Athens, Greece

Thursday 7 May 2026 at 9-11 EET  – Design Studio 3 –

P-R-E stands for Practitioners, Researchers and Educators. “Practitioners meeting Researchers meeting Educators”, powered by Cumulus Association and IxDA, aims to encourage focused conversations on identifying critical elements that further capacity building for designers, at different stages of their careers, from studies to professional practice to lifelong learning. These meetings take the form of working groups in partnership with institutions, academia, corporations, and policymakers, who are willing to push the global P-R-E agenda.

The Cumulus+IxDA partnership since 2017 – with institutions and organisations from different parts of the world – creates diversified and constructed spaces for conversations building on the synergy of education and research expertise, brought by Cumulusians, along with the practitioners’ perspectives brought by IxDA and the local partners  – https://ixda.org/ixda-cumulus/ 

Tekhne
Tekhne (tékhnē) is an Ancient Greek term translating to craft, art, skill, or technical knowledge. It refers to practical knowledge, principles, or methods used to create, produce, or do something, rather than just understanding it theoretically. Aristotle defined it as a “state involving true reason concerned with production. (Wikipedia)
Tekhne is the root word for “technology” and “technical,” but in its classical sense, it bridges the gap between expert skill and practical wisdom.
For this edition 2026, where roots and routes are colliding in Athens, P-R-E continues its route by bending the corners of how to interconnect knowledge by practitioners and researchers and educators.
The collision in the room will focus on AI revisited by Tekhne.
Contributors will bring their practice of AI and GenAI and how it impacts the production of knowledge and the crafting of education, i.e. the sharing of knowledge.

Contributors / speakers

_ Rozina Vavetsi – Associate Professor Department of Digital Art & Design NYIT New York Institute of Technology – Reviving Cultural Heritage Through Narratives, Recipes and Design. – This presentation examines how graphic design can function as a tool for cultural preservation, storytelling, and community engagement. Developed during my Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, this interdisciplinary initiative brought together approximately 142 students, faculty, and community members to explore cultural identity through recipes, personal narratives, and collaborative design practices. The project culminated in a series of illustrated cookbooks that operated simultaneously as design artifacts, archives of memory, and platforms for dialogue. Framed by questions of heritage, transnational identity, and postcolonial exchange, this presentation reflects on how design can bridge past and future, analog and digital, and local and global contexts. It argues for graphic design as a process of cultural translation—one that acknowledges roots while creating new routes for shared understanding and collective resilience.

_ Dr. Mahmoud Abushawali – Assistant Professor, Advertising Communication \ Head of Advertising Creative Design, University of Business and Technology UBT Jeddah Saudi-Arabia – Teaching Advertising Creativity in the Age of Generative AI: A Practitioner–Educator Perspective. – As an advertising educator and creative practitioner, based in Saudi Arabia, you will try to reflect on how generative AI is reshaping:
• the teaching of advertising creativity and creative thinking,
• the role of craft, critical judgment, and authorship in AI-assisted creative processes,
• and how educators can bridge professional practice and academic learning while maintaining ethical, cultural, and pedagogical depth.

_ Sofia Mytilinaiou – University of West-Attica (Athens) & University of the Aegean (Mytilene), Greece – An insight via UX/UI to AI and further. – As a designer and a professor, I am trying to balance the expansion via AI tools to create hybrid forms of reality and at the same time deepen my knowledge for the roots of design and communication. My vision is like a tree, the more I develop – and teach – about the basic concepts and principles, the less the AI world seems to be like an incredibly impressive world I cannot control but always run in vain to keep up with the endless possibilities. My perspective is that we need both roots and new branches to create meaningful and fulfilling experiences for the world. Sofia Mytilinaou is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Graphic Design & Visual Communication (School of Applied Arts and Culture) at the University of West Attica with the subject “Graphic Design-Interface and User Experience Design”. She teaches in the under-graduate and postgraduate program of the Department and in the postgraduate program of the University of the Aegean (Department of Cultural Technology & Communication). Sofia specializes in the fields of Graphic and UI/UX Design, with passion for innovative ideas and design of innovative experiences in mixed reality environments. She holds a PhD in Cultural Technology and Communication (University of the Aegean) studying audience active participation in mixed reality environments. Her research work has been published in international peer-reviewed conferences and books, focusing mainly on cultural studies, design, active participation and user experience

_ Dirk Reynders Head of PXL-MAD School of Arts PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Hasselt Belgium – This project is about how image making, fashion, and visibility work in Daveyton, a township in South Africa, and why this challenges the theories that are often used in fashion studies and visual culture. It argues that ideas such as realism, masculinity, and formalism do not always fit this context, because they are often based on Western institutions and ways of thinking. The project shows that in Daveyton, fashion and image making are not only about style or appearance, but also about dignity, recognition, survival, and social status in a place shaped by apartheid history, inequality, and informal public life. It also reflects on the author’s own position as a white European researcher and argues that places like Daveyton should not just be used as examples, but should help reshape theory itself.

P-R-E architects & moderators
_ Fréderic Degouzon
_ Eija Salmi
_ Alok Nandi – online

The P-R-E workshop is part of the Cumulus Athens 2026 conference.