OnAthens

In a city where television aerials, concrete, apartment blocks, sports courts, and graffiti are an animating part of life, culture as a concept reaches out from Onassis Stegi and into the urban fabric, descending on the city center and championing Athens as a time-honored place still very much alive – as a space of great contrasts and ferment where ideas are exchanged.

Athens is our city, and we see it for what it is: a living organism brimming with fascinating encounters, filled with people transforming streets and neighborhoods through their own hard work, each in their own way. A place in a constant state of development and renewal as it seeks answers to its most enduring questions. This is why we continue to explore the city, day after day.

Each year – through a series of commissions, co-productions, and in situ art installations presented at public institutions, and in private and open spaces across the city center – the Onassis Foundation seeks out places where art can intertwine with daily life, and treats both the neighborhood around Onassis Stegi and the broader city as a dynamic space for co-existence. Particular love and care is reserved for the Neos Kosmos area of Athens, and for its prominence – ensuring not only its place on the map, but also that it stays vibrant, and accessible for all.

The neighborhood of Neos Kosmos might be defined by its inhabitants as the area whose makeshift buildings were replaced by refugee and working-class tenement blocks before the end of the 1960s, but for us it will always be that part of the city where a new world can emerge.

Onassis Stegi engages with its surrounding area in numerous and varied ways, without idealizing it unnecessarily and without any nostalgia, but always with a respect for its past. With the aim of generating everyday relationships and unexpected meetings – a vibrant community bustling with people through the day and night – Onassis Stegi involves itself in the neighborhood, embracing it in ways that highlight everything it has to offer, both to local residents and to people passing through.

Our neighborhood is our home. As part of a more green and eco-friendly approach to urban identity and to Neos Kosmos, the Onassis Foundation is undertaking the complete renovation of sports courts, playgrounds, and changing rooms. And this is just the start of a new start.

The Onassis Foundation is working with the City of Athens and two street artists – SAME84 and ATH1281 – to bring color to the basketball courts at the 39th Youth Center (on the corner of Sarkounidou Street and Kasomouli Street in Neos Kosmos) and the 60th Youth Center (on Heldreich Street, in Dourgouti Park) so as to give each and every child and adult the chance, whether they live in Neos Kosmos or are just visiting, to unleash their potential and be reborn, just like these spaces. Bright and vibrant colors, cutting-edge equipment, and the complete renovation of two points in Dourgouti of great importance for our neighbors, all enriching the urban character of the area with everyday works of art.

Alongside these works, the basketball courts, changing rooms and playground at the 39th Youth Center have been completely overhauled and renovated, as have a volleyball and basketball court and playground at the 60th Youth Center.