The song of the garden (Schools)

The Vorres Museum proposes an original educational activity that combines intangible cultural heritage with the environment and acoustic ecology, drawing inspiration from the Museum’s Garden. The Garden of the Vorres Museum is a living archive of Mediterranean biodiversity, preserved and evolving since the 1960s. It is an in-between space, a “threshold” between the Museum and the city, connecting history with contemporary experience, art with technique, the natural with the human-made.

Through this program, middle and high school students will have the opportunity to discover the garden through its sounds. They will explore the relationships of coexistence between humans, plants, insects, and natural elements, uncovering the acoustic imprint of the ecosystem. The program focuses on environmental sounds that often go unnoticed: What stories are told by the rustling of leaves, the song of birds, the flow of water, or the vibration of stone? How do these sounds shape our relationship with the landscape?

The program aims to cultivate ecological empathy through experiential acoustic education, introducing students to the basic principles of Acoustic Ecology. Through active listening and sound mapping, students will experiment with contemporary techniques of recording soundscapes, linking experiential learning with sound art and environmental sciences.

The program includes a guided tour of the garden’s ecosystem and active listening exercises. Students will use special microphones to record environmental sounds and will receive the recordings as educational material that can be further used in the classroom. These recordings will serve as a reference point for discussions around the environment, biodiversity, as well as the connection of hearing with memory and cultural identity.

The program highlights the cultural significance of the soundscape, connecting nature, human presence, and the history of the landscape through the artistic exploration of sound. At the same time, it introduces the principles of Acoustic Ecology into the educational process, enhancing environmental awareness and developing listening and sound documentation skills. It promotes participatory learning, allowing students to actively contribute to the creation of a sound archive for the museum. In addition, the program encourages an experiential approach to cultural heritage through sensory experience, incorporating the acoustic dimension of cultural memory. In this way, it broadens the discussion of nature as cultural evidence and opens new perspectives in museum education and environmental awareness.

The song of the garden

Educational Program for schools

The program will be conducted by social anthropologist and sound artist George Samantas

Implementation period: From September until late November/early December
Target audience: Middle and High Schools
Duration: 90 minutes
Schedule: Weekday mornings
Times: 09:30–11:00 and/or 11:00–12:30

Participation cost: €5 per student

This workshop is part of the new series of educational programs titled “Materials, Techniques, and Memory in Contemporary Creation: The Garden and Pyrgi of the Vorres Museum as Carriers of Cultural Heritage.”

Educational program design/curation: Myrto Lavda

With the support and under the auspices: