ATHENS – It’s going to be a weird summer, so let’s get together to make it good-weird. What can past visions of the future—uncannily accurate or wildly wrong—teach us?

How can experiences we had when the present was still future inform our experience of our present future? And where's my AI butler, already? We won’t be able to hold the Summer Nostos Festival and SNF Conference as normal this year, which involves lots of people gathering to be together in one place, but we can still share the enjoyment, encounter the bold ideas, and experience the whimsical atmosphere that are the hallmarks of these events.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is going back to the future with a digital analogue of its signature summer events from June 21 to 28, 2020. We’ll foresee the future, bring back avant-garde ideas and performances of years past, and enjoy the present moment, despite its strangeness. The collective result is something wonderfully new and entirely online. We’re calling it the SNFestival: RetroFuture Edition.

Expect new activities for all ages, a sneak preview of the big ideas and colorful action to come at the 2021 Summer Nostos Festival and SNF Conference, tons of music and performances by Greek and international artists, highlights from summers past, DJ sets, a virtual run (you’ll have to join us to find out how that works), and much more. Until the Summer Nostos Festival and the SNF Conference can return to their home—the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens—we can still return to the magic of summer in the meantime.

The carefree relaxation and intellectual playfulness of these events are needed now more than ever. Stay tuned for the SNFestival: RetroFuture Edition program, to be announced very shortly!