ONCE WE WERE GARDENS
Group Art Exhibition
Karaviko Estate
Kampos, Chios
July 5 - September 7 2025
Participating artists:
Mohammad Alfaraj, Martha Dimitropoulou, Emre Hüner, Derek Jarman, Maria Loizidou, AnestisMichalis, Natalia Papadopoulou, Yaşam Şaşmazer, Socratis Socratous, Teresa Solar Abboud, TheoTriantafyllides, Adriana Varejão
Curated by Akis Kokkinos, Founder of DEO
Free Admission
On the occasion of its 5th anniversary, DEO presents the exhibition Once We Were Gardens at the historic Karaviko estate in Kampos, Chios. The exhibition examines the inevitable cycles of growth and decay, exploring the deterioration of bodies, ideas, spaces, and relationships through the evocative symbolism of the garden.
Once We Were Gardens brings together newly commissioned, site-specific works alongside existing pieces and one garden recreation by twelve international artists –Mohammad Alfaraj, Martha Dimitropoulou, Derek Jarman, Emre Hüner, Maria Loizidou, Anestis Michalis, Natalia Papadopoulou, Yaşam Şaşmazer, Socratis Socratous, Teresa Solar Abboud, Theo Triantafyllides, Adriana Varejão– each exploring how acts of care and states of decay coexist, tracing the shifting boundaries between growth, neglect, and transformation. Their works traverse the fragility of the body, the erosion of ideas, the transformation of landscapes, and the vulnerability of relationships, weaving a narrative that is as much about loss as it is about renewal.
Set within the historic Karaviko Estate –one of the most carefully preserved properties in Kampos– the exhibition unfolds across a setting shaped by centuries of cultivation, layered heritage, and quiet resilience. Kampos, once a flourishing mosaic of citrus orchards and architectural refinement, offers a poignant context for the exhibition’s reflections: a landscape where traces of past abundance and present-day stillness converge, illuminating the tensions between legacy, beauty, and impermanence.
At its core, Once We Were Gardens contemplates the tension between preservation and transformation. In a world that prioritises the new and discards the old, the exhibition questions our desire to remain vital and relevant. How do we navigate the spaces between remembering and forgetting, between growth and decline? The body, like a garden, is a site of continuous change –marked by both vulnerability and resilience. Aging, often perceived as erosion, can also offer a different kind of freedom: a release from the demands of youth and productivity, and an embrace of imperfection and impermanence.
Through sculptures, installations, ceramics, a digital work, and a garden recreation, the artists reflect on the brutality of systems –natural, cultural, and institutional– that dictate what is nurtured and what is allowed to wither. Decay, so often feared, is reimagined here as a form of beauty: a process of transformation rather than a conclusion. Just as a garden requires constant tending and yet remains subject to the forces of time, so do our bodies, our histories, and our relationships.
Once We Were Gardens is ultimately a meditation on acceptance. It offers no answers, but instead invites viewers to dwell on the questions: what remains when the body weakens, when an idea fades, when a space crumbles? In the fields of Kampos, as in the works of these artists, we find a poignant reminder that to be alive is to be in a state of continuous becoming and unbecoming. The garden, like memory, is never static – it is a living, breathing entity, shaped by the hands that tend it and the forces that erode it. This exhibition is an ode to that fragile beauty, a testament to the dignity of what remains, even as it fades.
The exhibition will be complemented by a rich programme of public events that will take place throughout the duration of the exhibition, including educational activities for children, guided tours of the exhibition and Kampos, talks, an open library, and various other activities in cooperation with local institutions, associations and bodies.
The 2025 DEO summer programme was made possible thanks to our list of supporters.
Chios island, Greece
