Anna Achiola
Biography
Anna Achiola lives in Rhodes and is a free-lance event producer and manager, working in both the event (cultural, corporate & sports) and film industries. She is currently a postgraduate student on the Culture and Documentary Production Masters program of the University of the Aegean.
She specializes in the creation of living history events for the implementation of which she founded the “Medieval Rose” (M.R.) cultural association in 2005, where she is still an elected president. For the last 17 years, she has been the Creative Director and CEO of the Medieval Festival of Rhodes and the voluntary designer and organizer for the M.R. association’s educational programs on cultural heritage for adults.
In 2021 she was trained on the Time Travel method during an intense training program and conference of the “Bridging Ages” international network in Giresun, Turkey, via the Erasmus+ Courses and Training program.
Talk Details
Time travel to create reflection
In winter 2022, the Medieval Rose Association designed a project, using the Time Travel method, inspired by the poem “The Plague of Rhodes” by Emmanouil Georgillas, a 15th c. scholar and clergyman from Rhodes. It was the first time this method would be applied in a group of people in the local community and a medieval poem, regarding the Black Death pandemic of the middle ages, seemed to be a good idea to create reflections on the recent covid-19 situation.
Initially, an invitation was sent out to school teachers and trainers, from all forms of education, to participate in this program. Then they took part in a role-play, dressed in period clothes and “traveled” to the Middle Ages, specifically to the year 1499, when Rhodes was plagued by the Black Death and its population had been decimated. Through this experience, reflections were created about the recent coronavirus pandemic that led to useful conclusions.