After Saint-Tropez, curator Leslie Kabla settles down on a car-free island, in a building named after Melina Mercouri.
After Saint-Tropez, Hydra
“A Summer in Hydra” continues an exploration that began last year with “A House in Saint-Tropez.” Curator Leslie Kabla brings together designers, ceramicists, painters, sculptors, and artisans whose work engages with Greece, its landscapes, and its traditional crafts: Leda Athanasopoulou, Elina Belou, Daphné Léon, Lina Zedig, Jeanne Chardin, Claudio Coltorti, Leonie Specht, and Romain Cadhilon, alongside a selection of Greek artisans and vintage pieces.
The Melina Mercouri Building
The exhibition takes place in an old stone building in the port of Hydra, just a few steps from the DESTE Foundation. The building is named after the actress and former Greek Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri. From August 2 to 15, 2026, for two weeks, it will become a vibrant Mediterranean setting rather than an exhibition space in the traditional sense.
An Island Without Cars
Since the 19th century, Hydra has been distinguished by the absence of motor vehicles: travel there is on foot or by donkey, a constraint that has shaped the island’s architecture and rhythm since the time when its shipowners made their fortunes there. It is this insular materiality—stone, lime, low-angled light—that Leslie Kabla’s selection extends rather than merely illustrates from the outside.
A chapter, not a conclusion
The exhibition conveys only one thing: in a house that doesn’t move, it is the objects that tell a story of movement—that of a gaze which, from Saint-Tropez to Hydra, seeks not so much a destination as a way of inhabiting the Mediterranean.
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