation with critical theory, creating reflective frameworks for examining how we inhabit and resist increasingly datafied realities. She holds a BA in Communication and Mass Media from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and an MA in Interactive Media: Critical Theory and Practice from Goldsmiths University in London.
Attendance
The defense is open to the public. Students, researchers, artists, art professionals and all interested individuals are welcome to attend.
