From glowing sculptures to DJ sets and VR adventures, this year’s Plasmata turns Pedion tou Areos into an interactive night garden where art, history, and nature converge.
The Onassis Stegi has filled the Pedion tou Areos with imagination – works of art so naturally integrated into the park’s landscape, they feel as though they’ve always been part of its story. Add to that screenings, discussions, live events, and DJ sets, and you’ve got a vibrant nightly experience running through June 15, from 18:00 onward.
“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”
That glowing neon question, both cinematic and gently surreal, sets the tone for this year’s Plasmata exhibition. Created by artistic director and curator Afroditi Panagiotakou, it serves as a kind of manifesto. Suspended in the trees, it appears friendly, familiar, and a little uncanny, much like the artworks that – scattered throughout the groves and meadows – invite us to connect with the park in full bloom, with its human and non-human residents, real and imagined, and with each other.
Reframing this vast, shadowy green space as a safe place to explore at night is already a welcome intervention. In a dense city like Athens, public parks after dark are often overlooked – or avoided. Here, Plasmata 3 turns the darkness into a backdrop for wonder. And with its new nighttime residents – the “creatures” of the exhibition – joining the usual birds and insects, the park feels more alive than ever.
Greek and international artists draw on the park’s multiple identities – as a green refuge, a historical landmark (the “Champs de Mars” of Athens), and a shared space of relaxation and reflection – responding to the setting and inviting us to experience it anew. Each piece poses a thought, a question – here are just a few of the encounters awaiting visitors.
Stories from the Park
Among the works that stand out is Noemi Iglesias Barrios’s (Spain/Belgium) 2025 installation, “A City Falling.”Centered around a secluded spot where, according to local lore, a woman from Kypseli once planted two cypress trees – one for herself, and one for her departed husband – the work features delicate, hand-blown glass sculptures that respond to human touch. As you embrace, kiss, or simply reach out, the glass lights up – a tender interplay between intimacy and technology. The “falling” here isn’t a collapse, but a falling-in-love.
Nearby, glowing in the trees behind the busts of Greek War of Independence heroes, is Janis Rafa’s (Greece, Netherlands) 2023-2024 neon piece “Love me. Lick me. Forgive me.” The words are eflected in the eye of a horse, a nod to the park’s history as home to the royal cavalry. Her work subtly asks: How consensual are our relationships with the animals we love? Today, dogs roam freely here – domesticated companions in a park once filled with warhorses.
William Kentridge (South Africa) references a universal experience with his 1999 work “Shadow Procession,” a story of people displaced during the uprisings of South Africa. Its message resonates with the park’s own history: a temporary home for Asia Minor refugees in the 1920s and, more recently, for Syrian refugees only a decade ago. As Kentridge observes: “It never stops. You know that, right?”
One of the most identifiable images of Plasmata 3 is The Callas’ (Lakis and Aris Ionas, Greece) 2022 work “Punktheon.” Its seemingly haphazard structure subverts the monumental nature of the material, perfectly embodying the duality of its title. The artists describe their work as a monument that seems on the verge of collapse, yet the construction is stable, and its dynamic composition suggests that strength doesn’t always come from symmetry or order. The marble slabs themselves are reclaimed from the urban fabric, adding layers of meaning. The artists call it “a punk archaeology of our shared present.” The chaises longues placed beside it invite us to enjoy that shared present under the summer sky – perhaps with a DJ set from Stegi.Radio playing nearby.
Equally thought-provoking is Andreas Angelidakis’s (Greece) 2025 piece “Archaeological Anaparastasi.” Ionic columns rendered as soft poufs provide both comfort and metaphor. As we recline, we’re invited to reflect: “How much of what we learned in school was true? How much was fabricated?” The work is both fun and subversive – like lounging on history.
The life of the park’s inhabitants, both real and imagined, are the focus of several works. Aias Kokkalis introduces us to some of the park’s fantastical inhabitants with his 2025 video installation “Ares Awakening.” According to Kokkalis’ mockumentary, Metaxas banished these creatures to an underground shelter in the 1930s. Now they have finally reemerged, their return chronicled via news reports and interviews with fictional experts.
Elsewhere, Manousos Manousakis (Greece) reveals a world of fantastical creatures in the 2025 video installation “Neighbors.” They emerge and make their way through the park and our imaginations, their forms inspired myth, fairy tale and manga. Like so many of the park’s organic residents, they coexist with us, albeit in a parallel dimension.
But what of the real creatures who live here? With EchoVision (2024), Jiabao Li, Matt McCorkle, and Amber Botao Hu (USA) invite us to experience the park as a bat might. Wearing a VR headset equipped with a special camera, visitors use their own voice to echolocate, to “see” through sound.
Acclaimed French choreographer Yoann Bourgeois brings his gravity-defying piece “The Unreachable Suspension Point” to Athens for the first time. Performed live on selected nights (June 6 & 13 at 19:00, 19:30 & 20:00, and on June 7, 8, 14 & 15 at 19:30, 20:00 & 20:30), it’s a poetic exploration of balance and the impossible.
A full lineup of DJ sets curated by Stegi.Radio plays throughout the run of the exhibition at the onsite booth by the “Punktheon,” filling the park with soundscapes that shift in mood and genre.
The diverse program of film screenings includes the 1988 classic “My Neighbor Totoro” by Hayao Miyazaki and the 2021 film “Builders, Housewives, and the Construction of Modern Athens” by Tassos Langis and Yiannis Gaitanidis, based on the book by Ioanna Theocharopoulou. There’a also a full program of talks, tours, and workshops.
Food Kiosks
At the Vana Ba Afrika Canteen, run by the non-profit Vana Ba Africa group, three Kypseli restaurants have come together to share dishes from Ethiopia, Ghana, and Morocco.
Guerilla Chef Burger (Exarchia and Neos Kosmos) serves classics and a Lebanese-inspired burger, while Falafel Al Sharq (Liosion Street) offers falafel and Egyptian chicken. The park’s beloved Gardenia kiosk is also open with drinks, ice creams, beers, and snacks.
INFO
Plasmata 3 is on every night at the Pedion tou Areos from 18:00, through June 15.
For a full program, maps, information about the pieces and participants, visit plasmata.onassis.org (some workshops are held at other locations and at earlier times)
If you arrive without a plan, don’t worry – maps are available throughout the park and helpful staff are always nearby.
