Onassis Air Has Artists' Gaze Fixed Firmly On Athens

Onassis Air

Artists from around the world are turning their attention to Athens. Onassis AiR (Artists-in-Residence), the new annual residence and research program based in Athens, has attracted applications from over 1,000 artists from all five continents.

Photo:Tasos Vrettos

From Egypt to Argentina, Estonia to the United Arab Emirates, Denmark to Brazil, Portugal to Puerto Rico, the Philippines to the USA, Lithuania to Mexico, the UK to Australia, Finland to New Zealand and South Africa to China, artists have expressed an interest in coming to Athens and taking part in Onassis AiR, the new Artists-in-Residence program from the Onassis Foundation.

November 26 marked the closing date for applications for the initial September 2019-June 2020 period. The interest aroused by the program has surpassed our every expectation: all in all, 1,084 artists and curators from 68 countries have responded to the call from Onassis AiR, a program that offers its residents time: Time to learn, to change, to delve deeper. To create and destroy or not to create at all. With the focus less on producing an art work than on the creative process itself. The strongest applicants selected by the four-member committee, which consists of Myriam Ben Salah, Daniel Blanga Gubbay, Efi Birba and Barbara van Lindt, will be invited to proceed to the next stage in the selection process — a series of interviews and workshops in February and March. The first Onassis Artists-in-Residence will be announced in April 2019.

During their time through the program and based in the urban center of Athens, all participants can interact with each other as peers, regardless of age or how accomplished they are. With a mission to support the artistic process, towards a less product-obsessed arts ecosystem, artists meet as part of a community who works, thinks and eats together, without striving for the next project, the next premiere, the next opening. A community that has the ability to pause, to rethink how each one of us functions and creates.

Onassis AiR is a program which sets its sights on an arts ecosystem oriented less towards the artistic "product" and more towards artistic practice, technique and the research process.

Onassis AiR will support: Greek and international artists, curators and thinkers working in time-based artistic disciplines, who wish to deepen, reconsider, or transform their practice or methodology, without the expectations and limitations that producing may impose.

Onassis AiR has been designed and will be run by Ash Bulayev (director of Onassis AiR) and Nefeli Myrodia (creative producer & dramaturg of Onassis AiR).

Committed to its mission of extending access to health, education and culture to as many people as possible, the Onassis Foundation supports education with over 7,000 scholarships, covering study at the doctoral and postgraduate level in a wide range of fields both in Greece and internationally, investing in curious minds. At the same time, over 1,000 artists who are already releasing their potential enjoy the support of the Onassis Foundation in the form of scholarships. In addition, with over forty Onassis Stegi productions that tour abroad, it presents Greece at its best to the rest of the world. A restless Foundation that takes support for artists' needs to the next level is introducing a new program: Onassis AiR (Artists-In-Residence).