SNF Nostos 2026 Highlights

He’s drawn some of the largest crowds ever seen at concerts, but on Sunday, Jean-Michel Jarre joined Anna Kynthia Bousdoukou onstage for an intimate SNF Dialogues discussion on AI and artistic creation to open SNF Nostos 2026.

Prefaced by an informal welcome by Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos, who set the stage with an overview of the week ahead and a warm welcome reminding us that that the common denominator in everything we do is “humanity at the core,” the discussion presaged two major threads of the week of SNF Nostos: discussion with fresh perspectives from a wide variety of thinkers, and summer-defining musical performances by artists like Jean-Micel Jarre himself.

The day’s schedule rounded out the preview of what’s to come at SNF Nostos 2026 with the opening of interactive installations will engage visitors throughout the week. These include an interactive map highlighting SNF grantee-partners around the world in celebration of 30 years of grantmaking as well as of Artefacts of the Future: Ethical Echoes in Medicine, a provocative look at one speculative future that invites visitors to enter into direct dialogue with the exhibition via AI.

For Nostos-goers who needed a break from tech, Kafeneio tou Gianni in Stavros Niarchos Park offers a phone-free space where they can try out a brand-new style of communication: sitting down and chatting face to face.This is exactly what path-breaking electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre and SNF Dialogues Initiative Executive Director and iMEdD Co-Founder Anna Kynthia Bousdoukou did—onstage in the Greek National Opera’s Stavros Niarchos Hall.

Anna guided the discussion by asking how we make sure AI can help aid human efforts rather than replacing them, about the emotional dimension of AI use, and what happens when AI levels up.

Jarre encouraged his fellow artists, and others, to embrace AI as a tool for “augmented imagination.”

“It is strange how we as human beings, generation after generation, are afraid of innovation,” he said. “Technology is neutral.” At the same time, he urged us not to be naïve in our embrace of AI. “What makes the difference between democracy and chaos are rules.”

Anna closed the discussion by opening the week of SNF Nostos 2026, the series of SNF Dialogues discussions, and the thematic houses organizing the SNF Nostos Conference: the House of Arts & Culture, the House of Civics & Education, the House of Health & Sports, and the House of the Future.

In the evening, a Release Athens x SNF Nostos concert—the first of three—by David Byrne, with Deadletter and Nation of Language, lit up the summer night.

The SNF Dialogues discussion is available on snfdialogues.org

Each of the “houses,” the thematic hubs that organize the 2026 SNF Nostos Conference, has its own day to shine, and the second day of SNF Nostos 2026 was dedicated to the House of Civics & Education in National Library of Greece atrium.

With each discussion introduced by young people—specifically members of the SNF Nostos Youth Advisory Committee (YAC)—the day’s discussions centered, among other topics, on how everyday citizens can combat the threats facing democracy, the relationship between journalists and the public, and the future of human rights movements.

Fittingly, the first discussion at the House of Civics & Education was one of three on libraries and was moderated by Stavros Zouboulakis, President of the Supervisory Board of the National Library of Greece, and featured library directors from Greece and abroad. Panelists highlighted the importance of connecting the “old world of books” with the “new world of data.”

Journalism also played a central role in the day. A conversation between Anna Kynthia Bousdoukou, Co-Founder of iMEdD and Executive Director of the SNF Dialogues Initiative, and Marina Walker Guevara, editor-in-chief of the Pulitzer Center, discussed finding an audience and wide collaboration. “We need to work with local communities… to incorporate their voices,” said Anna. We saw what this looked like in the very next session, in which the son of a woman born into a Nazi nursery program discussed his family’s journey on stage alongside a journalist who reported it. “Journalists are not objective, just like scientists are not objective,” said Guevera. “Journalism has a method, just like science has a method.”

Meanwhile, iMEdD Station, an open space in the foyer of the Greek National Opera, offered the public a chance to see and hear this method up close, exploring how journalism is produced and listening to a dozen young reporters from across Africa broadcast live in collaboration with Radio Workshop.

In a panel on democratic resilience, Director of the SNF Ithaca Initiative at the University of Delaware Thimothy Schaffer said, “Democracy is a way of living together…amidst disagreement.” Hahrie Han, Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins and one of his interlocutors, said, “People are not born with the muscles they need to make democracy work.” The Political Empathy Lab popup from the SNF Paideia Program at the University of Pennsylvania offers one opportunity to develop them all week.

Other discussions around the SNFCC features a “live storytelling relay,” a tragic vignette from the Greek Revolution, and a session on youth mental health, with a focus on young creatives featuring K-pop artist Eric Nam.

In addition to these dozen discussions, the day included a screening of the Dalai Lama documentary The Wisdom of Happiness—introduced by SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos, the Dalai Lama’s niece, and a video with producer Richard Gere, an SNF Dialogues discussion on connection in an age of social unease, a moving musical performance by the kids from El Sistema Greece, the kickoff of the SNF Nostos Cup soccer tournament, and where-were-you-when concerts by Jean-Michel Jarre and Sébastien Tellier as part of the Release Athens x SNF Nostos collaboration.

Meanwhile, also as part of SNF Nostos 2026 but much further afield, contingents traveled to visit the new SNF public hospitals rising in Thessaloniki and Komotini and see a Mobile Medical Unit mission in action in the village of Organi in Pomakochoria in Northeastern Greece.