If you are flying to or from Thessaloniki and have time to spare at the airport, you no longer have to kill it scrolling, pacing, or staring at the departure board. Since mid-December, the city has quietly added something unexpected to the departures area of Macedonia International Airport: a museum.
MOMUS Air now operates within the airport itself, turning waiting time into cultural time and reframing the airport not just as a transit point, but as a place where Thessaloniki’s contemporary identity comes into view before you even leave the ground.
When the Airport Becomes the Destination
MOMUS Air is a compact but carefully designed museum space created by the Metropolitan Organisation of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki (MOMUS) in collaboration with Fraport Greece and the Ministry of Culture. Located in the departures area, the museum is freely accessible to passengers and visitors.
Inside its 163-square-metre space, the museum presents:
- Visual artworks from the MOMUS collections
- Digital works and video installations
- Documentary material
- A rotating selection of content drawn from MOMUS’ five museums
The emphasis is not on spectacle, but on clarity, accessibility, and immediacy. You can step in for five minutes or twenty. No ticket. No pressure. Just art, quietly placed where time usually goes to waste.
A Cultural Pause Between Flights
The real value of MOMUS Air lies in its timing. Airports are liminal spaces—between cities, between decisions, between arrivals and departures. Placing a museum there changes the rhythm of travel.
Instead of treating art as something you must plan around, MOMUS Air treats it as something you can encounter accidentally. A pause. A shift in mood. A reminder that Thessaloniki’s cultural life does not stop at the city limits.
As Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni noted during the inauguration:
“MOMUS Air is an excellent example of how culture can meet everyday life and accompany citizens even in the most unexpected moments of their journey. The exhibition space transforms the departures area into a cultural landmark, connecting movement with the experience of contemporary art.”
Why This Matters for Travelers
For transit passengers, MOMUS Air offers a rare, meaningful distraction. For first-time visitors, it acts as a cultural introduction. For locals, it is a statement that Thessaloniki does not outsource its identity to brochures.
According to Alexander Zinell, CEO of Fraport Greece:
“Airports can function as autonomous destinations. MOMUS Air is a clear example of this approach, offering travelers a high-quality cultural space as part of their journey.”
This idea—airports as destinations rather than corridors—is increasingly relevant, especially for cities seeking to communicate depth rather than volume.
A Museum Without Walls
MOMUS Air does not replace the city’s museums. It complements them. It works as a cultural gateway, introducing contemporary Greek creation to an international audience that might otherwise never step into a gallery during a short stay.
As Epameinondas Christofilopoulos, President of MOMUS, explained:
“With this new cultural gateway, MOMUS strengthens its extroversion, showcases contemporary Greek creation to an international audience, and contributes to upgrading Thessaloniki’s image as a city that invests in creativity, innovation, and cultural dialogue.”
The museum is also part of the broader project “Strengthening Digital Works and Cultural Exports of MOMUS”, implemented under Greece’s Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0” with EU funding.
So the next time you are flying in or out of Thessaloniki, arrive a little earlier—or do not rush to board. Walk past the duty-free noise. Step into MOMUS Air. You might not remember the flight number, but you will remember the art.
