Digital Cyclades: Sifnos Workshop
Digital Cyclades: Sifnos’ pottery tradition documented through a two-day participatory datathon
A participatory documentation workshop dedicated to recording and highlighting Sifnos’ pottery tradition and contributing to the development of the Sifnos Pottery Museum in Artemonas.
30-31 October 2026, 10:00-17:00
Dragatsis Estate, Artemonas, Sifnos
Free admission with advance registration. Limited places available.
Register here (in Greek).
Photographic archives, historical records, film footage, ceramic objects, and local memories come together in a two-day documentation workshop and datathon, organised by Archipelago Network on October 30 and 31 2026 in Artemonas village.
The aim is to record and preserve valuable knowledge surrounding the island’s longstanding pottery tradition: people and workshops, techniques and tools, as well as the stories connected to the production and use of Sifnian ceramics. Documentation produced during the workshop will inform development of the permanent exhibition of the Sifnos Pottery Museum in Artemonas, connecting research and digital documentation with the presentation of the island’s ceramic heritage to a wider public.
The workshop takes place as part of Archipelago Network’s Digital Cyclades project, in collaboration with the Municipality of Sifnos and the Sifnos Potters’ Union, and invites members of the local community, potters, and volunteers to actively participate in the documentation process. The workshop is realized as part of Sifnos’s membership in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the field of craft and folk art.
In collaboration with the Wikimedia Community User Group Greece, the workshop includes a demonstration of cataloguing and uploading material using Wikidata, an open source data tool used by Archipelago Network for community-based documentation.
The workshop is open to all, and no prior knowledge of the field is required. Fluency in Greek required.
Three collections open up the history of Sifnos pottery
At the heart of the datathon are three significant collections: the photographic archive of the Sifnos Potters’ Union, featuring material from both active and historic pottery workshops on the island; the Cosmas and Ariadne Xenakis Ceramics Collection, comprising handmade functional ceramics collected from 1966 onwards by artist and architect Cosmas Xenakis and his wife, alongside related photographic material and Xenakis’ documentation notebooks; and the Antonis Troullos Folklore Collection, featuring photographs, film footage, and ceramic objects connected to the island’s pottery tradition.
Participants will be invited to identify people, workshops, techniques, tools and objects, enrich descriptions of the archival material, and contribute relevant knowledge and testimonies. In parallel, the research team will conduct interviews and collect oral histories from individuals and organisations across Sifnos. The material will be catalogued using open-data tools such as Wikibase and linked to the organization’s digital repository for Cycladic cultural heritage.
From “Pottery of Sifnos” to “Digital Cyclades”
Since 2023, Archipelago Network has been systematically documenting Sifnos’ pottery tradition. With the support of the Greek Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Sifnos, it has implemented the “Pottery of Sifnos” project, including digitisation of privately held pottery archives, the production of twelve short documentaries on active pottery workshops across the island, and interdisciplinary field research.
The datathon marks the next step in this research and forms part of the ongoing “Digital Cyclades” project, a broader programme dedicated to safeguarding and providing open access to the local, oral, and community-based knowledge of the Cyclades, implemented with the financial support of the Greek Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Digital Governance. Through a series of documentation workshops across the islands, the project builds a bilingual digital knowledge infrastructure for the modern cultural heritage of the Cyclades.