Good morning. Today is 24 of June 2023. We are at Pagkrati, Athens. I'm Alkistis Boutsioukou, researcher from Istorima and we are here with…

Ekaterina Juskowski, I'm a photographer, curator and a researcher, currently based on Hydra, at the Old Carpet Factory, a historical architectural landmark that now functions as a music recording studio and an art residency.

So, to start with, could you briefly introduce us to what the OCF studio does at the moment?

Set in the 18th century mansion, the residential recording studio presents a unique experience of writing and recording music in the remote and beautiful setting of a Greek island. The studio features a collection of Ray instruments and analogue gear. The art residency invites artists to come to the island and has the mission of recording the culture of the local community.

Perfect. And so let's go back in time and, to see what did the house used to be, the past owners… So, let's begin.

So, 200 years of the Old Carpet Factory's history is inextricably connected to the out of ordinary lives of the mansion’s many owners and they are larger than life personalities. The house was originally built for a naval officer, Anastasios Tsamados, whose heroic feeds in the course of the Greek war for independence, inspired Jules Verne’s novel The Archipelago on Fire. The house was donated to the local church during the era of island's economic decline and later as a wieving factory under the patronage of the famed carpet maker Nicolas Soutzoglou, who came to Greece as a refugee during the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Then we go into the 1930s, when the house becomes a weaving school, in the 1950s it enters its artistic period when American sculptor and architect John LaFarge purchases it and hosts many artists. So the house was built in the late 18th century for the prominent naval officer Anastasios Tsamados. The house is located in the Kiafa neighbourhood of the island and is connected to the Kiafa wall that protected the wealthy from the attacks of the pirates. So, basically the house is the beginning of the neighbourhood. So, architecturally it presents a typical Hydriot mansion of a wealthy person. It was built by Venetian architects invited by the ship owners. The house has the largest windows on the island. This is… it's the most prominent feature. You can see the windows from the port if you look up. In the late 18th century, Kiafa was the neighbourhood for the wealthy people. Some of them built fortresses in the port, but those who wanted houses for the families, at least 45 houses lived up on the hill, removed from the water and removed from the danger. So Old Carpet Factory is typical architectural landmark of the island. The only atypical thing is the three large windows, because if you look at the history of windows making, it was very expensive to create. The technology didn't allow for very light windows and the photographs in the archives of Hydra Museum from 1890 already show the house with the windows that as they are now. So we suspect that that this might have been their original design, which means those was a very prominent financial investment to show off the wealth of the owner of the house. Old Carpet Factory, together with other captain mansions of Hydra, a symbolic of the island's prosperity, the times where a lot of relationships were built with Europe and America, so a lot of goods were traded and the wealthy ship owners tried to participate in this cosmopolitan world of Europe. They tried to introduce the luxury of foreign countries to Greece and to their island. They were proud of their wealth and they were showing it off and a lot of it can still be found in the way the houses were built. We know that Hydra, the island of Hydra, is a home to many heroes of Greek history, and specifically of the war for independence. We know that many of them give their merchant ships for the cause of fighting for the independence of the country, the ships were remodelled into military ships. We know that some of the captains gave their entire fortunes to finance the war, as a result the families went bankrupt. The stories of some of the captains becoming monks and going into the monastery, losing everything. As a result of the sacrifice of the wealthy captains and other owners and families, the entire island went into decline. Many houses were abandoned and for a large period of the 19th century the church supervised many properties without sufficient means of maintaining them. So as we enter into the beginning of the 20th century, we find all these beautiful mansions and prosperous houses neglected and fallen apart. So during the beginning of the 20th century, Greece and many islands start receiving refugees from Asia Minor, Hydra is one of the islands that hosts families. A lot of the refugees are women, and these women come with a very particular skill of weaving carpets. In 1924, Nicolas Soutzoglou comes as a refugee from Isparta to Hydra, at the time he is in his early 40s and he comes with nothing, after having a large operation of carpet making and trading in Asia Minor. He goes from running 3.000 looms and producing some of the most valuable carpets for aristocratic families in England, America and even Russia, to arriving with absolutely nothing on one of the boats. We know that Old Carpet Factory at that point is supervised by the church and to help the refugees the house is given to Nicolas Soutzoglou and he is asked to organize a weaving operation to employ the women who are newly arrived to the island. We know that a lot of them didn't have a place to live. Some of them were hosted by families and an opportunity to start making money was much needed. So how do we kind of translate it? So, from what we understand, by 1924 when Nicolas Soutzoglou sets his operation at the Old Carpet Factory the building is poorly maintained and parts of it are fallen apart. The operation of Nicolas Soutzoglou stays only for a few years, before weavers find their own homes and move the operation into private spaces. A lot of it has to do with how traditional societies operate and how unmarried women are seen in the public world. So many families insist of taking [Δ.Α.] into the houses and having women working from home.

Why did they choose this house to do the factory? It was a good place?

We think that it was used for various reasons. Number one, large windows, lots of light coming in into a very large room where you could set enough machines to operate, and we also suspect that maybe some of the women did stay in the house. There are other houses that were operating. So we suspect that it wasn't the only house that was given as a weaving facility. However, it is the only one that was given to Nicolas Soutzoglou. And yeah, so when when we look at the way the house is today, with this huge, like, windows and tall ceilings, heating it in the winter is a big problem, but it was even a bigger problem in the beginning of the 20th century. And I suspect that it was really difficult to actually work inside of that house. And if we also add to the poor condition of the roof or the walls, you know, I'm not surprised that particular operation did not last too long. So we know that Nicolas Soutzoglou was in the building from 1924 till around 1930 and then the operation on the island, the Soutzoglou operation on the island, continued all the way into the ’80s, but the family were visiting weavers in their homes. We also know that the house was in the bad condition in the 1920s because there is an article in the archives of Hydra Museum, Hydra Historical Museum, that talks about an effort of raising funds to restore the house. And later there is an article that celebrates that effort coming to fruition with the 10.000 drachmas given to renovation and setting up of the weaving school. And the weaving school initiative is quite logical, because, when you look at the craft of weaving and at the fact that it was predominantly done by women, you also have to look at the economical factor of it. For many women weaving was an extra income. It went from surviving as a refugee, it went maybe from being a primarily income to income that supplemented the family budget and later on it becomes the income that finances sending children to school. That I learned from the Prime Minister because he's now reviving… not Prime Minister, from the Minister of Culture, he is now reviving the crafts in Greece and he said that all the children went to school thanks to, like, weaving income. Because they had men working and that was the budget of the family. But the money that women made, they were only spending in school for children.

The extra money–

Yeah, yes.

…gave the opportunity to go to school.

So in that sense, Old Carpet Factory taps into this very important part of Greek history, of history of the island, that connects women and survival and education. We also know that during Second World War, it's important to know that the island does not produce any food. The island is a rock, so nothing grows and the food has to be imported. And from Soutzoglou family we learned that during the Second World War, for example, weavers were main supporters of the families, like all the weight fell on them and their responsibility, and very often the Soutzoglou family would travel to the island with raw materials for weaving and will bring food as payment, because that was more important than the money.

Exchange.

Exchange, exactly. So, on one of my trips to Athens, I discovered a beautiful showroom presenting carpets, what seemed to be antique carpet in a very artistic manner. It's near the Kolonaki Square. And I took a photograph of the showroom with the goal of going there at some point where I would have more time and learning more about the company. At the same time, I was conducting research about the House on Hydra and I found documents that described a brief history of the house, with the mentioning of the name of Nicolas Soutzoglou. A simple Google of the Nicholas name took me to the website of this company that I had already discovered in Kolonaki Square and, together with the biography of the founder, I saw that the company still exists, it still thrives, and in fact it specializes in both antique and new carpet. I reached out to the owners with the question if they had any knowledge of Nicolas Soutzoglou, their father, grandfather been on Hydra and if my information is in fact correct. They were very excited to hear from me. Kiriakos Soutzoglou, the son of Nicholas Soutzoglou, remembers very well coming to Hydra as a teenage boy, visiting the houses of the weavers and working with them.  The granddaughter of Nicolas Soutzoglou, Electra, is currently leading an initiative of commissioning contemporary artists to create works of art on carpets. The family is preserving this heritage of Asia Minor weaving techniques together with this important craft in Greece and next year, in 2024, they're celebrating 100 years of being on the island of Hydra, of starting the business on the island of Hydra. Coincidentally, I found the name οf the business owner who started the Old Carpet Factory's weaving connection in 1924 and the company in the same week completely independently.

Ok, so after the ending of the factory who got the house?

Ok, so we spoke about the renovation, right? Ιn the 1933. The municipality of Ηydra sees the benefits of this very important craft, carpet weaving. Since the island doesn't produce food and at that point the tourism is not as developed in Greece, and especially on Greek islands, as it is today, people have to survive and people have to find way of making money. It looks like the economic advantage or financial advantage of carpet weaving becomes obvious and as a result this campaign to raise money and build a weaving school now is launched and comes to its successful fruition in 1933. The women's school exists from 1933 into the ’50s. I'm not sure who teaches, how it operates. I'm not sure, I couldn't find more information about how many graduates, or how many women went through the school, but, through the interviews with individual women that we could find today, we know that a lot of not only Asia Minor refugee women, but also local Greek women learnt the skill and used it as an as extra income to all the… as one of the small jobs that they were doing on the island to feed their families. So in the 1950s the island gets some attention, as more and more creatives arrive to the island and settle there. And the creatives come from all over the world. They are writers, journalists, painters who are escaping the industrial cities, who want a bohemian lifestyle, affordable lifestyle and ability to create. So the house enters its artistic period in the 1950s with the purchase by American sculptor and architect John LaFarge. He buys this crumbling building and brings it back to its original glory. John LaFarge implements new features to the house that are still existing. One of them is the glazed arc in the main room and another one is the in the courtyard. He creates it by removing a roof from one of the rooms and opening it up and turning it into the internal garden. One of the artists who stayed and worked in the house for an extended period of time, approximately 10 years on and off, it was Dimitri Gasoumis. He used the house as his studio till he moved back to the United States, I believe. Dimitris Gasoumis is a prominent Hydriot artist, whose family has a long history on the island and he's praised for his works and he's praised for his landscapes and documenting Hydra. And then, one of them… So, Stephan's mother buys it in the ’70s. She buys it when George LaFarge is already off the island. I think John LaFarge is already off the island. Gasoumis has it as a studio, but he's back and forth, and then LaFarge decides to sell it. So Christina Colloredo-Mansfeld buys the house in the 1970s. She comes to the island with her family. She is a Czech-Austrian aristocrat. In the 1970s, Christina… in the 1970s, an artist, Christina Colloredo-Mansfeld, buys the house for her family. 

From?

From John LaFarge. She is… here she is, the time of purchasing the house. I like the fact that she becomes known as “the barefoot countess” of the island. You know, she has this big personality, she’s one of these bigger than life personalities, she's hosting parties, she's known for her avant-garde fashion, for her jewellery. She's big, she's graceful, she is noble, but she lives a bohemian life. She combined… I think she becomes this epitome of the of the high bohemian, what you call, you know, the aristocrat people who escape the confines of their world and come and search for freedom and rebel against their families. So she was one of these beautiful rebels on the island. There's an article on one of the magazines, maybe Hydra or Athens magazines, that was reading about her and it was called “the barefoot countess”.  In the 1970s, the artist Christina Colloredo-Mansfeld arrives to the island and buys the house for her family. She comes from an Austrian-Czech aristocratic family, she is a true bohemian of the time. She becomes known on the island as a barefoot countess. I think she's probably attracted by the elegance and… how would you say? Like, she's probably attracted by the elegance and atmosphere of the house. Let's talk about the decoration, right? The interior decoration. She ships a lot of the antique furniture of her family and decorates the house. Her vision still informs the interior design of the house today, from etchings, old Austrian-European etchings to Bohemian furniture. And by Bohemian I mean, like, Bohemia, as Czech, Hungarian, Australian Bohemia. There is this very particular way of wood inlaying. She takes this house, the way I see it, she takes this house… it's kind of falling apart, it's kind of traditional, but then it's opened up and made lighter and more open by this very talented architect. Right? And I think the reason Christina was attracted to it visually, because it is light, it is traditional, it is noble in its architecture, but it's also very light and friendly and elegant, and in a way playful in its interior after John LaFarge makes certain adjustments. And Christina puts her touch with this antique furniture, with flowers, with plants, with beautiful tapestries that she spreads throughout the house and she lives there for many years and uses the house as her studio. Her son, Stephan Colloredo-Mansfeld, inherits the house around 2013. He is–

He lived there as a kid too?

Right, right. So, Christina's son, Stephan, lives in the house since his birth and grows up on the island. He's the only one of her children who is… Christina's youngest son, Stephan, is born at the time of the purchase of the house. He grows up on the island and inherits the house around 2013. Stephan Colloredo-Mansfeld is a music producer, a collector of rare psychedelic records and rare musical instruments.

And he also started and created the OCF studio.

His passion for music and his family's heritage and his mother's lifestyle contribute to his love for… let's define it. What is it we love and what is it we are creating. Because Old Carpet Factory grows out of the lifestyle of this very creative Bohemian family. The family that always supported other artists, the family that always had their doors open to all the interesting personality, the family that is full of interesting personalities, who, you know, naturally attracted to smart, avant-garde, creative people and the family who is sharing their resources and opening doors to their home in order to provide an opportunity to create or to co-create or to support all these people that are around them. Both Christina and Stephan are great hosts. A lot of people rotate around them. They host dinners… Stephan's passion for music and having creative people around comes directly from his childhood, from the lifestyle of his mother, who kept the door open to many eccentric and creative people. She was an eccentric herself, so she would naturally attract people who were interesting, who were not ordinary, who were free and who were rebels. The Old Carpet Factory recording studio, I'm just trying to say how… The Old Carpet Factory recording studio is in a way a continuation of the lifestyle this extraordinary family has maintained for years or decades. The musicians and artists who come into the house today come in exactly same way as they came, you know, decades ago. It just now with the… You know, what I like to say is that kind of the world changed, right? Like the way people discover Hydra changed, but the way the house accepts them is the same, is unchanged. Like, how can we formulate that? Because before you were just on the island, everyone was bohemian. You just come to the island for dinner, to their house for dinner, and you stay. Now the world became more capitalist. More, kind of…

Everything is planned and organized.

Everything is planned and organized, right? So there are fewer chance encounters. Like, you can't just stumble into the house. However, once you get there, then you go back in time and everything was preserved and is preserved. People often ask how the idea of a recording studio came about. In reality this studio became a natural continuation of the lifestyle that the Colloredo-Mansfeld family maintained for decades on Hydra, since the 1970s. The house was first… as a visual artist, Christina maintained it as a studio, they were a lot of beautiful spaces and resources for people to come in and use and create. Because, you know, the creative process is spontaneous and if you have an artist in the house, a pencil will be picked up or a brush would be picked up and the painting would be made. There are many paintings in the house that were left behind by visitors. Stephan is not a visual artist, he is into music. So through him collecting the vinyl records and instruments and having them in the house, became this invitation for musicians to leave something behind or to interact with these items that were already in the house. And as a result, people would find themselves in this wonderful place with these wonderful hosts that would encourage freedom by just being and living free, and that would invite you or allow you to use anything and everything in the most hospitable way. So, the artist would just start creating by this mere encouragement of these wonderful hosts and, as a result, the music was started being played in the house when Stephan became the owner. And once the music started sounding inside of the house more and more people would come to play and listen and exchange the music. As you know, Hydra is not a very musical island today. Maybe it needs to be researched and reading about the heritage of music on Hydra, but currently with the noise regulation and the licencing policies, tavernas don't play music anymore, like it's very difficult. I think the church regulates the sound. I think there is a law in Hydra, if you are at a certain proximity to the church and you are a tavern, you have to get a permission from the church to play the music and a lot of the times this permission is not given for maintaining the sound level slow. The island, as a result, is very quiet, friendly and serene but there is no music. And the House of Colloredo-Mansfeld family became the place where you go to listen to the music. Not because the music was programmed or scheduled to be there, but because people knew that most likely someone is staying there and playing the music, jamming or Stephan working with music… He has the most amazing collection of the records and his knowledge of different times and areas, he's very interested in unknown music and people come to him to learn more about things that are difficult to find. Stephan is very interested in music that is commercially not successful. That's his particular expertise with vinyl records. And with so many things being readily, available people come to him to find things that are jams that, you, know to take away, something that no one knows, like they're almost like a secret. So, the word started spreading, this legend of the house that has music started going around and many musicians who would just come to the island would find out that, oh, they're actually instruments on the island and they're in that particular house. And then there is this very eccentric person who lives there, and then he knows so much about the instruments and the history of music, and he also lets musicians stay and then lets musicians create. And you see, as a result, this studio happened before it even became the studio. Before becoming a studio, it became a lifestyle. It became the place of music. And I think around 2016 a friend introduced this French musician Sebastian Tellier, who came to the house and I think he was the one of the first people who actually recorded an album. They wanted to work outside of the city. They wanted to work on the island and more things needed to be brought into the house in order for that to happen. It was more of a challenge at that time and once the, you know, challenge was accepted, it came to a very successful ending, with a beautiful video created and the EP being recorded and is out there in the world. And I think that's where the idea came to actually do it in a more structured way, not the idea of the studio, but more the idea of “We could do it more intentionally. Spontaneity is great, but what if we tell people that they can actually plan to be here instead of randomly coming to the island and randomly finding out about it?” And again the word spread out and musicians started talking about how you could actually come to Hydra.

From all around the world, right?

From all around the world, because Hydra is a very international island, Hydra attracts people from all over the world. And whoever comes to the house is usually surprised by this unchanged atmosphere of the true bohemian living and they talk about it as a result. And once they talk about it, people start reaching out and when they plan their visit to Hydra, they either plan to come to the house or they ask if they can visit or they started asking if they can actually stay and write the music or use the the rooms to record the music. And this is how the recording studio began its existence. And it was all developing quite organically, because Stephan is very interested in all the things analogue. He has an allergic reaction to technology I think, so he's always been interested in this rare like old school microphones, tape recorders, pianos, all sorts of instruments, just anything that is interesting. He has this great talent of finding something that is not easily understood, is not mass produced, is something very unique. And then, he's also a great storyteller, so he is drawn to things that are giving that story to him. And if he was naturally doing it, Covid happened and Covid showed to the entire world that, you know, people might be doing it wrong. You know, they might be living too fast. They might be living in it too inorganic manner, their priorities might be a little bit off. And during Covid, more people soar the life of the Old Carpet Factory as something that we are suddenly started looking for and, at the same time, the musicians started thinking and discovering more of the analogue ways of producing music. So it became more interesting to go away from the mass production. And I don't know if we can only put it on Covid, but a lot… it could be that people were already tired and they were ready to change and that was just a facilitator for that change to happen. And this is when the Old Carpet Factory recording studio became a truly in demand recording studio. This place where people could flee from the city, flee from the structured world, have lots of freedom to express themselves, to create. But, at the same time, have this incredible collection of all the instruments that they need and basically have the best of both worlds. So this is now where the Old Carpet Factory recording studio is now. So the way the studio is structured is that… because not everyone's… in theory, with bohemian lifestyle becoming more in demand, there are people who just buy into trends. If five people told you they were on Hydra at the Old Carpet Factory and they had incredible time, you know, there are people who would just say “I want to do it”, just because someone did it. What they might not understand is that people enjoyed it because they had to let a lot of things go. They had to leave a lot of expectations behind. They had to become more flexible. They had to become more accepting and as a result more free to create. So coming to Hydra is a bit of… coming to Ηydra and recording, and especially recording at the Old Carpet Factory, comes with a challenge. For many people, it's a long trip. It's a trip not only to Greece, it's also a trip to a remote Island. It's a trip to the island that has no cars. So everything has to be delivered by mules. People coming from the outside world are used to a certain speed, pace of things happening, of things being delivered, of things being requested. We've been very good in accommodating very serious demands, but all that takes so much more effort than it might take in the city. And the studio is really appealing to the people who understand the compromise, who are happy about that compromise and who are happy about just stepping back and understanding that whatever has been planned, be it logistically, be it creatively, might not go exactly as it was planned. Because there are too many variables along the way, from you taking a ferry in Piraeus to you arriving to Hydra port, to you taking a donkey up the hill, you know, all sorts of weather conditions. And, you know, when we had people stuck on the island for a few days and not being able to leave. But people with the most positive attitude, who miss their planes to wherever they're going and saying “It's fun”, you know, “let's take advantage of this situation”.

At this thing is all the magic.

Right, this is when the magic happens, exactly. You can… like things can go wrong or… let's not say wrong, things can go not as planned but, as a result, they will be so much better. And this is what the magic of Hydra is and this is what the magic of the Old Carpet Factory recording studio is.

If you want to say about the donkey and this video clip, that it's really nice, with the donkey, donkey inside the house.

Oh well, that was the Sebastian, Sebastian Tellier. It was the first project, yes. And I think that video, that particular video, is probably the first documented video artifact of the life at the Old Carpet Factory. Of course, certain things were curated and had to come to place. We don't have donkeys hanging out in the living room every day, however they hang out there more than once per year, because things need to be delivered constantly. Some of the things are heavy enough for them to be unloaded on the street, so sometimes donkeys do enter the house and being unloaded in the house. Yes, and that particular video suddenly became the representation of many things that are happening in the house or can happen in the house at every given day.

What did you think when you just arrived in Hydra and at the house the first time?

So, I met Stephan in 2013 and at the Biennale in Turkey. And it was a very turbulent time for the country and it was a very interesting time for the creatives, because there was the time of this Taksim Square protests when many young people of the country went out into the streets and were demanding changes from the government. On the other hand, being nearly or featuring a lot of artists who were responding to that turbulent political unrest creatively and even though we were not the participant of that uprising, we were witnesses and we, just by being there, we had to interact with the country and the art on a more serious level. We didn't discuss the aesthetics of things, we discussed the politics, we discussed the personal roles, the human roles. The theme of the Biennale was this line from a Turkish poem called "Mom, am I a barbarian?" and somehow that was in the air and we connected through this conversation of, elevated conversations of "Who are we in the world?". And, of course, Stephan shining with his ideas of regression, this contrast of what is civilized, what is barbaric, and I thought that he was a very interesting man with a very interesting mission and many great ideas. So he invited me on the island together with a group of artists, many of them from that time in Istanbul, to create a performance recording on Hydra, on Episcopi village. So it was a combination of a performance, sound art and visual art and a bit of a shamanic meditative elements from a group of different artists who were collaborating together. So the first time I arrived to Hydra, I arrived as a part of that group, which is also very special and a deeper connection to the island than to just arrive on a vacation, because I arrived with the mission. So everything I saw on the island, for the first time I saw through the prism of that project. So from the moment of stepping up the island and walking 300 steps up to the house to seeing the house, I haven't seen a single person who we're not, like, just mesmerised by that big room and those big three windows and the view of the house. It just takes your breath away. But then, like, you know, when you think that this is the highlight and like this is so beautiful and other things are happening that take your breath away and you're constantly, you're just this… I don't think you can get used to it. It's a constant awakening to different parts of life, of island, of creativity. So, I also saw the island in a more meaningful way, beyond the port. Many people who visit Hydra, they do not see Hydra beyond the beaches and the port. There is a lot to see there, it's beautiful. But we did a performance on the top of the island, in the Episcopi village. It was a 24 hour performance where two musicians were responding to Chazan music. Ariel Kalma, who's played the didgeridoo, and the saxophone and other kind of wind instruments, and this Turkish musician, the inventor of instrument called yaybahar, that sounds like a synthesiser but it's an analogue. It's a string instrument. And being there on the top of the island, in the Hydra nature, far moved from civilization, with only few people watching this… So it was a sunny day. So the performance lasted from the sunrise to the sunrise… or maybe from the sunset to the… no, from the sunrise to the sunrise. Yes, because–

On summer, no?

It was September, yes. And there were breaks, but then we considered it in performance for 24 hours because it was just a group of artists who were part of this performance with two musicians. There was a field recording and there was music recording, so the field recording was also part of the performance and then, of course, there was cooking, and there was talking and people will break off and then come together and they were documenting the videos and photos. And the audience were the participants, and I also thought that the performance was happening for the sake of the performance, not for the audience. This kind of natural non commercial feel of it, but the fact that you didn't have the final goal, like any –how to say?– like pragmatic goal, right? “I'm” either “gonna release a music video” or “become famous” or “put it in my portfolio”. But everyone did it just for the sake of being there and doing whatever they were asked to do, improvising and contributing to this 24 hour experience without any expectation in any angle and not really exactly knowing what the angle would be because they were just the components. We knew that they were talented people who could do talented things, but we didn't know how all of those things are going to play out in the end. And I thought that was, for me, that became such an essence of life on Hydra, an essence of life at the Old Carpet Factory, the life of Stephan is trying to preserve, that I fell in love with, with that moment and the people, and then that that idea and that philosophy. And you were asking if the day was sunny. The day was sunny, but then around the same time I remember being on the top of the island, I think it was after the performance, I was on the top of the island and I was preparing my journey down when it started raining. And that was an incredible experience, because it allowed me to see that we are really on the rock. Because the water that would fall on the top of the island, it will not go into the land, it will just start flowing in the… like forming the rivers and going into the port. And as I was going down, it was becoming more and more scary because the rivers of water became bigger and bigger and bigger and this red earth was, you know, flowing and covering me like I was wearing white, as many people do on Hydra. And by the time I got down to the port, I was wearing red, orange, kind of rusty red, t-shirt and pants. I was soaking wet and I was standing up to my knee like in the river of water and that showed me this. I think it was an important moment for me to understand that we do not live in the vacation place we live in the place that's rough, that's changing, that can be very difficult for someone committed to survive. It was a visual representation of this force of nature that one has to constantly negotiate with, you know, be the weather, be the water, be the rain, be the fire because it's too dry. So, vacation part is one thing, but then living on the island and negotiating with the island and the nature is a completely different story in lifestyle.

Perfect. So let's go back to talk about the studio and the art residency?

So, art residency at the Old Carpet Factory was envisioned as a response to the first project we did together at the Episcopi village, as a first desire to share this experience with other artists and show them how creative process could be. If you disconnect from the end goals of contemporary art market, of looking for fame or securing collectors or focusing on selling, right? It is… having gone through an art school in the United States, I know that many artists today are really focused on the business side of the art, which is an important part to know and understand. But, as a result, many artists have never experienced a true creative process of free creation, of spontaneous creation, of creation for the purpose of creation, for creation without an audience or with an audience but without, you know, really acknowledging that audience, without allowing yourself to give into this audience opinion. Hydra is a perfect community for that type of creation. Old Carpet Factory is a great platform for that and we made it a mission to identify talented artists and give them access to the island. But also we decided that another part of our mission will be giving back to the island community, giving back to the people who live their daily and who represent this true lifestyle of the island. So the way we do it is we ask creatives, artists, writers, musicians to come to Hydra and document its life in some form. We ask them to go beyond the port. We ask them to go beyond the tavernas and beyond the bars. And we ask them to really interact with the local community and the nature of the island and then respond to it creatively. So that's another mission of our residency, to give an insight in the deeper, more real parts of Hydra life. Whether it's a music recording production or whether it is an art residency–

He applies?

So, yeah, they're different processes. So the recording studio is a booking. People have to reach out through the recording studio page and they have to say we are so many musicians, we need so many days, we need such and such instruments and we want to come that. That's one scenario. An artist has to apply, and this year we are running a pilot with the with the four categories of application, before it was a more of a random selection. Now that we are focusing on the mission of, you know, supporting and giving back we outlined four different categories where people could apply and we asked them to let us know what is it exactly they want to do on the island. Because we know that people who even have never been on the island, if they are cultural minded or community minded they would know how to create a meaningful project. And then we select the most interesting ones, the ones that we think could give back.

So you see their work and you decide?

Yes, yes. We ask people to send us their information, either links to their work or as an attachment of samples of work. Exact description of what it is they're going to do and what resources that they might need while on the island. So that's…

Do you remember a very interesting artists coming?

Of course, I mean… kind of did not have not interesting artists coming, slightly different. So, for example, only this year, right, we have I think 5 artists in residence throughout the year. So Rory Pilgrim collaborated with Robyn Haddon, another British vocal artist. Do you want me to describe the experience of having them? They're great. Because you ask if we have someone interesting.

Yes, if you want, yes.

These two artists worked on the recording of soundtracks for Rory's upcoming feature film. And it was very interesting to watch them, because even with the artists who are looking for freedom and a bit of a chaos of creation there is a lot of structure and the diligence is the way they work. And a lot of the times you would come… they would start working in the morning in the studio or in the big room or with the recording and then, inevitably, most of the artists, if not all, would break for a beach time or lunch in the tavern. And then the hottest time of the day approaches, they come back and there are naps involved and then there is another session of working in the second part of the day. The beautiful thing about the Old Carpet Factory studio and art residencies, there is no opening and closing hours, you can work at anytime. There is no disturbance to anyone within the house or outside of the house because we have excellent soundproofing. So the studio is very isolated, right?

So even at night they can work?

Yes, and many musicians do work at night. Because once they arrive to the island, many of them arrive from places far away and the jet lag sets in, so, as a result, people just work whenever they feel inspired and then they take a break whenever they need to take a break and a lot of the times it's just day and night, so…

At the beginning, there were more like friends of yours that coming and then unknown people or the whole time you didn't know and you just met them through applications?

Right. Right. So as I told you, in the beginning it was… I mean not so much friends, but everyone who would come into the house was just drawn to the house because they heard about this eccentric personality and the creative atmosphere and other creatives being there. The chance that you can walk into the house, you never know who you're going to meet, you never know who's going to be there when you walk in. So, as a result, people want to just have a chance, like, not to stay but to visit and see what's happening there. I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly, but even then you cannot say that they were friends. They were like friends of friends or people who heard or just people who were invited, but people who were invited. So Stephan meets a lot, a lot of people throughout any given day or week or month, and that's another part of the house, that there is so much trust and welcome, genuine welcome and hospitality, that goes into the way the house was set up at the times of his mother and then continued by Stephan. That it's never only friend, friends invited, like everyone who is invited is basically a friend. I cannot think of many cases, even any when someone came and they were not welcome. You know, it’s just a very particular environment. So with the studio and the art residency pretty much the same thing happens. It's mostly strangers. If they’re friends of friends, they all go through same process of application or inquiry. They just said that “I was referred by so and so”, but then when they arrive, it's… We never know who is going to arrive and how it's going to be. But there is this faith that everyone who has been through the house really enjoyed it and spoke about it in a very particular way, that like we trusted that people understand like what they are walking into, but also we trusted that with everything that we've communicated, everything that other people say about the house, only a particular type of a person would want to come and record, right? 

So to explain the rules of the house. You don't do it like this?

We're trying to do the rules of the house, right? It was abandoned very fast. I was the one –we don't have to have it on the record– but I was the one who tried to introduce rules and then Stephan is like “Tt's just…” Like anything that you try to introduce in a contractual manner is a step in the wrong direction for us, you know. And so the way we try to do… they're very unavoidable rules like it's the way to live in a historical house and a house that was built in the 18th century. Right? We communicate those rules. We communicate the rules of how to deal with the paper, with the water, with just a little bit on how to live on the remote island in a historical building. I think those are the only rules that require communication. The rest of the rules are really common sense and like we don't have really many of those ones. People find themselves in the house, it just starts flowing and, yeah, everyone brings their own understanding of and contribution. One of the interesting stories that happened at the Old Carpet Factory is described in a book Δε λες κουβέντα by Μakis Malafekas. It is a fictionalised recount of one of the after-parties that Stephan hosted at the house for the “Documenta” opening and many characters, if not all, in the book are based on real people. And it's very easy to recognise Stephan in the book and most of the events of the book at, take place, a lot of the events of the book take place on Hydra in the house. So we recommend reading it to get a glimpse of what is happening in the house. On every given day! So the party Stephan hosted attracted a lot of people from the art world. And with his perverted sense of humour, he decided to install an empty canvas, a blank canvas, in the toilet of his house with the goal and an idea to see what these art people had inside of them, you know. With all these important conversations and talks about art and all this kind of stewardship of what is good art, what is bad art, he decided to challenge them and mess with them a little about saying "Ok, if you are so important in the art world, if you are an art world elite, show me what you got". So they were presented with this blank canvas and as they were sitting on the toilet, they were supposed to contribute to the work. And the twist of the story happens when one of the guests decides to steal that beautiful painting that is… And she leaves the party with the painting. One thing about the house and Stephan is that nothing ever disappears from the house. When you say about the house rules, I think the most important rule of the house is the respect of the owner and the respect of the house. And taking something that is not yours is, you know, basically violating the one and only rule. And that happened and Stephan learnt about it in a very comical way that's described in the book so you could learn about it.

Perfect.

Malafekas takes this story a little bit further by adding mystery to the painting and hidden messages and codes. And it becomes a mystery detective story, which is also pulp noir. It becomes a mystery detective pulp noir story.

And so let's say about the…

The mission? So, the vision and the mission of the  Old Carpet Factory. What are we focused on? Yeah, just like to send it into the future. You know, ultimately, the goal is to preserve this very unique lifestyle that's rooted in the philosophy of regression as opposition to constant progress, in the lifestyle of slowing down, in the lifestyle of surrendering to chaos, being open to change and being flexible and also contributing to the history and the heritage of this very unique island that has been so good to so many creative people for decades now.

Thank you very much!

Οf course. Thank you! Thank you for insisting and keeping us organized and, you know, committed.