Honoring Aegean Memories:

Ekaterina Juskowski and Salomé Gómez-Upegui

In 1924, following two years in exile during the Greco-Turkish War, expert carpet manufacturer Nicholas Soutzoglou established a carpet factory in an abandoned estate on the Greek island of Hydra. One hundred years later, the site-specific exhibition The Warp of Time presented at the mansion, which is now home to the Old Carpet Factory Recording Studio and Art Residency, seeks to celebrate a century of shared history between Soutzoglou Carpets and its historical Hydra setting.

Curated by Ekaterina Juskowski, founder and director of the Art Residency at the Old Carpet Factory, the exhibition features a series of Helen Marden’s watercolors, translated into carpets by Soutzoglou’s Art Rug Projects, and Greek artist Dimitrios Antonitsis’s loom-abacuses, category-defying works that totter between art and artifact—all presented alongside a century-old carpet from the Soutzoglou collection that was woven in the same house where it is now on view. Together, these works explore history, memory, and creative expression on the Aegean Island.


Salomé Gómez-UpeguiSince memory is so important in this show, I thought it would be interesting to start with your personal connection to the house and learn about your first memory of the Old Carpet Factory.

Ekaterina JuskowskiI first visited Hydra in 2019 as a guest of producer Stephan Colloredo-Mansfeld [owner of the house and founder of the Old Carpet Factory Recording Studio] when Kiki Smith was presenting an exhibition. I was very jet lagged that weekend—I arrived after a thirty-six-hour delayed flight to the island and the exhibition. I remember a sunset, a beautiful crowd, and a very warm souvlaki dinner organized by the Deste Foundation. Everyone was welcome to this VIP preview, from some of the most important people of the art world to locals.

I remember walking into the house at night when it was completely empty and going upstairs to the main room that has these three huge windows. In the dark, you couldn’t feel the ceiling. It was just—it felt like the room was endlessly tall, and in the three windows, all you could see were the stars, the endless sky with the stars, and all you could hear were the cicadas from the garden, along with the smell of jasmine. It was pure magic.

And the funny thing is that I’m not alone. Everyone you speak to will probably give you the exact same story. As much as I want to be unique and give you something spectacular and individualistic, the word magic comes up all the time. I interviewed one of the previous owners of the house—Kristina Colloredo-Mansfeld—for the book that accompanies the exhibition. She gave me the quote that I used on the cover of the book: “The house isn’t the typical family home. It’s more like an artifact, an otherworldly space where we lived and encountered countless wonders. We didn’t merely inhabit the house. We coexisted with its mysteries.” She just spontaneously told me this over the phone. [laughs]

SGUSo let’s talk a little bit about the exhibition itself. How did the idea for it come about?

EJThe idea really stemmed from my desire to tell the story of the place, of its name, and the fact that Electra Soutzoglou, the youngest generation of the Soutzoglou family, had already been working with contemporary artists who wanted to expand their practice by experimenting with carpet as a medium. After seeing some examples of her exquisitely rendered commissions, I approached the Soutzoglou family with the idea of doing the exhibition at the Old Carpet Factory. They agreed and we just started slowly shaping it.

SGUAnd how did Helen Marden get involved?

EJThrough my conversation with the Soutzoglou family, I already knew that they had antique carpets in their archives, carpets made at the house as early as 1924. Before even seeing them, I imagined the antique carpets were probably traditionally ornamental. To establish a dialogue, I thought about looking into something on the opposite side of the spectrum from traditional carpet-making: something abstract, bold, contemporary, but with the same sensibility and appreciation for artisanal craftsmanship.

I started thinking about the artists who would represent the island and who would speak to the place, and this is how Dimitrios Antonitsis came into the picture. He’s a Greek artist and an erudite curator, and he is very close to the Marden family. I asked Dimitrios for coffee, really, just to brainstorm with me, and he suggested Helen Marden. [Helen Marden and her late husband Brice Marden have had a home on Hydra since the 1970s.]

On Hyrda, I heard stories about how fabulous, smart, freedom-loving, witty, and wise Helen was as a person. So first, I knew her as part of the myth of the island. Later, I learned about her artistic practice. Her abstract, intuitive aesthetic—shaped by her extensive travels and rooted in the natural world—immediately felt right for what I had in mind.

I’m really grateful to Dimitrios for establishing that conversation and to Helen for trusting us with the vision. There was a lot of trust from her as an artist, too, because the process started with her small-scale watercolors that we were going to translate into large-scale carpets. I’m very happy that she agreed.

SGUAnd what do you think about how her works look, going from watercolors to carpets?

EJI think it’s important to start by talking about the craftsmanship of the works that would be nearly impossible to achieve without the immense knowledge and expertise of the Soutzoglou family, accumulated over the span of 120 years of carpet-making. Looking at Helen’s works, several artists shared personal stories with me about attempting to translate their own art works into carpets and how it was a disaster.

The production process of the Soutzoglou family was quite fascinating to witness, and I still do not understand everything. It started with photographs of Helen’s watercolors, then Soutzoglou experts coded the colors of her works into the colors of wool and silk. Next we received the renderings of the carpets, which looked great, but since it takes anywhere from five to eight months to produce a handmade carpet, I did not see them until they arrived for the installation in May. I was shocked as I did not know they would be so beautiful. They look more like paintings than carpets—the rich colors and masterful play of the wool and silk create the illusion. It’s quite something.

SGUI can imagine there’s nothing like seeing them in person, but they look amazing in the photos. Can you also talk to me about Dimitrios’s pieces in the show?

EJI saw the loom-abacuses in my meetings with Dimitrios. He has a couple of them on the walls of his Hydra studio and home. On a very simple level, they’re traditional Greek flat-weave sculptures that he has deconstructed. He learned the technique from a famed local weaver who was making those flat weaves on the island. On a personal level, Dimitrios’ works are about loneliness and aloneness—two human experiences shared by island dwellers and carpet weavers. Because the exhibition is essentially about memories and about the history of the place, and both Dimitrios and Helen have strong ties to Hydra and have been on the island for a long time, a lot of their work has been done in response to or about the island. So basically, both series of works are memories of, and meditations on, Hydra.

SGUYes, and you describe beautifully the way they come together. I want us to end with the place again—since it’s such a central part of the exhibition. I was reading a little bit about the history that you shared of the house. I read that Soutzoglou’s factory was important to the local community—the way that Nicholas Soutzoglou helped women on the island gain financial independence, and how it really became a place that was relevant for locals. A hundred years later, what do you think about the ability of the Old Carpet Factory to be significant for the entire island and for the community?

EJI ask myself this question every day. Every project I select has to do with the question, “How relevant is it for the island?” Because it does feel like home by now, a lot of locals play a big part in the life of the house and in the life of our projects. One hundred years ago the Old Carpet Factory supported the local community with salaries women earned by weaving carpets. Today the house enriches the cultural and creative life of the island.

We’re on a mission to ask people to slow down, stop, look around, and learn something new from the environment. Hydra is a place where nothing goes as planned, you know? It always ends up being different but somehow much better than one expects. I guess that’s what we are trying to achieve with the Old Carpet Factory, both with the recording studio and with the art residency, to encourage people to abandon expectations and just let magic happen.