A garden inspired by the memories of Greek Australian grandparents became a community gathering place at MOSAIC 2026, with high school students helping to shape the concept from the classroom through to the festival.
Neoléa’s Pappou’s Garden (Ο Κήπος του Παππού) stall, held on Saturday 19 September, drew on the familiar gardens, tools and family traditions of generations of Greek Australians, while placing younger voices at the centre of its design.
The project involved two rounds of workshops with Modern Greek students from Adelaide High School and Unley High School, who helped develop the stall’s concept and decide how it would engage festival visitors.
During the first phase, Year 10 students at Adelaide High School brainstormed and developed proposals for a stall representing Greece at MOSAIC, before reflecting on each other’s ideas.
Year 9 and 10 Modern Greek students at Unley High School then took the preferred concept, Pappou’s Garden, and refined it, considering the interactive activities, food and bazaar offerings that would bring the idea to life.
The result was a garden assembled through contributions from across the community.
Following a call-out for borrowed items, families and community members supplied old gardening tools, terracotta pots, ornaments and greenery, many carrying stories of their own. Together, the items recreated the atmosphere of a traditional Greek Australian grandparent’s garden, complete with a tool shed.
Visitors could play tavli and contribute to two interactive displays designed to connect generations.
At Pappou’s Tool Shed – “Tools for Life”, guests added advice from their elders or identified the “tools” they believed younger generations needed, writing their contributions on cut-out gardening tools.
The Garden of Memories invited visitors to write a grandparent’s name or memory on a flower-shaped cut-out, adding it to a growing display throughout the evening.
The stall also featured a kombolói-making workshop and Greek coffee as part of the MOSAIC Bazaar.
Food and family memories
Food was a central part of the stall’s appeal, with a seasonal menu prepared by Angela Prasinos and designed to reflect several regions of Greece.
The menu included Herb Pita, Seasonal Salad, Spanaki me Mavromatika, Kritharaki Kokkinisto and Souvlaki, the latter offering a familiar reference to the family barbecues many Greek Australians grew up with.
The stall attracted a strong crowd during the evening, with organisers reporting a queue that extended around the area for much of the festival. Several visitors described it as one of the event’s most popular stalls.
A photographic exhibition by local photographer Chloe Tsafaras, featuring images of her own pappou, added a personal dimension to the presentation, connecting the wider theme of family memory to an individual story.
For students involved in the project, MOSAIC also offered an opportunity to engage with cultures beyond their own.
“I had a lot of fun at the MOSAIC festival. It was great being able to share the Greek culture while also learning about others and my favourite part was either the dancing or trying all the different foods,” said George Zavlakgas, a Year 10 student at Adelaide High School.
Fellow Year 10 student Nathan Lohmann said the event provided an opportunity to experience different cultures through their food, traditions and games.
“The MOSAIC event allowed me to experience and learn about different cultures around the world, able to enjoy their food, culture, and games,” he said.
Neoléa chair Anastasia Mavrides said the stall had been developed as a way of presenting Greek culture beyond familiar stereotypes, while giving young people a meaningful role in the process.
“We’ve always treated the development of our stall for MOSAIC as a creative challenge to communicate our rich Greek culture beyond the stereotypes people expect,” Mavrides said.
“It has been really heartwarming to see genuine engagement from the wider community, particularly the students, who brought a Greek Australian lens to the project. MOSAIC is about celebrating multicultural communities and engaging youth, and what better way to achieve that than by inspiring them to be part of events like this.”
From the students who developed its concept to the families who lent garden items and helped prepare food, Pappou’s Garden brought together different generations of the community.
The stall offered a reminder that cultural traditions can be shared not only through established customs, but also through the ideas and experiences of the next generation.
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