Onassis AiR
An (inter)national artistic research and residency program in Athens
An artistic research, residency, and fellowship program that fosters artistic process and experimentation by bringing together creative practitioners from a variety of geographies and practices.
Onassis AiR is an international artistic research and residency program based in Athens, Greece. Founded on the principles of learning and doing with others, Onassis AiR grounds its mission in supporting the artistic process by providing space and time for arts professionals from various backgrounds and disciplines to delve deeper into their practice without the pressure of having to present a final work. After completing five successful years and supporting more than 200 Fellows, Οnassis AiR has become a hub for cross-disciplinary thinking and exchange among local and international artists and researchers. It serves as a network for people within the Onassis ecosystem and beyond. A platform that fosters the conditions for the exchange of ideas by foregrounding current issues, always in dialogue with our locality and the ever-changing world around us.
For the 2024–25 season, Onassis AiR expands its role as a platform for co-creation and welcomes a broader community of artists by offering opportunities through our Open Calls in collaboration with the Onassis Dramaturgy and Onassis ONX programs, as well as through our International Networks. The Onassis Foundation invests in individuals, in human relationships, in the process, in unconventional perspectives, and in the potential unleashed by a diverse group of people – curious minds with thought-provoking ideas brought together into an unexpected encounter to spark debate and inquiry. Onassis AiR, located next to the Onassis Stegi in the Neos Kosmos area, is now more open and welcoming than ever.
Pali-Room is a digital platform and podcast series that serves as a repository for the artistic research that takes place at Οnassis AiR. Between 2020 and 2022, the site hosted a series of recorded conversations between curator Myrto Katsimicha and residency participants. Each conversation is available as both an audio recording and a text, supplemented by a series of highlighted and hyperlinked materials that provide additional information on the practice, influences, writings, or readings of each participant.
In 2024, we intend to revamp Pali-Room by hosting conversations with invited curators and members of the Onassis AiR Community. During the first series of interviews, Onassis AiR Fellow Danai Giannoglou will talk to six participants in the 2023–24 program.
Between September 2020-July 2021, our programs brought together an interdisciplinary group of artists and arts practitioners to conduct collective research around two thematics areas we found urgent to explore: identities and ecologies. Our publications aim to document this process by assembling the ideas and inquiries that emerged as part of the collective research.
How does the personal become collective? How does knowledge get practiced and exchanged?
Over the past years, we have experienced different ways of “cohabitation” inside the Οnassis AiR house, through an exchange of practices and methodologies, while also exploring the more-than-human world through city walks and research trips within Greece and beyond. In order to shed light to this process we decided to create a short video documentary that brings together in a non-chronological order some of our collective moments.
A selection of images from the Residency programs and Onassis AiR house 2019-2022.
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Photo: Elpida Fragkeskidou
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Photo: Myrto Katsimicha
Aris Papadopoulos, Scanning the Walkscape, 2020
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Photo: Ash Bulayev
From the selection process of the Onassis AiR 2019-20 participants, Delphi, March 2019.
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Photo: Myrto Katsimicha
Artist talk by Young Girl Reading Group, Onassis AiR, February 18, 2020.
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
Presentation by Alex Baczynski-Jenkins
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
The School of Infinite Rehearsals Movement I
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
The School of Infinite Rehearsals Movement IΙ
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
The School of Infinite Rehearsals Movement I
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Photo: Nefeli Myrodia
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Photo: Ioanna Zouli
Field trip to Prespes
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
'The Gamified Workshop Toolkit' on collaborative communication and attitudes facilitated by Doreen Toutikian.
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
The School of Infinite Rehearsals Movement IΙ
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
The School of Infinite Rehearsals Movement IΙ
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
Presentation by Kenneth Pietrobono
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Photo: Ronny Skevis
