Plásmata 3

The surreal isn’t just present in the artworks—it’s embedded in the very fabric of the park. A place that seems natural yet is constructed; a landscape that reveals itself as a jungle and hides like a collective sanctuary of our dreams—a constantly shifting scene.

Among the hybrid works—many of which are part of the Onassis Collection—are strange totems charged with hints of spiritualism, mythical creatures, ancient column-pillows you can lie on comfortably, monuments made from shattered Athenian pavement marble, bodies caught between falling and ascending a staircase to nowhere, glass flowers lit by the embrace of two people, Amazons on motorcycles, endlessly spinning seashells echoing dripping water, familiar yet uncanny beings emerging from flowerbeds. Plásmata 3 is an experience of fantasy and wandering.

Plásmata 3 doesn’t divide art into digital and analog. Instead, it emphasizes its natural evolution through time: from shadow puppetry to projection mapping, from painting to film, from video art to contemporary digital and post-digital expression.

Here, technology is not the goal—it’s a tool. The artists don’t serve artificial intelligence—they use it, transform it, subvert it, surpass it. With imagination as their primary weapon, they create new narratives that do not submit to algorithms but question them, reinvent them, and drive them mad.

Plásmata 3 is an invitation to play—a proposal to see the world around us differently. Like in the cinema of David Lynch, the uncanny emerges from the familiar, and the dreamlike feels like memory. What is the Ministry of Anarchaeology? Is that owl next to the statue of Athena really moving? Why are there sheep from Lebanon in the park? Could the spirit of the park bring us together? Are golden Datsuns falling from the sky? Do the seashells sing? Would you like to become a bat?

At Pedion tou Areos, you’ll encounter beings you’re not sure are real—or born from a fairytale, a Goya painting, or your childhood dreams.

This year’s Plásmata 3 are uncanny—but also lovable. Tender and familiar. They make you wonder: Do they exist? Did they exist? Will they? And maybe that doesn’t even matter.

Come to Plásmata 3—let’s play without worrying about what’s normal and what’s not. You won’t need a ticket. Just your imagination.

“A stroll through Pedion tou Areos park, this time with different Plásmata [creatures]. Quiet, discreet, enchanting, comforting. Natural, analog, digital. Creatures that play with the question of what is real and what is imaginary, what might actually happen and what could unfold only in dreams. A small square where we can listen to music while lying on the ground. Cinema, food, little things that make us feel good. We are searching for ways to enjoy the freedom of public space, to revel in encounters with strangers brought together by a chance walk or a mutual desire to discover Plásmata. Yes, we are in search of the sweet lie that beauty, surprise, humor, and—ultimately—art can tell. The park itself is but an illusion of nature crafted by design and human will. A familiar and tender experience this year. After all, we’ve met before, haven’t we? A small celebration and an ode to art, the right to idleness and rest, and the soothing power of simply being together.”

-Afroditi Panagiotakou, Artistic Director of the Onassis Foundation

“Plásmata is a living laboratory of ideas, experiments, and creations for the public space and for how we connect to it. Just as in real life, technology here is no separate realm; it dissolves into the everyday. That is why it disappears. In art, technology finds its roots in shadow theater, the media art of past decades, and even in ancient rituals of magic and religion. Plásmata 3 once again places the park at the heart of the city: this strange ‘in-between’ space shaped by our collective dreams and the material reality they forge. The magician of technology seeks our complicity in the illusion. Spirits and sprites of the park—sometimes taking animal forms—speak to us, protect us, embrace us. And an anarchaeology poses the question: who are we, really? The park, an artificial nature claimed with near-erotic fervor by all who are connected to it, resists the neat categories our desires try to impose. Through the flowerbeds we look at without really seeing, Plásmata 3 invites us to a celebration of the uncannily familiar: where the digital slips away through the cracks of the earth, the plants, the laughter of children, and the carefree steps of bodies wandering on a Sunday afternoon at Pedion tou Areos park.”

-Prodromos Tsiavos, Head of Digital and Innovation

Andreas Angelidakis, Ziad Antar, Yoann Bourgeois, The Callas, DIONYSIOS, John Fitzgerald, Pierre-Christophe Gam, Moritz Simon Geist, Efi Gousi, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Botao ‘Amber’ Hu, Noemi Iglesias Barrios, Kalos&Klio, William Kentridge, Aias Kokkalis, Katerina Komianou, Jiabao Li, Matt McCorkle, Manousos Manousakis, Natalia Manta, Martyna Marciniak, Maria Mavropoulou, Janis Rafa, Andreas Wannerstedt, Robert Wilson, and more.

A part of the Plásmata 3 exhibition and its parallel program are carried out in the framework of the European programs TMLAB and European Digital Deal and the European Digital Innovation Hub Smart Attica (EDIH), which are co-funded by the European Union.