Vessels: Contemporary Ceramics as Philosophical Forms

Curated by Ekaterina Juskowski, with exhibition design by architect Marilia Lezou, Vessels brings together works by four ceramicists—Diane Alexandre, Dana Aviv, Zen Du, and Nadiia Shapoval—who approach ceramics as a form beyond utility, exploring its capacity to hold and evoke memory, identity, belief, ritual, and transformation.

Set among the olive trees of a historic Hydriot family estate, the exhibition places contemporary ceramic objects in direct conversation with the living landscape. Here, the grove is not simply a backdrop but an active part of the exhibition: a place shaped by geological time, agricultural cycles, human presence, and generations of local memory.

Ceramics, themselves born from the earth and transformed through fire, possess an elemental relationship to this environment. Across the works presented, references to ancient vessels, archetypal forms and cultural traditions coexist with abstraction, texture and experimentation. Removed from the expectations of utility, the objects become sites for contemplation—connecting material, intuition and the natural world.

The curator takes its starting point from the long history of the ceramic vessel as both an everyday object and a symbolic form. Across cultures and civilizations, vessels have contained food, water, offerings and sacred materials, while also serving as funerary objects, ritual instruments and carriers of cultural memory. In this exhibition, that history becomes a point of departure for considering what contemporary vessels might contain: not only physical matter, but histories, beliefs, emotions and ways of understanding the world.

The exhibition forms part of Mnemosyne Projects' broader research into the relationship between contemporary art, cultural memory and place. Founded on Hydra in 2024, the organization develops exhibitions, publications, residencies and cultural collaborations that engage local histories, material traditions and forms of knowledge through contemporary artistic practice.

For Bellevalia Hydra, Vessels also marks an extension of the cultural partnership established through the Bellevalia Olive Grove Residency, a long-term initiative developed with Mnemosyne Projects around artistic production, heritage and ethical engagement with landscape. The residency and exhibition program share a commitment to working at a modest scale and allowing artistic practice to emerge through sustained attention to place rather than through spectacle.

Diane Alexandre
Dana Aviv
Zen Du
Nadiia Shapoval

Vessels: Contemporary Ceramics as Philosophical Forms
Bellevalia Olive Grove
Hydra Island, Greece

Curator: Ekaterina Juskowski
Exhibition design: Marilia Lezou
Produced by: Mnemosyne Projects & Bellevalia Hydra

Viewing Hours:
Opening Reception
Mon Jun 22, 2026 11-5 PM
Tue Jun 23, 2026 10 AM-5 PM
Wed Jun 24, 2026 10 AM-9 PM
Thu Jun 25, 2026 10 AM-9 PM
Fri Jun 26, 2026 10 AM-9 PM

Opening Reception
June 22, 2026
Bellevalia's Olive Grove, Hydra Island, Greece
Time: 11-5 PM

Artists Dinner
Date: June 23, 2026
Bellevalia Hydra
Hydra Island, Greece
RSVP: by invitation