OnAthens

Culture begins with play. Through its OnAthens initiative, the Onassis Foundation aims to transform young people’s everyday experience in public space through a series of interventions across the city. This time, it is venturing a little further beyond the center of Athens, joining forces with the Municipality of Palaio Faliro and the Municipality of Nikaia–Agios Ioannis Rentis to create two new green spaces, revitalize nine sports courts, renovate one playground and build a new one, investing in a public space that is more open, participatory, and vibrant. At the same time, four murals are being created on Zefyrou Street in Palaio Faliro.

Unexpected corners of the neighborhood come alive with color, weaving art into everyday life. Two contemporary artists bring color to courts and walls in Palaio Faliro, embracing the urban landscape in unique ways. Twenty Three Artist transforms the basketball court on Zephyrou Street into a “Compass,” inspired by the geographic and historical identity of Palaio Faliro as an ancient Athenian port, a place of arrivals, departures, and transformations. Within the rhythm of the game, the “Compass” suggests a new orientation not only on the map but also through time, relationships, and personal journeys. A living artwork for those who play, watch, leave, or return.

At the Faliro Bay crossing, three murals by Kostas Theocharis bring a splash of pop color and joyful scenes of family life to the urban landscape. Offering a moment of respite from the daily pressure and the ceaseless movement of the streets, “Celebration” unfolds across the cityscape. This “Celebration” is not an event or a formal celebration, but a state of mind, paying tribute to spontaneous gatherings among friends and small moments of togetherness where community comes alive without needing to be invited or directed.

Across from "Celebration", Theocharis’ second mural, “Static Movement,” depicts an illustrated journey through the colorful flow of everyday life. Here, the street becomes a space of coexistence, but also a living puzzle of people, vehicles, and small stories moving alongside one another, meeting, and continuing on their way. The trio of murals is completed by “Family Table.” The mural captures the significance of gathering around a table—a timeless place of encounter, exchange, and shared experience, where people become part of a wider collective.

In a city where television antennas, concrete, apartment blocks, sports courts, and graffiti are an animating part of life, culture as a concept extends beyond Onassis Stegi, 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 foundations, 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. Special 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 collaborating 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.

From Avdi Square, Ragava Olive Grove, and Logginou Grove to the Youth Centers in Neos Kosmos and Dourgouti, OnAthens continues a series of urban interventions that make Athens more functional, sustainable, and welcoming. Interventions that bring culture closer to everyday city life.