Circular Cultures: Periphery at the Centre

For a fifth consecutive year, Onassis Stegi and the British Council present a two-day program comprising of a conference on the first day, with keynotes and panel discussions, while the second day is dedicated to workshops and masterclasses. “Circular Cultures” aims to engage with artists, designers, urban planners, makers, and the general public in making their cities more sustainable and foster interdisciplinary, holistic strategies to promote urban resilience by raising awareness and helping people learn new skills. Consistently supporting a vibrant public space, Onassis Stegi views “Circular Cultures” as an opportunity to debate its constituent parts and the ways in which we conceive, design, and build our common environment.

The 5th edition of the program will be a two-day hybrid conference in Athens, featuring UK, EU and other international speakers sharing case studies and hosting masterclasses and workshops. It will be focusing on the question of centre and periphery, and the intersections between urban, rural, local, and global systems providing a rhizomatic and non-linear perspective that makes the invisible visible and recovers forgotten aspects of practice and memory.

Over the course of two days, we will examine different typologies for sustainable place-making – the community, the island, the lake, the forest, the ritual, the residency, the city, the supermarket and more – and look at:

• the power of Interdisciplinary design and dialogue towards climate action and climate justice
• the role and migration of local materials and craft in social, economic, and environmental sustainability
• strengthening rural/urban connections to tackle local and global challenges
• showcasing the role of small sized cities to come up with place-based responses to local challenges through design and architecture and address the intangible nature of materiality in connection to the social fabric.
  

The “Circular Cultures” program takes place for the fifth consecutive year and for the first time it will be held at the National Gallery in a hybrid form, always in collaboration with the Onassis Stegi and with the support of the British Embassy. It is one of the largest programs of the British Council for circular design, climate justice, and sustainable public space in Europe, which seeks to instigate a climate of critical dialogue and network development among Greek and British professionals from the fields of design, architecture, and crafts.

This year’s “Circular Cultures” seeks to highlight a new way of thinking around design, focusing on the significance of local materials and the promotion of small-scale best practices, with the aim of co-shaping an extensive global creative system with the human being at its core. Maintaining the periphery and the rural element as its point of reference, we will endeavour to re-examine and redefine the notion of the contemporary city and its social fabric, bringing to view initiatives and synergies that promote a sense of collective becoming

— Maria Papaioannou, Head of Arts, British Council Greece

What does cosmolocal design mean? How can we design by taking into consideration the generations to come, as well as the knowledge integrated within space and people that defines the literal and symbolical boundaries of a place? To what extent circular design constitutes an approach that already exists within traditional design and how it can be re-discovered within the digital reality of our times? Circular Cultures 2023, entitled “Periphery at the Centre,” poses the following question: how does space and its palimpsest-like knowledge inform the way we design and re-approach our creative practices? At a time when de-globalisation changes the way we perceive the design of objects, cities, and clothes, the call for a design model that places in its core the local sourcing of materials used in the creation of new objects has become critical.
The Onassis Stegi is holding Circular Cultures 2023 in collaboration with the British Council and within the framework of its wider actions centred around climate justice, as well as the re-approach of public space in its collective, universal, and not exclusively material, essence. With Circular Cultures 2023, the Onassis Stegi welcomes the dissolving of the dividing lines between centre and periphery as part of a more comprehensive effort to re-read Greek culture as cosmopolitanism; a cosmopolitanism that is nourished by and rooted in tradition, the simplicity of the design practices of the everyday, and the deep respect towards the genuinely local, which becomes truly global in this perspective.

— Prodromos Tsiavos, Head of Digital Development & Innovation of the Onassis Foundation

“Circular Cultures” is a British Council sustainable design and creative economies program in EU Europe, which aims to promote greater awareness around sustainable design, circularity, and making cultures. It aims to embed a more critical dialogue around design and circularity, develop the skills and knowledge of creative leaders, and create new EU networks around sustainability and circularity.

In Greece, ”Circular Cultures” is organized in collaboration with Onassis Stegi and is an integral part of the broader collaboration between the British Council and the Onassis Foundation aimed at the development of an ongoing and action-oriented public space for ethical crafts, circular design, materials and fashion sustainability.

“Circular Cultures” is part of the British Council global program Making Matters, which aims to foster a global dialog around the topic of circular design. The multi-disciplinary program explores how principles of the circular economy can be a catalyst for creativity, collaboration, and regenerative thinking within architecture, design, and fashion practice.