The American College of Greece

December, 2025

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202504Dec(Dec 4)12:301120:00Echoes of ExaptationFinal Projects by the students of the Art Research class12:30 (4) - 20:00 (11)

202509Dec(Dec 9)18:0031Jan(Jan 31)16:00Pause, Fragment, FoldCurated by Dr. Giorgos Kontis, Coordinated with Jennifer Nelson 18:00 (9) - (January 31) 16:00

Event Details

Pause, Fragment, Fold

Curated by Dr. Giorgos Kontis
Coordinated with Jennifer Nelson

Opening: Tuesday, December 9, 2025 | 18:00 – 21:00

Exhibition duration: 10 December, 2025 – 31 January, 2026

Opening hours: Wednesday-Friday: 15.00-19.00 Saturdays: 12.00-16.00

Closed between 22 December and 6 January

Where:
ACG Plaka Building, 17B Ipitou St, Plaka, Athens

Organized by:
The Visual Arts program at the Frances Rich School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences,
Deree – The American College of Greece

About the exhibition

Pause, Fragment, Fold presents the outcome of a collaborative process between students from the Frances Rich School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at The American College of Greece, the Department of Fine Arts and Arts Sciences at the University of Ioannina, and the Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton. Through a series of workshops, the students examined authorship, collective work, and dialogic artistic practice while also engaging with the ACG Art Collection. The exhibition foregrounds the fragment as a conceptual locus for rethinking form, narrative, and the conditions under which meaning emerges.

Engaging with the Kantian notion of schematism—the process through which a schema (form, shape) enables a concept to become sensible—the exhibition probes the conventional understanding that the schema follows the concept, serving not as its representation but as its vehicle. Pause, Fragment, Fold proposes an inversion of this trajectory: What if form were to precede concept? What if a schema were to arise first, not as a product of thought but as an open entity awaiting association, narrative, or conceptual articulation? Within this reframed logic, the fragment functions as a remnant or trace—seemingly empty, yet resonant with latent meaning. It is a shard of suspended stories, a part that gestures toward a possible whole without ever fully resolving into it. The fragment remains paused: incomplete but not inert, provisional yet charged with the potential to host new narratives and new conceptual formulations.

The exhibition further draws on Deleuze’s notion of the fold, positioning the fragment not as a discrete or isolated piece but as a point of continuous inflection. Here, the fold marks a moment within an ongoing development of form, where part and whole are not fixed oppositions but states that twist into and out of one another. A fold embodies both pause and movement—a holding pattern on the threshold of transformation.

Through works that test these conceptual thresholds, Pause, Fragment, Fold invites critical reflection on how meaning is produced, deferred, or reconstituted within artistic practice. By foregrounding the fragment as both vessel and rupture, the exhibition opens a space in which to reconsider the temporal and material conditions that shape creative processes today.

This exhibition is free and open to the public.

For further clarifications, please contact [email protected]

Participating artists:
Maria Adamidou, Konstantina Chatzouli, Evi Chondri, Elen Demirian, Nefeli Dimou, Maria-Louisa Dollete, Anna Giakoumakatou, Margarita Giannakopoulou, Xenia Giannoulatou, Theodoros Gkolas, Foivi Kainourgiou, Aristi Kouri, Anna Livieratou, Martha Marinou, Katerina Milesi, , Kostas Papapetros, Ioannis Sarris, Konstantina Sidera, Georgios Theodorakakos, Aggeliki Tsantila, Christina Tsaprailis, Veronica Vergou, Natalia Zara, L2 & L3 Winchester School of Art Fine Art Students (Painting, Sculpture & Printmaking), and selected works from the ACG Art Collection.

Exhibition Production:
Ana S. González Rueda, Katerina Milesi

Graphic Design:
Katerina Milesi

Visual Arts assistant:
Ioannis Sarris

Special thanks to Dean Helena Maragou, Niki Kladakis, Dr. Mary Cardaras, Ioanna Papapavlou, Dr. Christina Mamakos, and Maria Lalou.

Thanks to Niky Theodorou for logistical assistance, Maria Petrou for artwork conservation, George Papastogiannoudis and Nikolaos Fronimos for the Marketing and PR of the exhibition, Michalis Orontis and the security team, George Kyrodimos, John Fetalidis, Victor Zafeiropoulos, as well as Haris Gialelis, Christos Mantzios, Antonis Kontopoulos, Dimitris Fakinos, Stavros Theofilou, Vasilis Palaiogiannis, Manolis Sideris, Stelios Teloniatis, Giannis Gerakellis, John Poulakis, Stavros Karadimitriou, Alekos Potamianos, Giannis Kontopoulos and Takis Moschidis for the technical support.

202511Dec14:3015:30Designing for Uncomfort Zones: Creativity, Connection, and Co-learning in Higher Education14:30 - 15:30

Event Details

When:
Thursday, December 11, 2025 | 14:30-15:30
Where:
DC Faculty Lounge (ACG) with Online Attendance via Zoom
Organized by:
Frances Rich School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences & School of Psychology and Human Development
Deree – The American College of Greece

About the event

What does it mean to teach and learn in the “uncomfort zone”, those spaces of uncertainty, constraint, and rapid change that define online education today? This talk invites learning designers, graduate students and faculty from all disciplines to explore how such spaces can unlock new forms of creativity, connection, and co-learning.

Drawing on the personal creativity manifesto (Nerantzi, 2019) and key contributions from Craft (2008), Jackson (1996), hooks (1994), and others, we will examine how imagination and inventiveness help us make sense of our teaching experiences and shape our face-to-face, and online practices. We will look at how creativity can flourish within constraints, supporting educators’ motivation to design stimulating, open, and collaborative learning experiences (Nerantzi & Thomas, 2019; Atenas et al., 2025). Central to this are vulnerability and trust, which lay the foundations for meaningful relationships and vibrant learning communities (Brantmeier, 2013; Armellini et al., 2021).

We will discuss practical strategies and design prompts to foster creative engagement, build inclusive learning communities, and embrace uncertainty “at the edge of chaos” (Kleiman, 2011). We will also consider what the arrival of AI means for today’s education: how public AI and open practices can amplify learning (UNESCO, 2024) and how creativity may increasingly become a shared space between humans and machines (Celis Bueno et al., 2025; Mateson, 2025).

This event is open to educators and researchers across disciplines.

For inquiries, please contact: Dr. Maria Avgerinou, Director- MA in Learning Design and Technology at [email protected]

About the speaker

Prof. Chrissi Nerantzi (NTF, CATE, PFHEA)
Dr. Chrissi Nerantzi (NTF, CATE, PFHEA) is Professor of Creative and Open Education in the School of Education and Senior Lead for the Knowledge Equity Network at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. She also co-chairs the ICDE Open Education Network. A GO-GN alumna and an internationally recognised scholar in creative and open education, she has built a rich career as an educator, programmer, translator, academic development consultant, and educational innovator.

Dr. Nerantzi is an exceptionally active researcher who has led numerous open, cross-sector professional development and educational initiatives (created with and for educators and students across institutions and countries), which have endured over time. She is the founder of the internationally award-winning #creativeHE community. The open, collective project genAI, a #creativeHE initiative she coordinates, received the Open Education Excellence Award in the Open Curation/Repository category from OEGlobal. Her current open, interactive project, Learning with AI, invites students to take on the role of curators by collecting examples of how they use artificial intelligence in their learning journeys.

• Email: [email protected]

Website: Chrissi Nerantzi, my development space | LinkedIn | Googlescholar | Researchgate | ORCID

The event is free and open to the students and faculty of ACG.

202511Dec19:00Pillars of Democracy Town Hall: The example of Zohran Mamdani19:00