Circular Cultures Design School 2026

Circular Cultures Design School (CCDS) returns, inviting creative professionals, designers, artists, spatial practitioners, and businesses to explore how industrial landscapes, infrastructure, material remnants, and the everyday rituals of production continue to shape the way we live, move, and imagine the city.

With “Rituals of Industrial Memory” as its central theme, this series of workshops taking place in the Onassis Stegi’s industrial venue, Onassis Ready, invites participants to revisit circularity not as an abstract concept but as a lived condition, through practices of reuse, repair, informal economies, environmental pressure, and the transformation of the urban landscape itself.

Circular Cultures (Making Matters) is a joint initiative of Onassis ONX and the British Council to promote sustainable design and circularity. Each year, through Circular Cultures, creative professionals have the opportunity to experiment with emerging technologies and discover new possibilities, where the physicality of materials meets the limitless potential of the digital world. The program is part of the activities of the Onassis Foundation’s global platform for art and advanced technologies, Onassis ONX, in Athens.

On the occasion of Onassis ONX’s new studio at Onassis Ready, Circular Cultures Design School 2026 focuses on the cultural, social, and material legacies of industrial sites and histories.

CCDS 2026 draws inspiration from the wider area around Onassis Ready, i.e., Agios Ioannis Rentis and Elaionas. An area defined by natural and artificial flows, logistics, warehouses, informal markets, abandoned or repurposed buildings, environmental pressures, and small everyday practices of survival, exchange, and reuse.

From the open-air market of Elaionas, the area’s once extensive agriculture, and the movement of water to the history of Onassis Ready, as a former plastics factory, the program examines how traces of industrial life remain active, as material, as sound, as archive, as habit, and as a projection into the future.

Circular Cultures Design School 2026 will take place from 22 to 25 May at Onassis Ready, as part of ONX.Showcase.Athens.2026.

CCDS 2026 is designed as an intensive four-day program combining workshops, field research, and an exchange of methodologies. The workshop will be led by Hana Omori, a Japanese-British artist, filmmaker, world-builder, and creative lead of the KEIKEN (経験) artistic collective.

The first part of the workshop takes place during the first three days of the event, when participants will explore and become familiar with the Agios Ioannis Rentis area, get to know KEIKEN’s creative practice, and have the opportunity to develop creative ideas for urban research and intervention.

On the final day, participants will present their proposals to a panel of guests from the broader sustainable design field, with the aim of receiving feedback and guidance on the next steps of development.

Participation in the entire program is required.

The British Council’s Circular Cultures (Making Matters) is a program for sustainable design and the creative economy in Europe, aiming to raise awareness around sustainable design, circularity, and the wider creative field. It seeks to establish critical dialogue on design and circularity, build skills and share knowledge with pioneering creators, and develop European networks focused on sustainability and circularity. In Greece, Circular Cultures is organized in collaboration with Onassis Stegi and is a key part of the Onassis Foundation’s broader partnership with the British Council, aimed at developing an active public platform for ethical and circular design, materials, and sustainable fashion. Onassis ONX, the Onassis Foundation’s global platform for art and advanced technologies, is partnering once again with the British Council to deliver Circular Cultures (Making Matters), a program that aims to strengthen dialogue around sustainability and circularity in design and architecture, with an emphasis on the exchange of knowledge and good practices and the development of pan-European networks.

A Global Platform for Art & Advanced Technologies

Onassis ONX is the Onassis Foundation’s global platform for art and advanced technologies. As a catalyst for digital cultures, Onassis ONX supports genre-defying new media and immersive projects while also bolstering a network of institutions and industries ready to respond to new forms of creative expression. The platform is dedicated to elevating innovative creators across concepting, development, presentation, and distribution.

With studios in Athens and New York City, Onassis ONX provides a robust framework of technical, curatorial, and professional services. This support structure includes capacity-building programs, incubation and applied research initiatives, acceleration services, seed funding, and exhibition opportunities. Such a holistic engagement throughout the creative process enables its community to build worlds at the frontiers of AI, immersive, spatial computing, gaming, and other emergent time-based media.

Active partnerships with cultural institutions on residencies, exhibitions, co-commissions, and thought-leadership programming, as well as participation in cooperative European networks in the technology sector, contribute to the sustainable evolution and diversification of the field as a whole. These networked efforts position the platform as a gateway for cross-sectoral collaboration and promote production as an innovative space within the arts and beyond.

The modular infrastructures that Onassis ONX builds enable experimentation and circulation. While rooted in Athens and New York, our aim is to foster creative innovators who meaningfully engage with audiences around the world. Through this platform, creators are given a stage to imagine new futures by questioning the systems through which culture is produced and remembered.

The British Council is the United Kingdom’s international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities. It creates a friendly environment of knowledge and understanding between people living in the UK and those in other countries. The British Council does this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries it works with, aiming to change people’s lives by creating opportunities, building relationships, and fostering trust.

The British Council works with more than 100 countries around the world in the arts and culture, English-language teaching, education, and civil society. Annually, it reaches more than 80 million people in person and 791 million people online, through broadcasts and publications. It is a UK charity founded in 1934, governed by a Royal Charter, and accountable to the UK public sector. 2024 marked 85 years of its operation in Greece.

For more information, please visit the Arts Programmes webpage. Follow the British Council on Facebook or sign up to the arts newsletter to find out more about its work.