During DESTE Art Week, we gathered at Bellevalia Olive Grove to celebrate the opening of the new art residency and its first artist, photographer Stefan Dotter. Friends joined us for an evening of art, food, wine, and music.
The Bellevalia Olive Grove Art Residency gives artists time to live and work on Hydra at the island’s own pace. Set in a historic family olive grove near Plakes, the program connects visiting artists with the landscape, local community, and everyday life of the island. Rather than following a traditional residency format, the program invites artists to spend time with the local community, discover the island, and see where the experience takes their work. The grove, the sea, and the people of Hydra all become part of the residency.
Architect Marilia Lezou and curator Ekaterina Juskowski
For the first Spring 2026 residency, curators Ekaterina Juskowski and Marilia Lezou invited photographer Stefan Dotter to spend time on Hydra and follow the connections that hold island life together. During the inaugural dinner, he shared a first look at the photographic series he developed during his stay.
Starting with a few local residents, Dotter asked each person to introduce him to someone else. Friends led to friends, neighbors to neighbors, and one portrait to the next. Inspired by six degrees of separation, the project grew through Hydra’s own circles of trust, revealing connections between people of different generations, professions, and backgrounds. Hydra is the first stop in a larger project about belonging, community, and the ties that connect us to place.
Hélène de Cartier de Marchienne, Stefan Dotter, Ekaterina Juskowski & Tristan Tancredi De Paoli
Joanna Halpin and Daniel Askill
The work, shaped by Dotter’s experience of island life, became the starting point for this year’s theme, Belonging(s) . The project brought together Mnemosyne Projects, the Bellevalia family, Hydra’s local community, and an international group of artists, curators, and friends. That same week, Dotter presented the project at the Old Carpet Factory, opening a conversation about Hydra’s social fabric, its particular rhythms, and the often imperceptible ways in which belonging takes form.
Although it begins on Hydra, Belonging(s) extends beyond the island. Still evolving, the project considers how relationships, possessions, and memories connect people to one another and to the places they inhabit.
Photographer Stefan Dotter, inaugural artist in residence at Bellevalia Olive Grove Art Residency on Hydra Island.
Photographer Stefan Dotter, inaugural artist in residence at Bellevalia Olive Grove Art Residency on Hydra Island.
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.
Bellevalia's Olive Grove
Diane Alexandre presenting White Goddess (2023) and Birds #2 (2023) as part of the exhibition Vessels.
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.
Architect Marilia Lezou
Stefan Dotter
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.
Art critic Timothee Chaillou with artists Dana Aviv and Dianne Alexandre
Grigoris Rampias welcomed the guests on behalf of the family
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.
Friends enjoying wine from Vassaltis family vineyards.
Aggelos Aggelou performed rebetika beneath the olive trees. Invited by Nari Ward to perform in Until That Day at the DESTE Foundation’s Slaughterhouse the previous evening, Aggelou brought the music from the Slaughterhouse into the grove. Andrew Kamel followed with songs from his forthcoming album, giving friends an early listen to new work still taking shape.
Dianne Alexandre and Andrew Kamel
Pawel Pawlikowski and Stefan Dotter
Friends at the Bellevalia's Olive Grove dinner.
Photo Credits: Douglas Martin Eveleigh
Location: Bellevalia Olive Grove, Hydra, Greece
Hosted by: Mnemosyne Projects & Bellevalia Hydra with support from the Old Carpet Factory
Event Planning: Ventus Events
Wine by: Vassaltis Vinyards
Special Thanks to: Grigoris Rampias and Rampias family, Katerina Trikon & Dimitris Markantonis, Stephan Colloredo Mansfeld.