Bellevalia Olive Grove Art Residency Inaugural Dinner

The Bellevalia Olive Grove Art Residency is rooted in the belief that a place reveals itself slowly, through attention and time. Set within an olive grove near Plakes and hosted by a Hydriot family whose connection to the land stretches back several generations, the residency invites artists to experience Hydra's car-free lifestyle as temporary islanders living at the slow pace that has drawn creative minds here for decades.

Unlike many residencies, the program does not feel like institutional cultural programming. Instead, it offers artists a way into the local community, allowing them to listen, observe, and respond through their own imagination. In this sense, the residency positions itself as a lived encounter with the grove, the sea, the island, and the people who continue to preserve what makes Hydra unique.

This year’s resident artist, Stefan Dotter, presented a preview of a photographic series developed during his Spring 2026 residency on Hydra. His visual investigation became the starting point for a broader project on belonging, connection, and the invisible networks that shape our sense of place. Inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation, Dotter began by looking at the relationships that structure community life, with Hydra serving as the first site of inquiry.

Rather than working from a predetermined list of subjects, he allowed the series to unfold through the island’s own patterns of trust and familiarity. Beginning with a small group of residents, Dotter asked each person to lead him to another, creating a chain of introductions that revealed connections across generations, professions and friendships.

The photographs focus on objects, spaces, and personal belongings as traces of memory, attachment, and identity. On Hydra Island, these images became a way of connecting people to the surrounding environment.

Dotter’s body of work, together with his reflections on island life, inspired this year’s theme, Belonging(s) which brought together Mnemosyne Projects, the Bellevalia family, the local community, and an international circle of artists, curators, and friends. The same week, Dotter presented the project at the Old Carpet Factory, where the conversation turned to the particularities of Hydra: its social fabric, its rhythms, and the quiet ways in which belonging is formed.

While rooted in Hydra, Dotter’s thesis remains in development and extends beyond the island. The project asks how belonging is formed through relationships, possessions, memory, and the ties that connect people to one another and to the places. He plans to present the full project next year, with its final form and location still taking shape.

The resulting body of work took the form of a visual essay composed of borrowed possessions: objects temporarily displaced from their owners and scattered across Hydra's landscape. Native plants coexist with discarded plastic by-products, traces of human presence merge with the natural environment, and imported objects sit alongside those originating on the island, each transformed through use, care, and time. Removed from their original contexts, these belongings resist clear attribution, mirroring the unsettled nature of identity itself. Through this deliberate misalignment of objects and places, Dotter's work proposes that belonging is inherently unstable and continuously shaped by those who pass through, remain, or lay claim to the island.

Set within the living landscape of Bellevalia Olive Grove, the site-specific exhibition Vessels, curated by Ekaterina Juskowski with spatial design by architect Marilia Lezou, presented works by four ceramicists: Diane Alexandre, Dana Aviv, Zen Du, and Nadiia Shapoval. The exhibition looked at ceramics beyond function, approaching the medium as one historically shaped for symbolic, ritualistic, and artistic purposes. In this context, ceramics take on another dimension, carrying memory, identity, belief, and transformation. Together, site and objects invite reflection on the relationship between human intuition and the natural world.

Within the grove, the works merged with the surroundings. The medium itself, drawn from the earth and transformed through fire, is inherently attuned to such setting.  Some works evoked ancient vessels, archetypal figures, and cultural memories, while others embraced abstraction, texture, and form. Together, they transformed the grove into a space of encounter, bringing together contemporary art with the histories of the place.

The evening was organized and designed by Ventus Events, who place tradition and continuity in the center of the experiences, with Katarina Trikon shaping the atmosphere as curator of the night.

Hosted by the Rampias family, the dinner centered around food from Tassia’s Tavern, Bellevalia’s seafront restaurant at Plakes. It began as a family kitchen and has grown into one of Hydra’s most beloved gathering places, shaped by the warmth of Tassia Rampia, whose legacy continues through home-style dishes and traditional recipes passed down through generations. Today, the family carries Tassia's spirit under the Bellevalia name, preserving the warmth of her cooking.

From the food to the wine by Vassaltis Vineyards, the connection to the past, family, traditions was in everything. Founded by Yannis Valambous after he returned from London to revive the Santorini vineyards inherited from his father, Vassaltis brings a similar sense of family history and renewal to winemaking, combining respect for local tradition with a contemporary vision for Greek wine.

As dinner gave way to music, the program featured two independent performances. Aggelos Aggelou, the rebetika singer invited by Nari Ward to perform as part of Until That Day at the DESTE Foundation’s Slaughterhouse Project on Hydra, carried the resonance of the previous night’s DESTE presentation into the grove. Andrew Kamel followed with songs from his upcoming album, offering an intimate glimpse into work still in formation. Together, the performances extended the evening’s sense of exchange: local and international, inherited and contemporary, deeply rooted in Hydra yet open to the wider world.