Panina Karydi was born in Spring of 1985. She is a postgraduate student at the Department of Communications, Media and Culture (Panteion University, Athens) specializing in Cultural Management, a graduate of the Department of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology (National and Kapodistrian University, Athens), major in Psychology, and a magna cum laude graduate of the BM classical piano performance at “Musical Horizons” Conservatoire, Athens. She works (2018 – now) for the Cultural Network of the Municipality of Athens (Athens Culture Net) and participated in the coordination, planning and implementation of the “Athens 2018 – World Book Capital”, City of Athens/UNESCO program.

She has been active in fields of Culture – or better yet Cultures- and Communication as a musician, a teacher, a producer and as a communication consultant since 2006, and she is a founding member of AnoMia (2017) artistic group, creating short films, video dance projects and live multimedia productions.

Her research and academic interests include: multimethodological approaches to media and cultural research -specializing in Social Network Analysis for the production and consumption of Culture, cultural diffusion and the role of Culture as a an accelerator to the social dimension of resilience while protecting cultural diversity.

Literary Activities

 –Athenian Book Itineraries (2019 – 2020): Athens Culture Net in collaboration with Greek Publishing Houses and with the support of O.S.D.E.L. created a series of Athenian Book Itineraries, designed by taking as a reference a favourite book and/or following a writer’s trace through Athens and through his/her texts. 19 different walking tours invite Athenians and visitors to re-discover the city and its secrets through books!

Writers, book professionals and literary scientists guide the participants through the neighborhoods of Athens showing them the hidden treasures of the city (historical and literary landmarks, cafes, bookstores and publishing houses, among others) and the places form which writers -of the past and present- drew their inspiration, highlighting the influence of the urban scene, culture and lifestyle.

– Athens 2018 – World Book Capital (2018 – 2019):

Through the organisation and implementation of the program she actively coordinated (organisation, communication) in more than 650 events celebrating reading with the intention of making books accessible to all socio-economic classes, of promoting knowledge, of inspiring, creating and offering incentives for reading, learning and for cultural expression.

Freedom of Speech Activities

In the context of “Athens 2018 – World Book Capital” (AWBC), several events and activities were related to Freedom of Speech, Artistic Expression and other rights. Indicatively:

-Dangerous Words (December 21st 2018): A collaboration between AWBC, the Municipal Theater of Piraeus and 30 different bookstores.

Writers, critics and readers participated in an event that evolved simultaneously into

30 bookstores around the city of Athens and the greater Attica region. The event consisted of readings of censored texts from different genres of literature, varying from erotic to politics, in order to highlight the -always critical- issue of freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

-The Future as a Project | Doxiadis in Skopje (December 20 2018 – February 17th 2019): catalogue in the context of a unique exhibition that highlighted for the first time in Greece Doxiadis’s extraordinary architectural work in the city of Skopje. Both the exhibition and the catalogue were  supported by AWBC, a bold move considering the political confrontation between Greece and Northern Macedonia, consistent with the value of freedom of speech.

-#TextMe_Fluffy Library. Atopos Center of Visual Culture. April 2018 – April 2019

Project that inaugurated a year of actions and events around the book and text in media arts. A special library was designed as a work in progress project described as a participatory installation, a collective fairy tale, that merged imaginary and real worlds, childhood memories and adult life, influenced by feminist and queer theories. #TextMe_FluffyLibrary occupied the rooms of Atopos CVC, incorporating in the main artwork the rich book collection of the organisation, which consists of more than 2.500 art and visual culture books. The project inaugurated an age-and-gender fluid cuddly environment that created another worldly reading and playing area for both young and old. Throughout the year seminars, performances, exhibitions, poetry slams, workshops and residencies were organised on a monthly basis.