elc team
In the heart of summer, the Onassis Stegi unveils the first highlights of its upcoming season. A meditative water installation in the centre of Athens, Alan Turing reimagined through the explosive theatrical universe of Łukasz Twarkowski, a one-day edition of Borderline Festival with an outstanding lineup, Soundwalk Collective’s new audiovisual installation featuring an original sonic composition by Jim Jarmusch, and the return of Robert Icke’s sold-out Oedipus are among the productions that will launch the new cultural season.
The season opens in a new venue: the newly restored Onassis Mandra on Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, where an immersive visual and sonic experience offers a rare moment of stillness amid the city’s constant movement. Since its debut in 1997, Clinamen, the celebrated installation by composer and visual artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, has captivated audiences around the world. Following acclaimed presentations at the Pinault Collection’s Bourse de Commerce in Paris in 2025 and the Park Avenue Armory in New York in 2026, it arrives in Athens from 25 September to 6 December.
The work invites visitors to tune into the sound of silence through a luminous blue aquatic landscape where hundreds of white ceramic bowls float across three specially designed pools. As the bowls drift, collide and resonate, they create an ever-changing soundscape that gently draws the audience into a state of contemplation. Presented outdoors for the first time, Clinamen acquires an entirely new dimension as it interacts with Athens itself-with its shadows, breeze, voices, urban sounds and ever-changing weather, from sunlight and wind to rain-within the city’s only surviving open-air theatre from the Belle Époque. It is an artwork that effortlessly rewards the gift of time.
The Borderline Festival returns on 9 October in a special one-day format, taking over Onassis Ready with three stages and an exceptional lineup. In collaboration with ReSolute (NYC), legendary minimal house and microhouse pioneer Ricardo Villalobos returns to Athens for the first time in twelve years with a rare four-hour DJ set. Nightmares On Wax, one of Warp Records’ defining artists and a pioneer of electronic trip-hop, also joins the programme. Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan, whose unforgettable performance in Jim Jarmusch’s landmark film Only Lovers Left Alive introduced her to international audiences, will blend Middle Eastern musical traditions with contemporary electro folk-pop. Internationally acclaimed Greek singer-songwriter Σtella, now signed to the iconic American label Sub Pop and performing at major festivals worldwide, will make a special appearance in this compact edition of Borderline, which promises several additional surprises.
Following the internationally acclaimed ROHTKO and Respublika, Łukasz Twarkowski returns to Onassis Stegi with Oracle (15–18 October), an immersive theatrical experience centred on Alan Turing, the code that changed history, the birth of Artificial Intelligence, and the darker dimensions of technological progress. At the same time, the work reflects on those who dare to cross boundaries despite the personal cost.
Blending theatre, live cinema, powerful music and real-life testimonies, Oracle unfolds as a breathtaking multimedia experience. Thermal and infrared cameras, immersive soundscapes and cinematic projections dissolve the boundaries between reality and illusion. Visually spectacular and intellectually provocative, the production places Turing’s story alongside forgotten biographies that haunt the margins of official history, creating a powerful meditation on human ambition, sacrifice and the price of progress. Twarkowski once again pushes the limits of contemporary stagecraft with a production that is both emotionally and technologically groundbreaking.
From 22 October to 1 November 2026, Soundwalk Collective joins forces with legendary independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch for the world premiere of their new audiovisual installation, The Future Doesn’t Need You, at Onassis Ready. Its title serves as a warning for a world that may well continue without us.
Setting aside the camera for a moment, Jarmusch returns to one of his lifelong passions—music. In recent years he has developed his distinctive hypnotic guitar sound through his duo Sqürl. After Correspondences with Patti Smith at Onassis Stegi in 2024 and the recent Sonic Prayer with Patti Smith for the Holy See Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Soundwalk Collective collaborates once again with the Onassis Foundation in a new work exploring the melting of glaciers and the unimaginable future it foretells.
At the heart of the installation lies a continuous guitar drone performed by Jarmusch himself-an unstable, unresolved resonance, as if a glacier continues to vibrate even while disappearing. The installation is accompanied by a programme of live concerts and performances featuring different artists each evening, alongside a film programme curated by Jarmusch, bringing together works that return to the same urgent questions: what do we leave behind, what disappears, and what endures? The future may not need us. The present, however, demands that we listen now.
Finally, Robert Icke’s Oedipus returns to the Main Stage from 12 November to 13 December 2026 following last year’s sold-out performances. Having travelled from London’s West End to Broadway before arriving in Athens, the Tony and Olivier Award-winning production by the celebrated British playwright and director continues its international journey with new local adaptations, most recently in Germany.
Sophocles’ tragedy of 428 BC is reimagined through the lens of public image, responsibility, political power and the limits of human agency. Combining relentless dramatic tension, sardonic humour and scenes balancing between political thriller and family tragedy, the production returns with an outstanding cast led by Nikos Kouris as Oedipus and Maria Kechagioglou as Jocasta. Charged with political, social and existential intensity, this electrifying reinterpretation of the Oedipus myth remains one of the season’s essential theatre events. Ticket sales have already begun, and availability is limited.
The complete programme for the new season, together with ticket sales for all productions, will be announced in September, revealing new venues, new collaborations and new cultural experiences.
