Stergiou developed her research into the activist project of social ecology
AAO: Ethics/Aesthetics, a two-year series of activities that included conferences, academic workshops, exhibitions, collective experiments and public actions that took place in
Athens in 2011 and 2012. In collaboration with
Benaki Museum,
Hellenic Cosmos,
Paris 8 University,
Athens School of Fine Arts,
National Technical University of Athens,
Parsons School of Design and 45 participants - international artists, designers,
architects, scholars,
academics and activists (such as
Rebar art and design studio,
Futurefarmers,
Public Architecture, Worldbike/
Xtracycle,
Cameron Sinclair, Laurie Lazer & Darryl Smith, Recetas Urbanas,
Sarah Wigglesworth,
Ole Bouman,
Teddy Cruz among others) - it addressed the state of crisis in Greece, a social one affecting underrepresented and unprivileged population groups, an environmental one, but also the value system, and explored the potentialities that spatial design opens for the cityscape, the social fabric and the environment. For Lena Hourmouzi, the four sections of the large central exhibition
Ethics/Aesthetics more or less summarized the entire activity of the project: Society and Aesthetics, Ethics of the Profession, Activism, and Action and Reaction. These were also the themes of the contemporary social problems that the project investigated through the prism of Architecture, as a broader spatial practice, of Art and Design. For Haido Skandila, it was requesting social change through Architecture, Art and Design, for Marios Kehagias it was "social architecture arriving in Athens", and for writer and literary critic Ilias Maglinis it meant “let's leave theory behind and let's start acting,” a call for interdisciplinary collective actions. Its international academic workshops projected in open public spaces in downtown
Athens aimed at creating places of social integration and of rediscovery of the nineteenth century city trace (pilot actions
Athens Here and Now. They produced
Social Collider in collaboration with transactional aesthetics H2H artist theoretician
Maurice Benayoun and
Art and Activism academic programs with artist Vicky Betsou, that have been part of
Athens Art Week of the
Hellenic Ministry of Culture, of
Futur en Seine - Futur.e.s Paris, and of
Athens Digital Arts Festival in
Technopolis. AAO project series also included the social ecology installation environment
Ecosmosis developed with Benayoun at the
Hellenic Cosmos, an interactive aesthetic and socio-spatial environment. For Stergiou, the political ramification of this cultural activism can be approached as "Praxis: The Everyday Not as Usual." The AAO project is recorded to have been commented by articles in daily and Sunday newspapers, architectural magazines and magazines on culture, and interviews in radio stations. Forwarding its catalogue
AAO: Ethics/Aesthetics (Athens: Benaki Museum and Papasotiriou, 2011), the Minister of Culture and Tourism
Pavlos Geroulanos noted that it "places architecture and design at the core of public debate", while the General Secretary of Regional Planning and Urban Development, of the
Ministry of the Environment and Energy (Greece), Maria Kaltsa, wrote that it "reflects valid contemporary concerns... we are facing a period of great recession, which expresses itself as economic but is indeed a 'value system' crisis on all levels". For the Dean of the
National Technical University of Athens, School of Architecture, Spyros Raftopoulos, it "is a well-timed effort to enhance sensitivity and concern, expressed though a range of activities...it has succeeded in creating a platform of dialogue...and, finally, to raise awareness among the general public...for the evolution of our urban environment", and for the Rector of the
Athens School of Fine Arts, George Harvalias, "AAO project is pursuing its goals with the highest degree of competence and organization...an active creative 'plant' of sensitization, research and processing of proposals...indicating that any solutions cannot be unconnected to the unseen directions and dynamics of socio-political developments". ==Books==