From Pedion tou Areos to Ioannina, Plásmata II, the second edition of the Onassis Stegi digital art exhibition, returns in June 2023 to pose a series of critical questions: Can we speak on the digital without confining ourselves in the form imposed by screens? Can we talk about technology through the notions of the local and the mythical, nature, and tradition? Can technology become the trigger for granting a voice to those who do not have one? Can we dissolve the boundaries between the natural and the artificial and, at the same time, learn from both?

Running from June 16 to July 9, Plásmata II comprises a large exhibition of digital works by Greek and international artists on the city's lakeside route, as well as concerts and DJ sets, workshops, discussions, educational programs, guided tours, and Movement Radio, Stegi's 24-hour online radio station that compiles a deeply local, and therefore genuinely global, program. In Ioannina, Plásmata proposes new itineraries and symbioses at the boundary of the city and Lake Pamvotida, broadening the dialogue between the material and immaterial, the center and the periphery, the past and the future. Plásmata invites us not to see the artworks of the exhibition merely, but also to stop at 29 spots along the exhibition's route and discover the natural objects and sculptures already in place there, to observe our city briefly and, ultimately, our very selves, to seek our origins, and dream on our future.

Among the works, 11 new productions are presented, works created specifically for the lakeside area, in which the culture and the particular traits of the city and the natural environment of Ioannina have been taken into consideration. Urban myths and legends, traditional crafts, social rituals, linguistic idioms, and laments are further explored, recognizing and underscoring the significance of multiplicity, polyphony, and symbiosis. Habitats, ecosystems, as well as the lake itself from within its deep time, become the springboard for a discussion upon supra-local issues related to the planet’s sustainability. With different points of departure, the works reserve as a common denominator the emphasis on the role of diverse subjects and entities in the creation and re-creation of worlds founded on the recognition of interdependence and co-existence. In this framework, technologies, arts and crafts – yester and new – encounter their respective temporalities and the role played by the cultural context and the site itself.

Participating artists: Entangled Others, Matthias Fritsch, John Gerrard, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Nikomachi Karakostanoglou, Katerina Komianou, Christian Mio Loclair, Maria Louizou, Maenads, Matthew Niederhauser & Marc Da Costa, Afroditi Panagiotakou & Manolis Manousakis, Malvina Panagiotidi, Panos Sklavenitis, slow immediate, Stefania Strouza, Theo Triantafyllidis, Universal Everything, Maria Varela, WordMord