BABYLON REVISITED was a walkshop held in Prespes, Western Macedonia, Greece, during the Walking Arts Encounters/Conference in 2025. It was facilitated by Vicky Vasileiou and Rafael Raposo Pires.
The walkshop was eventually divided into two parts due to external factors. The first took place on Agios Achilleos Island in Prespes, where participants walked around the island. The second was held in Laimos, Prespes, and consisted of a standing discussion with a larger group of participants.
Throughout the walkshop, participants from different nationalities, each speaking their own mother tongue, were asked to join a walk or the discussion and try to communicate without resorting to a shared language. The process was dynamic and experimental, structured on a horizontal framework in which everyone could contribute freely the amount of effort they wanted (by leading a conversation, shifting the subject, or adding new perspectives, leading the walk, changing direction) but always in a language not necessarily understood by everyone and not having a specific thematic subject matter for discussion.
Participants, including the facilitators, were urged to express their truth and let go of the need to control or fully comprehend their surroundings. By walking around, observing and interacting with the environment and people in the group, one could choose a topic for discussion or change a it without the others realizing it, as an observation of how the surroundings feed the themes to be talked. They could also, choose not to speak and follow the walk. It was an exploration of coexistence and authentic self-expression, where individual realities and voices attempted to coexist resulting into an abstract sensory existential experience. This deliberate dissonance created a temporary state of confusion and bewilderment, transforming the walk into a symbolic microcosm of real life, where we are surrounded by voices absorbed in personal realities, but never fully grasp them, yet we move together through shared space. The goal was to create an abstract multilingual moving soundscape, a physical and auditory journey.
By challenging conventional norms of communication, the walkshop focused not on content but on process. It invited reflection on language and identity, isolation and connection, disorientation and transformation. Speaking one’s truth without being understood became both liberating, vulnerable and unsettling, a rare experience where communication was not about clarity and speaking and listening detached from meaning required presence, connection and giving space in multiplicity.