An expert in geospatial technologies and geography could not be missing from MedINA’s team, and that’s Thymios Dimopoulos.
When Thymios talks about the landscape, he makes us feel like an inseparable part of it – as if we can become one with the landscape. As an architect who has been involved in master planning studies at various scales, he focuses on landscape research and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
Read the stories that connect him to MedINA and the landscape…
«My collaboration with MedINA started about 10 years ago and my first thought at the time was: what they do seems interesting, but what are they really doing here at MedINA? Today I feel I can clearly describe some of the more complex issues that MedINA is dealing with. I feel that I am participating in the vision of the founder of the organisation, Thymio Papayannis, which, as in any vision, sees refutation waiting in one corner and hope in the other.
The organisation, over the years, has moved from the theoretical concept that humans are at the centre of socio-environmental systems and solutions to the challenges facing the environment and landscapes today, to working with the local and scientific communities in this direction.
I remember, characteristically, when I was in a border area in Pogoniani, Ioannina, in autumn 2022, the descriptions of the transhumant pastoralists about the “other” side, which added mythical dimensions to the landscape. This intangible border condition, a political construct, left a deep imprint on both people and the natural landscape. Although I had been on the other side of the border, at that moment I was standing on the edge, on the fringe. It was a truly experiential encounter of landscape as a mental construct.
Moreover, the contact with the mountains of Pindos and the people who live and work there, during the Medscapes project, provided me with a new understanding of rural space. On the one hand I was fascinated by the remoteness of the mountain landscapes, on the other hand I was demystified about the relationship between the people who worked there and these landscapes. I was able to see a complex system of relations between humans and the natural environment; what presence means, what absence means, the traces of the past…
This year, MedINA celebrates 20 years from its foundation; I wish that local communities continue to trust and support us in our actions and, at the same time, that the solutions we propose have better results and find wider application»!
