About us
The Draumar collective project was launched in Greece at the end of April 2020 by visual anthropologist Alessandra D’Onofrio and journalist Dafni Scaglioni. The historian Leoni P. Thanasoula joined the group from September 2020.
Draumar aspires, through the collection of dreams, to map the collective fantasy in Greece at the time of the pandemic. Its purpose is to record the effect of this unprecedented condition on the collective subconscious and the creative representation of the experience in collaboration with artists.
It all started in Italy on the initiative of Professor of Anthropology at the University of Palermo Matteo Meschiari and author Antonio Vena who began recording the dreams of the Italians during the first quarantine period.
Why Draumar
In Icelandic draumar means dreams, but there appears also to be a link between the words dream and trauma. Pandemic, quarantine, self-isolation, social distancing and changes in every facet of life that appear to affect us for a long time create an unprecedented collective trauma on a global level.
Thus, through this collective experiment, our subconscious social narrative of the unprecedented times we live in can be revealed, the unedited material of our subconscious can be acquired and transformed into creative and artistic expression, while at the same time partially healing the trauma we experience at the outset.
Call for co-creation
Perhaps the most important characteristic of Draumar is its collective dimension, as only through the contribution of all can this essential mapping be achieved. However, this contribution is not limited to the recording of dreams, but also involves co-creation. Draumar is therefore an “open call” to all to share our dream experience, heal our wounds and transform them into creation.
Together we can also pass on to the “History of the Future” an invaluable legacy and give substance to the “invisible history” of our time, the one that will not be taught in the books of the next century but will surely have shaped it. A legacy similar to that left to us by Charlotte Beradt when she recorded the dreams of the world during the Third Reich in the 1930s, thus capturing a trace of the trauma created by the authoritarian regime to the German people.
The dream time capsule has opened and is waiting for your contribution!
Dafni Scaglioni
Dafni Scaglioni is a journalist specializing in new media, investigative journalism, documentary and contemporary audiovisual storytelling. She has been working at ERT since 2001 in news and television broadcasts, as a journalist, researcher, editor-in-chief, presenter and producer of multi-media content. In the past 20 years or so, she has focused in parallel on vulnerable social groups and their rights, developing or participating in a variety of activities.
After her degree from the Department of Communication and Media of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens, she went on to the master’s degree in Communication and New Journalism at the Open University of Cyprus. She is a member of the Data Journalism research team of the European Institute of Communication (ECI) and a fellow of the S. Niarchos Foundation in the “Newsroom Essentials” educational programme of Columbia Journalism School, held in 2019 at iMEdD (incubator for Media Education and Development).
She has participated in a multitude of collective projects, as she deeply believes that “history is written by the groups”. In this context, she has written and translated texts for theatrical documentaries based on her own research and personal interviews.
She is a constant dreamer and recently decided to stop chasing the dreams of the day for a while and listen more carefully to those of the night, co-creating Draumar. She can’t wait to see where they lead her!
Alessandra D’Onofrio
An Italian-Greek with roots also in England, Alessandra D’Onofrio is a social anthropologist, director and animator in participatory storytelling workshops. She uses documentary, animation, theatre and storytelling as collaborative methods of research on the subjects of migration, imagination and memory.
Since 2006, in her social and cultural work in Italy she has applied similar methods to create the framework, wherein it was possible to share personal and collective stories, with the establishment of the Fandema Community Theatre Group in Milan, the Italian Language School for Immigrants Asnada, and the MAdRI narrative project on motherhood.
After her master’s degree in visual anthropology, in June 2017 she completed her PhD through the “Anthropology, Media and Performance” programme at the University of Manchester (United Kingdom).
Her work emerges from that fertile ground between anthropology and art, theory and creative practices, academy and participatory community actions. She has created short and feature documentaries, which have been screened at international festivals, civil society events, as well as in schools and universities for educational purposes.
Fascinated by the world of fantasy and dreams, she firmly believes that we should invent modern ways to share our dreams, as what happens when we sleep represents half our social life, and should not be confined to the private sphere. By co-creating Draumar, she dreams of recreating a public space in which we can collectively consider how dreams reflect the radical changes of our times.
Leoni Thanasolula
Leoni Thanasoula is the creator of The Precious Tree biography + culture. She has studied History (American College of Greece), Classical Literature (The University of Leeds), Studies in Greek Culture (Greek Open University) and Museumology (University of the Aegean). She is involved in the teaching and study of autobiographical speech, while working as a consultant in personalised autobiographical writings.
Her activities and collaborations are concentrated in the field of cultural, learning and educational institutions and foundations (Cultural Center Stavros Niarchos Foundation, National Bank Educational Foundation, etc.) and all categories of libraries (public and private) in Greece and abroad. She is the founder of the cultural organisation “Hellenic School of Proussos” in order to promote and protect the cultural heritage. She has curated a variety of exhibitions and events.
One of the fields of her research interests is auto/biographical works (written, visual, graphic), autobiographical narration and her interaction with the world of the Arts. She sees the dream world as an inexhaustible source of knowledge and inspiration and believes in its healing power. She participates in Draumar’s team in order to explore and create a more dreamlike reality through Art and Science.