Science, Art & the Spirit of HealingExploring how Neuroarts Amplifies our Humanity
Exploring how Neuroarts Amplifies our Humanity
4th New Eleusis Symposion
24–26 September 2026
Old Oil Mill Factory, Elefsina, Greece
with special sessions in Epidaurus
The 4th New Eleusis Symposion convenes as a unique international stakeholders’ gathering dedicated to envisioning and initiating a NeuroArts Hub in Athens–Eleusis. Rooted in the historic landscape of Eleusis, it brings together a diverse network of scientists, artists, physicians, therapists, policymakers, educators, philosophers, and cultural leaders to explore the rapidly evolving field of neuroarts and neuroaesthetics. At the intersection of contemporary research and ancient practices, the gathering seeks to plant the seeds for a living meeting place where science, art, and ancestral wisdom converge in service of healing, transformation, and the future of humanity. Through dialogue, performance, and embodied experience, participants are invited to reconnect with the original purpose of art: to heal, to reveal, to connect, to transform.
This year, the symposion is organised by the World Human Forum in collaboration with the NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative, Your Brain on Art, the University Mental Health, Neurosciences and Precision Medicine Research Institute “Costas Stefanis”, the International Network of Ancient Asclepieia – Routes of Healing, the Region of Attica, the Schwarzman Centre and Columbia Global Athens.
DAY 1 | EPIDAURUS VISIT
Discovering the Wisdom of the Asclepieia
Vassilis Lamprinoudakis Emeritus Professor of Archaeology; International Network of Ancient Asclepieia
Rüdiger Schaper Writer & journalist
Asclepieion of Epidaurus
Sensing the Space
Sokratis Sinopoulos Traditional Lyra Player
Nikos Xanthoulis Ancient Lyra Player
Asclepieion of Epidaurus
Hotel check-in
City of Ancient Epidaurus
Dinner
City of Ancient Epidaurus
DAY 2 | EPIDAURUS → ELEUSIS
Sunrise visit to the Little Theatre of Ancient Epidaurus
Snorkeling at sunken city of Epidaurus (optional)
Vassilis Lamprinoudakis Emeritus Professor of Archaeology; International Network of Ancient Asclepieia
Breakfast
Epidaurus hotels
SYMPOSION PART A
Old Olive Oil Mill Factory
Welcome Addresses
Adonis Georgiadis Minister of Health
Christina Kefalogianni Alternate Governor of the Attica Region
Georgios Georgopoulos Mayor of Eleusis
Plenary
Bridging Epidaurus and Eleusis
Gina Belafonte Artivist; President & CEO, Sankofa.org
Plenary
Setting the Stage and Connecting our Efforts
Susan Magsamen Founder & Executive Director, International Arts + Mind Lab, Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Co-Director, NeuroArts Blueprint
Alexandra Mitsotaki President & Co-Founder, World Human Forum
Nikos Stefanis MD, PhD, FRANZCP — Professor of Psychiatry, Athens University Medical School; Head, National Arts on Prescription Research Project
Plenary
From Eleusis to Epidaurus: When Healing Becomes Initiation
An archaeological–anthropological dialogue on ritual, the chthonic and human transformation
Vassilis Lamprinoudakis Emeritus Professor of Archaeology; International Network of Ancient Asclepieia
Pavlos Kavouras Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; Head of the UNESCO Chair “Anthropology of Traditional Music: Representing and Repositioning Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)”
Plenary
Uniting Voices - Choir Workshop
Lourdes Sánchez Director, Simón Bolívar National Choir and Academic Choral Program, El Sistema, Venezuela
Plenary
Elements of a Constellation
Short presentations by participants showing the scope of the topic
Plenary
Coffee Break
Immersive Healing Art Hubs — HAH
Embodied workshops
Breakout Groups
NeuroArts Blueprint — Introduction: The Power of Economic Evidence
Andrea Pamfilis Camp Lead Advisor, NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative
Anita Shinde Partner, Economic Advisory, Deloitte, Canada
Plenary
Neuroarts: What do we know? Therapeutic and Economic Evidence
1st Working Session
Breakout Groups
The Wisdom of the Odyssey
Phil Cousineau Writer, filmmaker, independent scholar, writing consultant
Plenary
"Human Requiem in Eleusis"
Film Projection
Jochen Sandig Cultural Entrepreneur & Co-Founder, World Human Forum
DAY 3 | ELEUSIS
Archaeological Site Visit
Efstathia Anesti & Aikaterini Stamouli Archaeologists, Ephorate of Antiquities of Western Attica
With the kind participation of Phil Cousineau Writer, filmmaker, independent scholar, writing consultant
SYMPOSION PART B
Old Olive Oil Mill Factory
Opening Remarks & Previous Day Synopsis
Gina Belafonte Artivist; President & CEO, Sankofa.org
Plenary
Arts, Spirituality & Healing
Maureen Goodman Programme Director, Brahma Kumaris UK; Brahma Kumaris representative, United Nations, Vienna
in conversation with
Anthony Bossis Clinical Psychologist & Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine
Plenary
Artistic and Research Practices & the Therapeutic Dimension
Exploring how artistic and research practices can collaborate to deepen our understanding of human experience
Oxford Schwarzman Centre panel:
John Best Co-founder, Loss><Gain; Founder, Big Dipper Productions
Kjartan Sveinsson Composer, musician, performer; Member, Sigur Ros
Barney Steel Founder & Director, Marshmallow Laser Feast
James Bulley Artist, musician, curator, and sound designer
moderated by Josie Bamford Executive Producer, Oxford University Cultural Programme
Plenary
Short Break
Immersive Healing Art Hubs — HAH
Embodied workshops
Breakout Groups
A common thread Our Principles, Challenges and Questions: What will guide us?
2nd Working Session
Breakout Groups
SYMPOSION PART C
Old Olive Oil Mill Factory
When Art Becomes Medicine: What Science Tells Us
Athanasios Dritsas Cardiologist, Deputy Director, Division of Cardiology, Onassis Hospital; Composer
Elisa Konofagou PhD — Robert and Margaret Hariri Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Radiology (Physics), Professor of Neurosciences (in Neurosurgery), Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University
Maria Majno Vice President, Sistema Europe; Director, Neuromusic Global Conferences, Mariani Foundation
Anthony Bossis Clinical Psychologist & Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine
Vanessa Weiss Coordination, Art and Medicine Network, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
moderated by Nikos Stefanis MD, PhD, FRANZCP — Professor of Psychiatry, Athens University Medical School; Head, National Arts on Prescription Research Project
Plenary
What We Once Knew: Ancestral Wisdom and Living Practices from Across Cultures
Yal Solan Multidisciplinary Artist; Co-founder, Alternative Kitchen; Creator, BodyVerses
Jalil Bennani Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, author
Shariha Khanam Khalid Founding Partner, Mission & Co; Co-founder, Health In Your Hands; Founder, Unite.EAT Nations
Sami Creta Cultural leader
Kuang Zhao Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Deputy Secretary-General, Chinese Confucius Society; Deputy Director, Confucian Classical Studies Research Committee
moderated by Myrto Vounatsou Artistic & Creative Director, World Human Forum
Plenary
Coffee Break
Healing through Nature
Susan Magsamen Founder & Executive Director, International Arts + Mind Lab, Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Co-Director, NeuroArts Blueprint
Ivy Nanopoulou Architect & Managing Partner, TPA
Dimitris Kokkinias Co-founder, Softening & Healing
Plenary
From Personal to Planetary Health
Dimosthenis Sarigiannis Director and President of the Board, National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF); Professor of Environmental Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
in conversation with
Alexandra Mitsotaki President & Co-Founder, World Human Forum
Plenary
Designing a Neuroarts Informed Future: What are our next steps? And how do we create the Eleusis-Epidaurus neuroarts hub?
3rd Working Session
Breakout Groups
Looking Towards the Future
Susan Magsamen Founder & Executive Director, International Arts + Mind Lab, Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Co-Director, NeuroArts Blueprint
Nikos Stefanis MD, PhD, FRANZCP — Professor of Psychiatry, Athens University Medical School; Head, National Arts on Prescription Research Project
Alexandra Mitsotaki President & Co-Founder, World Human Forum
Plenary
IMMERSIVE HEALING ART HUBS – HAH
Friday 25 September
Gina Belafonte
The Bridge: The Poem We Carry
A Collective Poetry & Integration Experience
The Bridge is a participatory poetry and integration experience that carries us from the healing, art, and collective witnessing of Epidaurus into the mystery and renewal of Eleusis. Through presence, reflection, writing, and shared listening, we will explore what we have experienced, what we are ready to release, and what we want to carry forward. Together, those who have journeyed through Epidaurus and those newly arriving will create a collective poem, a shared expression of the questions, hopes, and possibilities that bring us together. No poetry experience is necessary; only curiosity, openness, and a willingness to listen and be witnessed.
Pavlos Kavouras
The Great Return: A Living Journey into Consciousness
Come wander into the mystery of consciousness. Through story, dialogue, movement, reflection, and shared experience, this workshop opens a playful and poetic space to explore what it means to be aware, to encounter another, and to return to oneself in a new way.
At the heart of the journey is professor Kavouras’ Triadic Theory of Consciousness, woven together with The Mystical Cycle: A Path of the Great Return — a cosmological drama of separation, encounter, remembrance, and homecoming.
Part theory, part practice, part performance, part immersion, this is an invitation to experience consciousness not only as an idea, but as something alive between us. A space for curiosity, strangeness, connection, and the possibility that the Other may reveal an unexpected face of the Self.
Come as you are. Bring your curiosity. Enter the cycle.
Maria Papadimitriou
Touching the Earth
A collective clay workshop in Eleusis. Each participant will freely shape their own form, and at the end, all the individual forms will come together to create a collective work. From the individual gesture to collective creation, clay—and what Eleusis means to each of us—becomes a place of encounter.
Yal Solan
BodyVerses Workshop / Theme: Vocal Somatics
This workshop is about connecting to our bodies as instruments and turning inwards to experience our vessels both as safe heavens and magical instruments of deep wisdom. The session guides participants in accessing their bodies through sensory awareness, voice and vibration, somatic self-massage, yoga, breath and poetics. Together, we will explore what happens when we become embodied, consciously clear fascial blocks, and align body, mind and breath. The workshop is built on the premise that the more embodied we can be, the more we can experience our voices as a tool of expression, alchemy, and ultimately, healing.
Notes:
-Please come on an empty stomach; participants are advised to have their meals at least 2 hours before the workshop.
-No prior experience required. No need to have a “good voice”. The workshop is open to everyone, whether they are professionals, or very simply, interested in exploring their own voice.
Sasha Waltz
For the time being – practice in presence
Choreographer Sasha Waltz will give a workshop on awareness, based on methods like “Deep Listening” and “Authentic Movement”, introducing her latest project “For the time being” which has a big impact in healing.
Saturday 26 September
Hazem Header
This Again!! Physical/Dance Workshop
This Again!! is a physical and movement-based workshop exploring the relationship between the body, memory, loss, and repetition.
Drawing from the movement language and themes of loss, the workshop invites participants to explore how personal experiences can be transformed into physical material. Through a combination of improvisation, physical exercises, repetition, partnering, and individual research, participants will investigate the ways in which the body holds memories, responds to absence, and continues to move through moments of loss and change.
The workshop explores physical presence, personal space, weight, touch, rhythm, repetition, interruption, and the relationship between stillness and movement. Participants will be encouraged to work with both their own physical impulses and the presence of others, creating situations where movement can emerge from memory, sensation, and instinct rather than predetermined choreography.
The aim is to create a space where participants can develop their own physical vocabulary, challenge habitual movement patterns, and discover how personal and collective experiences can become movement.
The workshop is open to dancers, performers, actors, movement practitioners, and anyone interested in exploring contemporary physical practice.
Amelie Joannides
The Mind of the Body
This 45-minute embodied workshop invites participants to reconnect with the deep intelligence of the body and explore their inner landscape through breath, movement and sensory exploration.
Through a series of practices drawing from somatics and dance, participants will soothe the nervous system, release tension, awaken emotional expression, and rediscover the body as a source of connection, vitality and joy.
Stelios Krasanakis
Dramatherapy: Working with Metaphor and Aesthetic Distance
Dramatherapy is a psychotherapeutic method that utilizes the power of dramatic and theatrical metaphor to light and address therapeutic issues through the aesthetic distance that art provides. It is suitable for therapeutic or social settings and can be conducted individually or in groups (Krasanakis 1999).
In this workshop, we will explore the two main concepts through which the therapeutic approach of dramatherapy works, the metaphor and the aesthetic distance.
After 40 years of experience in dramatherapy, Stelios Krasanakis believes that drama-therapy is effective in resolving the problems of the modern individuals because it values the presence of the body and the role of art, while metaphor helps address difficult topics such as sexuality and abuse.
In this short workshop, we will have the opportunity to explore and work with these basic concepts in an experiential way through storymaking.
Anna Nempavlaki
When Thoughts Become Drawings, Words and Images
Inspired by an educational programme developed at the Municipal Art Gallery of Chania in connection with the work of contemporary Greek artist Alexandros Psychoulis, this workshop invites participants to explore thoughts and emotions through drawings, words and images. Through participatory creative activities, participants are encouraged to observe, express themselves and transform their thoughts into creative forms.
Vanessa Weiss
Working Across Difference
What happens when art, science and medicine come together and their different perspectives and ways of working don’t easily align? Drawing on the experience in the room, this interactive workshop explores some of the tensions that can arise in interdisciplinary collaboration and reflects on what might help different perspectives work together without losing what matters to them.
Executive Producer, Oxford University Cultural Programme
Managing Director & Co-Lead, Community Arts Network; Co-founder, El Sistema Greece
Deputy Chairman, ZDF Television Council; Member of the Advisory Board, ARTE G.E.I.E.
Producer, Entertainment Executive, Impact Strategist; President & CEO, Sankofa.org
Creative Director, Sankofa.org; Co-founder, New Wrinkle Films
Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst; Αuthor, "From Djinns to Psychoanalysis"; President, Psychoanalytic Circle (Morocco)
Artist & Stage Director
ZDF Coordinator & CEO, ARTE Germany
Immersive Audio Experience Creator, Music Manager, Festival Director
Clinical Psychologist & Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine
Artist, Musician, Curator, Sound Designer
Lead Advisor, NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative
Composer, songwriter, producer, educator
Musician, conductor
Writer, filmmaker, independent scholar, writing consultant
Cultural leader
Professor of Pharmacology, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; President, Hellenic Brain Council
Psychiatrist, Musician-Composer, Music Therapist
Composer & performer; Art Director, Addiction Science Lab, University of Trento; Founder, Remedial Sound Creation
Educator
Professor of Neurocritical Care, Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) Munich; Professor of Critical Care Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Publisher, Nefeli publishing
Cardiologist, Deputy Director, Division of Cardiology, Onassis Hospital; Composer
Filmmaker, Custodian of Wasing Estate, and Co-founder Medicine Festival
Secretary General, Culture Action Europe
Actor, activist
Director, actor trainer, Drama researcher
Clinical Psychologist, Neuropsychologist & Art Psychotherapist, First Department of Psychiatry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Eginition Hospital
Programme Director, Brahma Kumaris UK; Brahma Kumaris representative, United Nations, Vienna
Founder & Artistic Director, NÜT Dance Company – NDC, Breaking Walls Festival, Breaking Walls Dance Films
Education curator & art psychotherapist, EMΣT | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens
Former dancer, Paris Opera Ballet; Μultidisciplinary artist
Principal, 7th Primary School of Elefsina
Project and Corporate Finance Advisor
Strategy Advisor to the Executive Director of IEEE; former managing director of the IEEE Standards Association
Professor Emeritus, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; Head of the UNESCO Chair “Anthropology of Traditional Music: Representing and Repositioning Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)”
Classical Music Executive; Cultural Strategist & Manager
Founding Partner, Mission & Co; Co-founder, Health In Your Hands; Founder, Unite.EAT Nations
Co-founder, Softening & Healing
Robert and Margaret Hariri Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Radiology (Physics), Professor of Neurosciences (in Neurosurgery), Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University
Psychiatrist, dramatherapist, theater director; Lecturer, NKUA; Founder, Dramatherapy Institute AEON
Board Director & Financial Advisor
Actress, Breathworker
Strategy and Programmes Development Manager, Athens Epidaurus Festival
Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens
Vice President, Sistema Europe; Director, Neuromusic Global Conferences, Mariani Foundation
Founder & Executive Director, International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab), Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Co-director, NeuroArts Blueprint
Director, Elliniki Agogi
Founder & CEO, ikono (ikonoTV, Slow Art, Sentiko)
Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, University of West Attica
Art-on-Prescription Greece, Hellenic Ministry of Culture; European Federation of Art Therapy (EFAT)
Managing Director, International Teaching Artists Collaborative (ITAC)
Co-founder, Softening & Healing
President & Co-founder, World Human Forum
Founder & Manager, Elefsina Arts & Culture NPCP
Assistant professor of Museology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Filmmaker, artist; Co-founder, New Wrinkle Films
Architect & Managing Partner, TPA
Educator; Αuthor; Special Advisor to the Mayor of Chania for Education
Journalist, insidestory.gr
Researcher, chemist, quality engineer, environmental technologist
Occupational Therapist – Art Psychotherapist, 1st Psychiatric Clinic, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens – Aiginiteio Hospital
Artist, Professor Emerita of Visual Arts, University of Thessaly, Department of Architecture
Archaeologist, Honorary Head of the Department of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and Museums of the Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attica
Cultural Management & International Partnerships Consultant
Professor, Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB); Founding Partner, Uni.Fund
Founder & Chairman, Pelargos Natura & EPOPTEIA - Hellenic Center for Entheogenic Research
Psychologist, art psychotherapist
Author, journalist, music manager; Founder, Rathaus GmbH
Co-founder, Ikaros Project
Senior Commercial Director, Bioiatriki Healthcare Group
Senior Lecturer & psychedelic researcher, Exeter Psychedelic Interdisciplinary Centre (EPIC)
Designer
Psychodynamic psychotherapist
Director, Simón Bolívar National Choir and Academic Choral Program, El Sistema, Venezuela
Co-founder, Vice-president, World Human Forum
Dimosthenis (Denis) Sarigiannis
Director and President of the Board, National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF); Professor of Environmental Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Writer & journalist
Psychiatrist, psychotherapist
Partner, Economic Advisory, Deloitte
Mental Health Occupational Therapist and Psychotherapist
Founder & Director, Marshmallow Laser Feast
Composer, musician, performer; Founding member, Sigur Rós
Musician
Multidisciplinary Artist; Co-founder, Alternative Kitchen; Creator, BodyVerses
Ioannis Sotiropoulos
Researcher B - Group leader, Institute of Biosciences and Applications, NCSR Demokritos
Documentary director; Visual artist; Professor of Film History and Theory, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Nikos Stefanis MD, PhD, FRANZCP
Professor of Psychiatry, Chairman First Department of Psychiatry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Eginition Hospital
Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California; Member, U.S. National Academy of Engineering; Member, Academy of Athens
Filmmaker
Pneumonologist, Intensive Care Unit, Red Cross Hospital, Athens
Managing Director, ENLIGHTEN P.C.
Co-Founder & CFO, eShipfinance.com; Co-Founder & Partner, Dagmar Navigation
Senior Strategy Advisor with Medicine for the Greater Good, Johns Hopkins University
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, American College of Greece (ACG); Psychiatrist, psychotherapist
Artistic & Creative Director, World Human Forum
Psychotherapist; Founder, Embodied Dream Weaving
Choreographer, Dancer & Director
Coordination, Art and Medicine Network, Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Composer, Lyrist; Associate Researcher, Academy of Athens; Corresponding Member, Archaeological Institute of America
Jungian Analyst and Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist
Emerita Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Deputy Secretary-General, Chinese Confucius Society; Deputy Director, Confucian Classical Studies Research Committee
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