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Eleusis is a city with a unique historical and cultural heritage, where the mythological past, rural life, and industrial development are interwoven into a multilayered cultural landscape. The archaeological site highlights the role of myth and land in understanding the place, from Demeter and Persephone to the Eleusinian Mysteries. At the same time, the industrial remains of the 19th and 20th centuries narrate the rapid and often violent industrialization that transformed the urban and environmental character of the area.
The city, which underwent radical changes with the settlement of the refugees of the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the continuous arrival of workers from all over Greece, shaped a distinctive social and cultural fabric. Eleusis is not confined to its administrative boundaries; it extends across the entire Thriasio Plain, a unified space of cultural, economic, and environmental cohesion, where monuments, industrial buildings, and natural landscapes form a living ecomuseum.
Today, Eleusis carries the memories of these successive transformations and constitutes a unique field where history, society, and environment meet and interact, offering a rich background for understanding the past and inspiring the future.
The ecomuseum was born in France in the early 1970s, through the thought of museologist Georges Henri Rivière, as a radical proposal that challenged the boundaries of the traditional museum. It is not limited to enclosed exhibition spaces, nor does it isolate exhibits from their context; on the contrary, it preserves them in their authentic locations, proposing an experiential journey into the place. The inhabitants are not mere spectators but essential contributors: They actively participate in the design, implementation, and preservation of the ecomuseum, combining scientific knowledge with everyday experience. In this way, the ecomuseum becomes a framework for participation, a tool for community empowerment, and a field for the dynamic understanding of the relationship between culture, society, and environment.
Pros-Eleusis (Personalised RouteS in Eleusis) is a research project implemented during the period 2019–2021 within the framework of the action “Research – Create – Innovate”. Its objective was the development of an innovative mobile application, capable of offering personalized itineraries in the city and the Thriasio Plain, linking the archaeological site, the urban fabric, the industrial past, and the countryside. The designation of Eleusis as European Capital of Culture 2021 created the right momentum for the pilot application of the project under real conditions, in a city with particular challenges but also rich potential for tourism and cultural development.
The innovation of Pros-Eleusis lies in its dual dimension:
– on the one hand, it transforms the city into an open ecomuseum, where the archaeological site, the industrial zone, the agricultural land, and contemporary everyday life form a unified cultural landscape,
– on the other hand, it employs technology to allow the visitor to design personal itineraries, experiencing an encounter based on their own identity and interests.
The visitor no longer follows a general, pre-determined narrative, but composes their own path, discovering memories, stories, and landmarks. At the same time, the inhabitants of Eleusis are not passive receivers but emerge as co-creators of the narrative, transmitting traditions, experiences, and family memories.
This philosophy is rooted in the concept of the ecomuseum, as defined by French museologist Georges Henri Rivière in 1971: a “mirror” in which communities recognize themselves, study the traces of the past and the structures of the present, in order to design their future. The ecomuseum also functions as a “school”, calling on community members to study, protect, and transmit their heritage, while at the same time enabling visitors to discover local societies and their contribution to global culture.
Eleusis, with its rich mythological heritage (Demeter, Persephone, Eleusinian Mysteries), the rapid industrial development of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the movements of populations – from internal migration flows to the refugees of the Asia Minor Catastrophe – constitutes an ideal place for the application of this idea. The society of the city was shaped through memories and experiences that remain alive despite the consequences of deindustrialization and the economic crisis.
Pros-Eleusis is not merely a tool of tourism promotion, but a strategy of cultural and social regeneration. It creates a new model of cooperation among public bodies, research institutions, companies, local businesses, and communities, while at the same time, through the use of information and communication technologies, it enhances the competitiveness of the area. In this way, it contributes to the creation of a high-quality cultural and tourism product, based on authenticity, participation, and sustainability.
Thus, Eleusis acquires the capacity to renew its image, to establish the role of culture as a driver of development and social cohesion, and to serve as an example of a city that invests in memory, innovation, and participation to shape its future.
Pros-Eleusis is directly linked to the broader framework of the Agenda 21 for Culture, which places culture at the heart of sustainable development and recognizes it as the fourth pillar, equal to economy, society, and environment. In the case of Eleusis, the creation of the ecomuseum is not only an innovative museological practice but embodies precisely this fundamental conception. Cultural heritage is not approached as an isolated set of monuments or objects, but as a system of living relations connected with social needs, the identity of inhabitants, and the challenges posed by the natural and urban environment.
From this perspective, the project promotes active community participation, cultivates social cohesion, and contributes to the emergence and strengthening of local identity. The protection of the natural and built environment is not treated as a secondary aspect, but as a basic precondition for the sustainability of the place. At the same time, the use of new technologies and the transfer of knowledge from researchers and cultural professionals to businesses and local structures enhance the ability of Eleusis to stand competitively at an international level, without losing its authenticity and distinctive character. In this way, culture becomes a lever of development, innovation, and prosperity, bridging past, present, and future in a coherent perspective for the city and the Thriasio Plain as a whole.
The application of Pros-Eleusis enables Eleusis to acquire a coherent narration of its history and identity. Visitors can discover not only the archaeological monuments but also the industrial facilities, the small shops, the neighborhoods, and the countryside, composing a holistic museological experience that emerges from the place and returns to the place. The inhabitants assume the role of co-creators, resulting in the ecomuseum authentically expressing the voice of the community. Thus, Eleusis is presented as a living organism, a palimpsest that unites the tangible and intangible, the past and the present, tradition and innovation, shaping a continuous cultural landscape. In this context, culture is not merely an object of contemplation but a tool of understanding, participation, and sustainable future.
Pros-Eleusis transforms the city into a space of encounter, memory, and experience, where inhabitants and visitors co-shape the present and envision the future. The ecomuseum of Eleusis thus emerges as an example of cultural and social regeneration, proving that culture can function as a force of cohesion, continuity, creativity, and sustainable development.
As an innovative cultural tourism product, Pros-Eleusis offers visitors a unique experience, creates new growth opportunities for local businesses, empowers communities through their active participation, and stands as an exportable model that can be adopted by municipalities, tourism organizations, and cultural management bodies internationally.
The project was implemented by the Athena Research Center and the companies MENTOR and CITE, with co-funding from Greece, the European Union, and the participating private entities.