We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christina Priavolou. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christina below.

Christina , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My most meaningful project dates back to 2018. At that time, in collaboration with Habibi.Works, an intercultural makerspace that brings together refugees and Greek locals in the North of Greece (https://habibi.works/), we co-produced a portable chicken coop. The aim was to help the local refugee community serve their daily needs.

First, we visited people from the local refugee community who demonstrated their cultivations and chicken places. We took photos and discussed issues they face in their daily activities. Once we documented relevant problems, we came across solutions that have been developed by other communities in other parts of the world. We proposed the idea of having a chicken coop that takes the grass parasites from the earth, fertilizes the earth, and enriches chickens’ diet, which sounded interesting to them. Together with a local expert in wood construction, we started building a portable chicken coop that could be transported with the help of two people.

Today I still feel this was one of the most meaningful projects I participated in. Working together with people having different skills, cultural identities, and mindsets is a valuable experience for everyone. Such collaborative processes allow people to integrate based on their own interests and backgrounds, making the values of respect, solidarity, and equality more relevant than ever.

Christina , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born and raised in a fully isolated mountainous city in NW Greece, where scarce resources were available for the locals to meet their daily needs. Later, during my professional work as a civil engineer, I realized how unsustainable contemporary building practices are.

In an attempt to find alternatives, I turned my attention to more sustainable construction approaches by implementing participatory methods, open designs, and shared tools for society-changing. This was the time when I joined the P2P Lab collective, an interdisciplinary research collective in NW Greece that focuses on the commons.

As a core member of the P2P Lab research collective and an independent researcher, I work on interdisciplinary research focusing on commons-based practices. To bridge the gap between theory and practice, organizing workshops and events for reflection. coproduction, and action is a key element of our approach in the P2P lab. Our main goal is to investigate new modes of production that seem to be decentralised, on-demand, and locally controlled but at the same time developed and shared on a global basis.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect is the delight that comes from realizing that through collaboration and sharing practices it is possible to be self-sufficient to some extent by co-producing technologies that satisfy our daily needs. Thus, having people with various skills and backgrounds working together could increase the benefits of such collaborative processes.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The main goal of my approach is the creation of multiple distributed and networked communities able to address local challenges through shared resources. This could be achieved through the combined use of open design commons with distributed manufacturing technologies available in local makerspaces.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Christina_Priavolou
• Other: https://www.p2plab.gr/en/cpriavolou