LIGHTING THE MEMORIES / WAVES OF LIGHT PPC: MEGALOPOLIS

Description

The Greek National Opera’s online festival Waves of Light, in collaboration with the PPC and curated by Giorgos Koumendakis, features the first series of site-specific performances inspired by the Megalopolis Steam Power Station.

Lighting the Memories
Anna Frengidou - Department of Performing and Digital Arts at the University of the Peloponnese
Lighting the Memories focuses on the transition from operational mode to complete deactivation.
In a black-and-white photograph from the past, little children curiously observe the power pillars of a factory that has definitely changed their lives.
Today, with technology having advanced so much, the factory is closing down. This deactivation refers not only to the building’s cessation of operations but also to the dissolution of entire groups of people who, after many years of collaboration, are suddenly scattered. How does someone, who has dedicated half their life to this site, truly feel, when they close the door behind them for the last time?
The piece attempts to capture this melancholic transition by focusing on the lights that gradually go out and the engines that stop operating. Images are accompanied by the electric sounds of engines, alarms, footsteps, and voices echoing in the empty space. In the end, we hear the characteristic sound of a unit being shut down, contrasted with the everlasting memory of a photograph.

The Greek National Opera assigned the organisation of a cross-university / interdisciplinary arts workshop focused on the Megalopolis Steam Power Station to the Department of Performing and Digital Arts at the University of the Peloponnese, involving eight university arts departments from across Greece. As part of the online festival titled Waves of Light, 20 young artists and artistic teams from university departments throughout Greece drew inspiration from the striking sites of the old PPC factory in Megalopolis to create 20 new site-specific digital works for GNO TV, the GNO’s digital platform. These works are grouped into various genres that fall within the broader fields of performing, visual, and digital arts. The music and scripts in these works are inspired by the spaces, history, and people who worked there.
Participating in this workshop were students from the following departments: Department of Music Studies (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Department of Visual and Applied Arts (University of Western Macedonia), Department of Culture and Creative Media and Industries (University of Thessaly), Department of Theatre Studies (University of Patras), Department of Sound and Image Arts (Ionian University – undergraduate and postgraduate programmes), and the Athens School of Fine Arts.
PPC, a leader in Greece’s electrification through its emblematic factories, has evolved into an active cultural agent, offering its historical sites as a canvas for contemporary artistic creation. Through the Waves of Light online festival, PPC contributes to repurposing industrial landmarks into vibrant reference points between the past and the future, where energy meets art.