Teaching Staff

Yannis Ziogas was born in Thessaloniki (Greece, 1962). His main visual practices are painting, installation work and walking. He is Professor at the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, School of Visual Arts, University of Western Macedonia. He studied Math (BS University of Athens) and received his Master’s in Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts (1991) in New York; He holds a PhD from the University of the Aegean (2013). Ηe has realized twenty two solo exhibitions and has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Greece and internationally He has worked in residencies in New York and taught as a visiting lecturer in many Universities in Greece and abroad. His work has been reviewed nationally and internationally (New York Times, Artnews, Sculpture, Giornalle dell’ arte). He is the author of several essays on art theory and of the books The Byzantine Malevich, Tarkovsky in Chalkis, Censorship in Visual Arts, the Diary of a 407/80, Forbidden! Censorship of Visual Artworks in Greece 1949-2016. Since 2007 he organizes the artistic process Visual March to Prespes. He has organized International Conferences on Contemporary Aesthetics with an emphasis on Walking Art (The most recent one of it being the Encounters/Conference Art/Walking Bodies/Walking Practices, Prespes 2019, and the e-publication Walking Art/Walking Aesthetics, Interartive, 2018).

Graduated from the Department of History and Archeology, School of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1985). Master Degree on History of Art (1993) and a Dr. on the same subject by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1998). Since 2006 adjunct lecturer and since 2013 assistant professor in “Modern Greek Art”, in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, School of Fine Arts, University of Western Macedonia. Her work is published in books, conference proceedings, peer reviewed journals, collective works. She has curated art exhibitions and she has designed and implemented educational museum programs. She has participated in research projects related to the study of folk art. Ηer research interests concern folk painting, Greek art of the 20th century, contemporary Greek and Balkan art. Since 2011 he has been coordinating in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Kozani the Summer Art Workshop at the Archaeological Museum of Aiani. Member of the coordinating committee of the “Institute of Traditional Architecture and Cultural Heritage” of the University Research Center “TIMENOS” – University of Western Macedonia. Member of: AICA, Society of Greek Art Historians, Society of Western Macedonian Studies, Museum of Contemporary Art of Florina.

He works as a Sculptor-Video Artist. He teaches at the 3-Dimensional Applications / Installation and Decorative Arts Studio of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts in Florina, and he taught Digital Arts in the same Department the years 2006-2011. He has a degree in Sculpture from Loughborough University School of Art and Design in England, and a Masters Degree (MSc) in Contemporary Art and Art Theory from Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. He participates in marble and sculpture symposia and has also participated in group exhibitions in Greece and abroad. He is a member of the Greek Chamber of Fine Arts and he also regularly publishes material in art magazines and publications. He is a member of the Board and an Editor in Chief of the Dimitris Kalamaras Foundation, a National Endowment whose main purpose is the promotion of art education and the research in the Teaching Methodology of Art.

Sofy Papadopoulou followed studies in Digital arts (Master in Digital Arts, Athens School of Fine Arts, 2007), Digital printmaking (Master in a project, Printmaking, State Scholarships Foundation, Athens School of Fine Arts, 2008), Printmaking (Diploma in printmaking, Athens School of Fine Arts, 2002), Painting (Diploma in painting, Athens School of Fine Arts, 2005), Performance and Video art (University of Barcelona-Faculty of Fine Arts, Spain, 2001). From 1999 she has participated in Greek and international exhibitions and art projects. In 2002 she formed COM.ODD.OR visual enhancement group. COM.ODD.OR focuses on printmaking, multimedia installations, live visual performances, interactive multimedia and digital arts.
COM.ODD.OR exhibitions and projects: Metropolitan Museum in Tokyo Exhibition of Greek contemporary printmaking in Japan 2019, Onassis Cultural Centre WHO[‘S] IS WHO[ON 2018, Athens & Epidaurus Festival The Awakening of Memory 2017-2018 & George Souris – Now 2016, Athens Concert Hall Prometheus Bound 2017, 2nd Biennale Contemporary Art Thessaloniki 2009, Bjcem 12th Biennale of Young Artist Italy 2005. She is an Assistant Professor in Printmaking, Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Western Macedonia.

Scientific Educational Personnel of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the School of Fine Arts of the University of Western Macedonia with the subject “Painting”. Theodoros Zyrpiadis graduated from the Painting Department of the Carraras School of Fine Arts in Italy. The subject of the dissertation was Folk painting in the region of Western Macedonia through the work of the painter Nikolaos Papagiannis from the village of Kleisoura (1870 -1953). Since 2003 he permanently appointed public education. From 2009 until 2011 he taught as a contractor (ΠΔ 407/80), in 2012 in the Laboratories of Lifelong Learning and in 2017 with a transfer to the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Western Macedonia. He has presented his artistic work in individual and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad. His works are in public and private collections. The object of study and research focuses mainly on the technology of materials and constructions.

Nikos Dionysopoulos graduated from the Department of History and Archeology at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He continued his studies with a scholarship at the Department of History of Art at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade, from which he received a Master’s Degree in Byzantine and Medieval Serbian Art. He worked on his doctoral dissertation at the University of Thessaly, Department of History, Archeology, and Social Anthropology, on: “Portraits of Secular Donors in Mural Painting of Mount Athos (14th- early 16th C.). The Historical and Ideological Dimension of the Iconography of Orthodox Ruler in the Athonite Environment”. From 2002 to 2009 he was transferred from  Greek Secondary Education to the Department of Modern Greek Studies at the Faculty of Philology,  University of Belgrade, where he taught Byzantine culture, Modern Greek literature, and translation of Serbian literary texts into Greek. Since 2017 he has been teaching at the School of Fine Arts, Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Western Macedonia (Laboratory Teaching Staff member). His research interests focus mainly on the iconographic, historical, and cultural approaches to the work of art. He has published articles in Greek and foreign scientific journals and has participated in conferences in Greece and abroad.

Sotiris N. Chtouris is professor of sociology and a founding member of the Department of Sociology and the University of the Aegean. He studied, worked  as a Sociologist and Researcher at the University and the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research from 1979 to 1985. in . He established the Research Laboratory of Social and Cultural and Digital Documentation in 1993, which for two decades has been an important institution for the documentation  and promotion of the Musical and Island Culture of the Aegean and the publication of a series of Musical archives in the context  of the Aegean  cultural and social heritage, entitled: “Music, Crossroads of the Aegean”: “Lesvos” , Exantas pub.2000 and  “Lemnos”, Ion pub. 2009. “Ikaria” (cd & e-book 2012). Nowadays  he is president of the Inter-institutional Postgraduate Program; Applied Clinical Sociology and Art  of the University of the Aegean in collaboration with the School of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Western Macedonia. Some other  important books and research monographs: “Rational Symbolic Networks”, Nissos pub. 2004. “Young people in Greece today”. Thessaloniki, Epikentro pub. 2017. “Conceptual and aesthetic dialogue in a of art. The method of dialectical  EnVision” , DemouErgia pub. 2020.

Panagiotis Dafiotis is a visual artist and researcher in the field Art Education specializing in new, hybrid art-based research methodologies. He holds an arts-led PhD and a Master in Art and Design in Education from the Institute of Education, University of London, School of Arts. and Humanities / Department of ‘Art, Design and Museology in Education’, concluded in 2011 and 2006 respectively. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the same University (visiting research associate) until 2012. He has teaching experience as an art teacher in secondary education (1998-2017). He has participated in the elaboration and evaluation of art education curricula at the Institute of Educational Policy / IEP (2014-2016). He has been teaching at the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki since 2017 the compulsory courses related to Αrt Education and to the acquisition of pedagogical competence. He regularly publishes the results of his research in international conferences and journals. He exhibits his artistic work related to his theoretical research in Greece and abroad.

Kostis Stafylakis is a visual artist and art theorist. He graduated from the Athens School of Fine Arts. He holds an MA in Modern Art and Theory (Uni. Essex) and an MA in Continental Philosophy (Uni. Essex). He received his doctorate from the Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University (Athens). He was a post-doc researcher at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2011-2012) and a post-doc researcher at ASFA (2017-2019). He has taught “Research-based Art” at the Unit of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Athens School of Fine Arts. Between 2014 and 2019, he taught “Fine Arts” and “Art theory” at the Department of Architecture, University of Patras. He was co-curator of the 6th Athens Biennale ANTI, the 4th Athens Biennale AGORA, Weasel Dance at Goethe-Institut Athen, “Twisting C(r)ash” at the Batiment d’Art Contemporain, Geneva and more. He has curated various shows, such as “Fuyuhiko Takata”, ViZ Laboratory for Visual Culture and “A politics of lies”, Circuits & Currents (2016). Since 2019, he is Artistic Director of ViZ Laboratory for Visual Culture. He is the author of various essays on the intersection of contemporary art and the Political, in anthologies and journals. He has presented papers at various symposia across the globe. Alongside Vana Kostayola, he runs ΚavecS (www.kavecs.com), an artistic experiment with mimetic subversion. His moste recent solo show was Chloroquine Juggalo (KEIV Athens, 2021)). In 2017, KavecS presented a retrospective of their work at Neue Ravensburger Kunstverein. Some of his recent artistic participations include Toxicfest, Tick Tack Antwerpen 2021, Oblique Fields, Gossamer Fog, London (2021), Enter: New Commissions, Onassis Foundation 2020, Kultursymposium Weimar 2019, the “Festival of Democracy”, Geneva (2017), Waiting for the Barbarians, Athens Biennale (2017), “Omonoia” 5th to 6th Athens Biennial (2016), 1st NSK Biennial of Folk Art (2014), Hell as Pavillion, Palais de Tokyo (2013), Truth is Concrete, Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2012), 3d Athens Biennale (2011), Media Impact at the 4th Moscow Biennial (2011).