Echoes of the Aegean

Echoes of the Aegean brings together sounds, images and flavors of past and present, celebrating the communities of captains, fishers and boatbuilders of the Cycladic islands in the context of Art Explora’s October 2025 Piraeus festival. This immersive tribute to living maritime cultures is conceived by Archipelago Network with the artistic direction of Jacob Moe, AN’s founder and director. 

A durational soundscape featuring island songs of work and leisure, interviews with seafarers, boatyard ambiences and fishing expeditions is broadcast simultaneously in Piraeus and in Syros in collaboration with Aigaio FM 95.8. Excerpts of historic and contemporary films sourced from islands throughout the Cyclades form a parallel screening program, linking the islands and mainland. As the sun sets on Piraeus, ingredients sourced from land and sea appear around a shared table in a culinary journey prepared by Syros-based chefs Theodoros Kassavetis and Stelios Theodorakis.

Jacob Moe

Jacob Moe is a filmmaker and archivist. He is founder and director of Archipelago Network, an initiative leading preservation, documentation and dissemination of audiovisual heritage and material knowledge in the Cyclades islands. He studied Politics at Pomona College in Los Angeles (BA) and Social Documentation at the University of California, Santa Cruz (MFA). Between 2013-2022 he co-founded and led the Syros International Film Festival, an outdoor, site-specific showcase for a wide spectrum of cinema in traditional and repurposed island sites. His research practice includes radio and film documentary media production, with a focus on peer-to-peer methodologies for knowledge-building in island communities.

‍Archipelago Network (A-N)

Archipelago Network (A–N) is a research and documentation initiative dedicated to audiovisual heritage and knowledge production in the Cyclades islands of the Aegean Sea. Since its founding in 2019, A–N takes up the Cyclades as a living laboratory, addressing social and environmental challenges specific to island communities through trans-local partnerships and cultural action. At a time when climate change, overtourism and unregulated development threaten the Cyclades’ unique cultural identity and biodiversity, A–N works to protect and promote the resilience of these rural communities through field research, archival preservation, public programs and continued enrichment of an open-access digital repository of insular regional memory.