Latest news with #Hydra
Time of India
5 days ago
- Time of India
Encroachers target old panchayat layouts in Hyd; 64 complaints filed in a day
1 2 Hyderabad: Old gram panchayat layouts on the outskirts of Hyderabad are increasingly falling prey to land encroachments, with 64 complaints filed in a single day via Hydra Prajavani, the city's public grievance platform. Over 60% of these complaints related to the illegal occupation of plots in older layouts, many dating back decades, where roads and parks have allegedly been converted into private or agricultural land. Complainants reported that encroachers are using Dharani passbooks to claim ownership and obstruct access for legitimate plot holders. In numerous instances, they are demolishing park boundaries and internal roads to extend their control over the land. Hydra Commissioner AV Ranganath reviewed several cases using Google Maps and instructed officials to conduct ground inspections. "Unless a layout is officially revised, its original roads and parks remain legally protected. We will examine each case and act after hearing both parties," he stated. Key complaints included — Korremula, Ghatkesar (Rangareddy) wherein 47 acres within a 1987 layout were allegedly encroached upon using Dharani passbooks, despite prior court orders. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Где два мира сливаются воедино SAUDI Забронировать Undo Another pertained to Peddamberpet, Abdullapurmet wherein the main road in a 500-plot layout was blocked following the renaming of the layout, cutting off access to the highway. Similarly in Reddy Enclave, Alwal, 667 square yards of designated park land were encroached upon, even beneath high-tension power lines. Court orders in the matter were ignored. And in Asifnagar, Mehdipatnam–Mallepally Road, around 3,800 square yards of dargah land were illegally occupied. Illegal construction continues despite notices issued by the GHMC. In Hayathnagar, the only park area in a 1966 layout was encroached upon and residents are calling for the protection of the 3,620 square yards of open space
Washington Post
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
A splendid exhibition looks at small animals, raising big questions
A curious figure from Greek mythology ornaments the top of an elaborate cabinet, made to store shells, small stones and other natural curiosities. He is muscular and wields a large club and is almost certainly Hercules. The creature he is battling is more mysterious. The lower body looks to be the Nemean lion, slain by Hercules as part of his atonement for having murdered his wife and children, but it is topped by what appears to be the several heads of the Hydra, another beast slaughtered by the hero. 'Blurring boundaries was absolutely fascinating to them,' says Stacey Sell, who along with Alexandra Libby and Brooks Rich curated the National Gallery of Art exhibition 'Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World' in which the cabinet is displayed. By 'them' she means the Dutch and Flemish artists of the late 17th and early 18th century, who were processing a sudden surge of knowledge about the natural world into images that blur the boundaries between art and science, curiosity and fear, literal truth and fanciful imagination. It is a splendid show and while it is not huge — it features some 75 prints, drawings and paintings, most of them quite small — it feels like just the right show at just the right moment. The National Gallery has even installed a pop-up gift shop outside the exhibition entrance, a sign that its leaders anticipate popularity. The National Gallery was once a leader in exhibitions of Dutch art from the golden age, but that ended with the retirement in 2018 of Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., the long-serving and greatly esteemed curator of northern baroque paintings. Now it's back with a show that is focused and smart, bringing together virtuoso miniature paintings with samples including preserved insects and taxidermy borrowed from the Smithsonian. The side-by-side comparison of painted and real life is part of the pleasure of the show, but even more engaging are the dualities and contradictions raised by the cabinet that features that strange image of Hercules. Near the mythical hero on the top of the decorative wooden box of drawers are astonishingly lifelike metal casts of beetles and a lizard, molded from the actual bodies of the creatures. Also featured in the exhibition are examples of lepidochromy, the process of using actual butterfly wings to 'print' an image of a butterfly. Using real insect wings to leave an impress of color, or the actual bodies of animals to cast their three-dimensional likeness, may feel like cheating, shortcuts to absolute verisimilitude that distinguishes these works from actual art. But the artists on view, including Joris Hoefnagel, Jan van Kessel the Elder, Albrecht Dürer and Wenceslaus Hollar, had no need to 'cheat.' They could build up verisimilitude freehand just as easily as someone else could 'print' a butterfly (the process involved pressing the wings onto a sticky page until the colors transferred). Viewers of these printed works would certainly have prized their accuracy, but perhaps something else was going on, too. Creating an image was a way of understanding the natural world, the horizons of which were expanding as European powers colonized the Americas, Africa and Asia. But it was also about taming it and owning it, and the direct impress of the actual creature on the page or the metal suggests a literal sense of ownership. Animals could be made up in the mind — like the Nemean-Hydra figure — but they could also be physically owned, in the menageries of wealthy collectors, and in the small drawers of cabinets like this one. Throughout the exhibition, fear goes hand in hand with wonder. Creatures, dead or alive, brought back from the colonies were expanding knowledge of the world, breaking down old categories and systems of thought. The first room is devoted to Hoefnagel's four-volume survey of the animal kingdom called 'The Four Elements,' which included some 300 meticulous and breathtaking watercolors made late in the 16th century. Hoefnagel was borrowing the classical elements — air, water, earth and fire — for his basic taxonomy, and insects for some reason fell into the 'fire' category. This was part of an inheritance, both classical and Christian, that was at times useful and often a distraction from actually looking at the world. Stories like that of Noah's ark provided a convenient template for making images of animals cohere into a meaningful visual narrative. But these painted creatures carried the legacy of Aristotle along with mounds of medieval misinformation, often with an incrustation of religious moralizing. An inscription on Hoefnagel's painting of a hedgehog (a European animal that appears along with a guinea pig from the New World) references the old parable of the fox (which has multiple tricks to survive) and the hedgehog (which has only one, rolling itself into a ball). Long before Isaiah Berlin wrote a famous 1953 essay allegorizing this duality, painters like Hoefnagel were interpreting it with Latin inscriptions that suggest that the hedgehog's limited and purely passive form of defense is a greater strength than the manifold wiles of the fox. 'I wrap myself in virtue,' says the hedgehog, which suggests that passivity in the face of power is a good thing, which undoubtedly it is if you are the one with the power. These kinds of inscription were reflexive thinking, a bit like rolling the mind up in a ball when faced with the immense task of making sense of new worlds. Looking back at this period from the far side of the dwindling Enlightenment, it is too easy to think of the classical and Christian traditions as a nuisance to be waved away by scientists and philosophers creating a new world of rationalism. But these tiny works, in many cases marvels of observation and analysis, remind us that the Renaissance was never just about suppressing old forms of magical thinking, but rather, accommodating them into new forms of rational discovery. Perhaps the presence of Hercules next to realistically rendered insects and reptiles isn't an accidental mash-up of the mythological and the scientific, but an honest affirmation of the brutal struggle to tame these systems of thought into something compatible and sustainable. (Spoiler alert: We have largely failed in this endeavor.) The story of this art cannot be told without engaging with colonialism, and the curators deserve heroic commendation for doing so at a moment when the Trump administration is policing language and attempting to scrub history of any chapters embarrassing to those who have benefited from the legacies of oppression. Colonialism didn't just provide the raw material for these works; it offered the basic mental paradigm for making sense of it. Exploring the world and Christianizing it were conjoined into one worldwide labor. The boundary between knowing and owning was blurred. In many cases, the shells, fossils and animal samples that made it into European cabinets of curiosity were first gathered by people working under colonial duress and perhaps enslaved. 'For many Indigenous communities, animals and plants are sacred relatives,' reads the wall text in one room of the show. So, collecting specimens had at least a dual nature: gathering knowledge for one people while dispossessing meaning from another. The last room of the show features a new film by Dario Robleto, 'Until We Are Forged: Hymns for the Elements.' The title refers to Hoefnagel's rare and invaluable book of animal miniatures. The film is an ecstatic, 43-minute paean to the work done by institutions like the National Gallery to preserve and pass on the legacy of art and knowledge, which takes on cosmic and spiritual significance. Museums, where the treasure of colonialism is stored, are transformed into places of empathy and connection. 'Every fragment of the past raises questions: What right do we have to forget?' asks the narrator of the film in a long string of existential queries. 'Can we repair our legacies of destruction and harm? What new sensitivities must we invent to bridge the gap of loneliness that keeps life apart?' It's a smart film and its message is very necessary at the moment, but it will also divide audiences. Some may find the rhetoric too superheated and ostentatiously poetic (think Ken Burns on steroids). Others, more cynical to be sure, will disagree with the very premise of a moral dimension to the museum world. But they are not likely to see the film unless actively searching for something to find objectionable. One object not to missed is a collaboration with curators from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History made to imitate a painting by Van Kessel, the grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder, and a masterful painter of miniatures. The collage of real things helps make sense of the image, in which there is more conceit and artifice that one might think, including a curiously abstract space in which there are shadows, but no background or sense of up or down, just a white emptiness that makes each sample seem separated by 'the gap of loneliness.' I confess the collage unnerved me. The samples are held in place with pins, a standard procedure for displaying insects. To 'pin it down' is now colloquial for demanding a clear, unequivocal statement, definition or answer from someone. Clarity, offered freely, is a kindness to others, but to pin down an idea is often a form of aggression. The thing pinned down must be inanimate or dead, and then becomes a possession. The only thing missing is life itself, which was of course the reason we tried to pin it down in the first place. Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World. Through Nov. 2 at the National Gallery of Art. 202-737-4215.
Newsroom
24-05-2025
- General
- Newsroom
Short story: The Dart, by Miro Bilbrough
A lacework of crosses and dashes notched the counter person's fingers and hands as I watched these elegant inky gloves tap in my details and issue me a window emergency exit-row seat, never mind that I am short. Her tatau, she explained, was a malu pattern signifying shelter, protection and connection to her ancestors. Cultural respect! she summed up, statuesque in her green-and-black koru print uniform, to which I silently added, Female agency! And that is how I found myself two thirds of the way down the plane reading the special safety card on how to disarm the emergency door. Studying the multitude of arrows while making a note of my abbreviated memory for instructions and directions, I turned to the human dart who had recently lowered himself into the seat next to me, smiled out of the side of his face, and otherwise remained tacit. The doubling of his clothes was compelling. A black kerchief knotted pirate style under a cap, black tights with a sheeny damask of scales under neatly rolled-up cargo trousers, a further layering of dark cloth on top. The whole ensemble precisely curated. Excuse me but we're in this together, this disarming the door in an event of an emergency thing, I said by way of introduction. He darted his eyes at me and away. His smile disappeared all other primary features, enveloped and garlanded them. His cheek was gaunt and crosshatched with acne, young. Of course, he replied amiably and reached for his own disarm the door card. A silent perusing but not absorbing ensued. Is it just me or is this hard to understand? I offered. I could feel my neighbour's humour quicken on the other side of the arm rest. His whole body was fleet with it, fleet and elliptical. Not just you. These arrows seem to be going in different directions, you know, conflicting. I thought so too. So…if I turn the handle to the left and it collapses on me… The Dart's eyes danced up to mine and back down to his sneakery feet. …You will be my assistant while I am struggling with the door, I summarised. Your assistant, he agreed, andlaughed a laugh of no confidence and as we considered the exit. I sensed we might make a good team, just not for disarming doors while our plane fell from the sky. The door had boiled down the infographics into just two arrows and an illustration of itself falling inward: the Exit Plan for Dummies. Returning to my laminated card, I found the legend 'strong but heavy'.The Dart's pleasure in the slipperiness of language equalled my own as the adjectives merged object and handler into one formidable entity, a Hydra. 13 kilos, I mused, my dog's sixteen and I can lift him. What sort of dog? Whippet, brindled. Mine's an American Pitbull. My dog's nemesis. Nice. Strong but Heavy, The Dart concluded. Over the Sounds, I abandoned the elliptical vision of my neighbour for the blissful tablecloth of islands, isthmuses and water. I soaked these in while the Dart talked about his life as a deep-sea fisherman, and I recounted swimming straight off the road at Tahunanui. He didn't like ocean swimming, he said, not given what he knew about the creatures that inhabited the depths; the fish he had encountered, their bodies half munched off. The cooling islands pulled at my attention. I drank them in in gulped drafts. Fresh water was a different story. When people came to stay, he took them to Siberian Flats on the Wangapeka. He did a brief imitation of the uninitiated emerging from the freezing waters. One detail ceded another. His family had just been given notice on their fourth rental when his father was diagnosed with cancer. The Dart resigned from life on the boats. At this I relinquished the serpentine forms out the window in favour of his own. How long did you nurse him? The Dart made a self-correcting face. Assistant nurse, actually. To my mother. She was awesome. Two years. He was good with it though. I wondered how that might be possible. The air in front of me thickened with impressions, with intimations of a dead man, with cliché and archetype, before becoming just air again. He taught me so much. I shot a look at the Dart as he touched the pounamu at his neck. I had fallen into the rhythm of his scuttled looks and glances. It was, I found, more than enough. My own father had died two years earlier and although I had only attended him on that bed-bound journey for a matter of weeks, I knew that the Dart and I had experienced the grace and beneficence of a father who dies well. I feel like I'm in pause—The Dart left the word unstoppered as he fumbled before the large something that lay behind it, the fish from submarine depths that would not be landed. I've never stuck at any job since school. I'm afraid maybe I don't know how to commit. Maybe you get bored? I do. It was time to tell him my name. I'm Van, returned The Dart. Good name. Gender neutral with a touch of swagger. I like it. A stealth-ambition crept up on me on behalf of a young man who had left school early for mystery and the sea, who knew boredom, impatience, kindness, and death and who was, amongst other things, a serial renter like me. Don't settle, I said lightly to disguise the urgency that had taken hold at the fugitive view of possibility unfolding like that recent cloth of land and sea. Whatever you do, make sure it is so challenging you might feel—whatever—just don't settle. Yeah, said Van softly. I had entered the zone of zealotry and futility, of the old trying to pass inscrutable shit on to the young. I had no idea if he knew what the hell I was talking about or even if I did. The air hostess appeared at the front of the plane to announce our descent, and minutes later again to announce that we had landed. Those of you that have experienced any disturbance during the flight may disembark first, she intoned and, addressing the rest, please let those who have felt disturbed go ahead. Van and I exchanged incredulous looks. The flight had been smooth. What hell new euphemism was this? My ears experienced some disturbance, I said, inclining toward him. My legs feel a bit disturbed, he fired back, flexing his knees. The plane sat in suspense as a large woman lumbered up the aisle. Then another, a bundled form that emerged from behind us with a lot of bags and out past the airhostess. The number of bags made you feel suspicious about the self-diagnosis. On cue, the rest of us were on our feet. I parted with Van in Arrivals where my father's best friend Des was nowhere to be seen. Two years on, he and I were going to scatter half my father's ashes in the Rangitikei where the blue-grey cliffs that forms its banks is made of a clay called papa. In a hurry to catch a bus to his cousin's wedding, Van stayed with me to scout for my meet until I reluctantly urged him on his way. I passed Van as he doubled back in, and I exited for Pick Ups and Drops Offs where Des was waiting. I wasn't sure what Van had come back for, but we smiled at each other, full face this time. The slender thread of fate that connected us was being yanked one last time, but who knew? Seeing him in long shot in the Arrivals and Departures Hall I thought he really was as svelte as a dart, Van, but for now less directional. Asked what was on her mind when she wrote her story, the author replied, 'I was thinking, as I routinely do, about how to capture what I once heard the writer Sebastian Barry describe as the tincture of a person. His Irish accent made the descriptor indelible, and I knew immediately what he was talking about. How to get such a thing is another matter. It is basically impossible and that is why I write. It was extra impossible in The Dart's case. We had been seated side-by-side, so our glancing encounter was conducted in profile. But then, peripheral vision is a gift. 'I was thinking that the counter woman was maybe playing her own playful diversity game, never mind the orthodoxies of the seating plan. I struggled with her arresting beauty and the way her personal authority outstripped her station: how to suggest those things on the page without heading for homily. Reading a late draft, my friend Janine recognised her instantly from her own transits through Nelson airport. Queenly, was the word she used to describe her.'
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Where Will Cardano Be in 1 Year?
Cardano enables fast, low-cost transactions for a growing ecosystem of smart contracts and decentralized applications. Cardano's ADA token is one of five cryptocurrencies the U.S. intends to hold in a strategic crypto reserve. Several network upgrades expected this year may serve as a catalyst for Cardano's price to climb into 2026 and beyond. 10 stocks we like better than Cardano › In the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency landscape, it takes a lot to stand out among countless competing blockchain networks. Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), launched in 2017, has transformed from a niche project into the ninth-largest cryptocurrency, boasting a $26 billion market capitalization. Yet its remarkable rise hasn't been without challenges. Despite an impressive 56% price increase during the past year, Cardano's ADA token is down more than 40% from its 52-week high, underscoring its speculative and volatile nature. Does the recent weakness present a buying opportunity for investors, or does it signal further downside? Let's explore where the Cardano might be in one year. Cardano is a Layer-1 blockchain, which means it operates as an independent and decentralized network that is not tied to any other cryptocurrency. It was created by Charles Hoskinson, a co-founder of Ethereum, aiming to build an improved and more advanced blockchain network, addressing Ethereum's early shortcomings, including scalability bottlenecks and governance challenges. Cardano gained credibility through robust, research-driven development, leveraging peer-reviewed academic papers with innovative industry best practices. Unlike proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin, which require energy-intensive mining, Cardano employs an energy-efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which it calls "Ouroboros," allowing users to stake their ADA tokens to help validate transactions. The result is an environmentally efficient network that prioritizes security and is estimated to use just a fraction of Bitcoin's mining energy consumption. Cardano also has a fixed supply of 45 billion coins, designed to promote scarcity while maintaining a low per-token price, strengthening its long-term value proposition by encouraging adoption and minimizing inflation risks. Another Cardano innovation is its layered architecture that separates transaction settlement from computation for enhanced flexibility. The latest Hydra protocol, Cardano's Layer-2 scaling solution, has handled more than 1 million transactions per second (TPS) in testing, making it one of the fastest blockchain networks. This potential makes Cardano particularly attractive for high-throughput applications like real-time smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, and microtransactions. A full Hydra deployment within the next year is a catalyst for investors to watch. Cardano is moving forward with its Midnight sidechain, a privacy-focused layer operating alongside the mainnet, which is expected to launch later this year. Midnight uses zero-knowledge proofs to offer secure, compliant smart contracts for sensitive sectors like finance and healthcare, which could help drive institutional adoption and ecosystem growth. These developments are a tailwind for the Cardano market price. The good news for Cardano is that cryptocurrencies as an asset class are benefiting from a favorable regulatory environment. The Trump administration has adopted a strongly pro-crypto stance, forming a working group to draft clear industry regulations, a shift from the recent years of regulatory uncertainty. Cardano was even included with a select group of cryptocurrencies for a planned national crypto reserve alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple's XRP, and Solana, signaling its strategic importance and market confidence. Nevertheless, as strong as Cardano's framework and network potential may be, the crypto market is fiercely competitive, with multiple blockchains vying for dominance in adoption and share of digital transactions. Beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, Cardano still trails other cryptocurrencies such as Solana and XRP, which are larger in terms of market capitalization and excel in various utility functions. There are also smaller blockchains that have posted stronger growth in key on-chain performance metrics. Notably, Cardano's total locked value (TVL), representing the value of all blockchain assets, including tokens and decentralized applications (dApps), at $323 million, pales in comparison to emerging cryptos such as Avalanche, with a TVL of $1.5 billion, and Sui with $2 billion. It's unclear if Cardano's speed, low-cost transaction structure, and decentralized governance model are enough for it to win market share. I'm bullish long-term on Cardano, viewing the blockchain's credibility and underlying security as its key advantages within the universe of cryptocurrencies. The ecosystem's growth, coupled with potential catalysts including the Hydra and Midnight updates, positions its ADA token to reclaim the $1.32 52-week high price level as an upside target during the next year. Investors should expect volatility to continue, but Cardano is one cryptocurrency built to last with a bright long-term future. Before you buy stock in Cardano, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Cardano wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $642,582!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $829,879!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 975% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 Dan Victor has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Avalanche, Bitcoin, Cardano, Ethereum, Sui, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Where Will Cardano Be in 1 Year? was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
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Travel + Leisure
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Travel + Leisure
How This Charming Greek Island Has Become a Surprising Art Destination—With Stylish Parties and Pop-up Galleries
Traveling to Hydra is normally a relaxing, almost soporific affair. The tiny Greek island, only 90 minutes by ferry from Athens, has been renowned for generations as a dreamy, car-free outpost where the only traffic sound is the clip-clop of donkey hooves and the most stressful decision is which white wine to choose with dinner. But I was heading there in mid-June, when Hydra is an offbeat stop on the art-world circuit and the energy resembles that of a wild night at Art Basel Miami Beach. From left: Taking the plunge near Hydronetta bar; harborside buildings. Thomas Gravanis The cultural frenzy had begun earlier that day in Athens, with brunch at the art-filled mansion of Greek collectors Dakis and Lietta Joannou. It was a lavish affair with a book bazaar, buffet, and cocktail bar spilling onto expansive, sun-dappled patios where celebrity artists like the Joannous' friend Jeff Koons mingled with elegantly coiffed curators from Zurich, London, and Cologne. Mid-afternoon, I joined a group of fashionable Greek artists in a convoy of taxis bound for the Athenian port of Piraeus, just in time to catch the 5:30 p.m. fast ferry across the Saronic Gulf to Hydra. Soon we were all gaping in wonder at the first glimpse of the fabled island that Henry Miller memorably described in 1939 as having a 'wild and naked perfection.' He praised its 'aesthetically perfect' port, where blue-and-white buildings cluster like a stadium above the harbor in 'the very epitome anarchy.' From left: The clock tower in Hydra's port; 'Lalo,' a painting by Iasonas Kampanis, at Wilhelmina's gallery; harborside buildings. Thomas Gravanis No sooner had we stepped ashore than we were whisked via a five-minute boat ride to Mandraki Bay, where the gallery Wilhelmina's has operated in a splendid 19th-century mansion since 2023. As the sun dipped below the horizon, a raucous reception began for a group show called 'Magic Mirror,' which showcased 33 emerging Greek and international artists, the majority of whom were women. Wine flowed. Tables groaned with treats: plates of seafood, bowls of Greek salad, tubs of plump olives. More guests arrived by foot and boat, until the gallery was mobbed. As the festivities wound down at midnight, Wilhelmina von Blumenthal, the gallery's young U.K.-born director, explained that she had set up in Hydra after a trip to the island in the fall of 2022. 'It was all very organic,' she said. 'I came for a long weekend and stumbled across this lovely space. At the time it was covered in cobwebs and full of odds and ends, more like a storage room. I said to the owner, 'This would make a beautiful gallery,' and he said, 'What a good idea!' ' The Windmill Bar. Thomas Gravanis Von Blumenthal's co-curator, Greek artist Irini Karayannopoulou, was thrilled by the enthusiastic turnout for the event. 'We'd planned on a hundred guests,' she mused. 'It could have been 150? Maybe 250?' Von Blumenthal piped in: 'It's a good problem to have!' There is a pleasing symmetry to this artistic resurgence on Hydra (pronounced ee-dra). The rocky speck in the Aegean has enjoyed a mythic status among travelers since the early 20th century, when it first became a hangout for bohemians such as Miller and the Greek poet George Seferis. It was rediscovered after World War II by the likes of Lawrence Durrell and two Australian writers, George Johnston and Charmian Clift, who became the anchors of a new expat community. In 1960, the 26-year-old singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen bought a house on the island, where he would live for the next seven years, part of that time with his Norwegian-born girlfriend and muse, Marianne Ihlen. The Roloi Café, in a space near the docks that was a popular artists' hangout, displays an array of black-and-white photos from that time. In recent decades, Hydra has maintained its magical aura, largely thanks to the absence of traffic—everyone gets around by foot, boat, or donkey—and limits on new construction. From left: Cocktails at Hydronetta bar; gallerist Wilhelmina von Blumenthal. Thomas Gravanis When I first visited the island a few years ago, I spent a week indulging in what Clift once called 'summertime, playtime, easy-living time, lotus-eating time.' I rarely strayed from the path that led 100 yards from the port's tavernas to Hydronetta, an elegant bar perched on a cliffside. Between glasses of chilled white, I could descend steps carved into the rocks and dive directly into the waves. Later, back in New York, it was hard to believe visiting Greek friends when they told me that sleepy Hydra was actually a hot spot for contemporary art. And so last summer I set forth to explore this encounter between culture and nature on the lavishly eulogized Greek island. After the reception at Wilhelmina's, I didn't have far to travel: I was staying at the new Mandraki Beach Resort, a few steps from the island's only sandy beach. Although it offers state-of-the-art luxury, including private plunge pools, its two-century-old structures are a part of quirky Greek folklore: they were the former shipyards and naval base of a revered, semi-piratical independence hero named Admiral Andreas Miaoulis, who set sail from this cove to defeat the Ottoman Turks in 1826. (Every June, the island holds the Miaoulia Festival, a 10-day celebration that climaxes in a re-creation of the decisive naval battle of Geronda with fireworks, music, and the ceremonial burning of a boat in the harbor.) Poetically enough, Wilhelmina's is located in Miaoulis's former mansion. From left: Island style at Mandraki Beach Resort; the entrance to a home in the port. Thomas Gravanis Thanks to the hawklike oversight of historic edifices by Hydriot authorities, renovation of the hotel was painstaking. The manager, Arthur Fitzwilliam, who began coming to Hydra when he was a teen in the 1960s, explained that after getting the lease in 2016, he spent 18 months obtaining permits to ensure that original details were maintained. 'It was a mix of architecture and archaeology,' he said. The process included replicating the chemical composition of the 18th-century mortar. 'It took three months just to find the right lab and to get them to break down its six ingredients!' The following night, Hydra's jet-set scene was in full swing. Ripples of excitement could be felt in the port as Dakis Joannou's mega-yacht, cheekily named Guilty, glided to the docks. It was hard to miss: Jeff Koons designed the exterior of the vessel with jagged geometric patterns, a Cubist-like effort based on the 'razzle dazzle' camouflage used by the British and U.S. navies in World War I, whose aim was not to hide ships but to make their outlines confusing. From left: Portraits of Greek military heroes at the Historical Archives Museum of Hydra; golden hour at Windmill Bar, above Hydronetta Beach. Thomas Gravanis The entire harborfront was taken over by a street party hosted by Joannou's Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art. At dusk, a parade of art lovers strolled east of the port to the Projectspace Slaughterhouse, another updated historic space. Since 2022, the cliffside gallery has been crowned by Koons's gilded, 30-foot-diameter Wind Spinner, an image of Apollo, the ancient Greek god of the sun and art, with metal rays rotating around his circular face. Inside, American artist George Condo's disturbingly grotesque portraits were on view in an exhibition called 'The Mad and the Lonely.' ('Sounds like my dating life,' quipped one visitor.) Dakis, as Hydriots fondly call him, was happily working the crowd. After dark, back at the port, Deste threw a free celebration: islanders and visitors danced to live bands on a stage as wine, beer, and ouzo flowed, and souvlaki sandwiches were handed out to all and sundry. From left: The recording studio at the Old Carpet Factory; grilled octopus and scallops with fava purée at Mandraki Beach Resort. Thomas Gravanis By the next afternoon, the art crowd had decamped and Hydra returned to its serene summer pace, with other low-key art sites revealing themselves like sculptural rocks at low tide. For the rest of the week, using the Mandraki Beach Resort as a base, I started each day in time-honored Hydriot style—diving off the jetty, having a breakfast of fruit, Greek yogurt, and thick black coffee—then setting off on a quirky cultural excursion. It was hard to believe visiting Greek friends when they told me that sleepy Hydra was actually a hot spot for contemporary art. Given the strict limits on new construction on Hydra, it was perhaps unsurprising that the string of art spaces I visited were, like my hotel, all in charmingly renovated historic structures. At dusk one day, I climbed the port's steep, cobblestoned lanes and clambered beneath stone arches to visit the Old Carpet Factory, a recording studio that doubles as a gallery in a majestic mansion with picture windows and panoramic views. The exhibition, 'The Warp of Time,' featured striking contemporary tapestries by Helen Marden on the walls that echoed the century-old handwoven carpet from the island's Soutzoglou Carpets company on the floor. 'Weavings from 1924 below us, weavings from 2024 above,' mused owner Stephan Colloredo-Mansfeld, who runs the space with his Russian-born partner and curator, Ekaterina Juskowsi. 'We're surrounded by continuity.' In the courtyard, the word moonshine was projected on a wall and visitors tasted samples of tsipouro, a type of Greek brandy. From left: Sunbathing below Hydronetta bar; a George Condo exhibition at Deste's Projectspace Slaughterhouse. Thomas Gravanis The next evening, I strolled another winding lane to Hydrogoios Arts & Culture, a part-time exhibition space that occupies a 240-year-old mansion. Von Blumenthal and Karayannopoulou were hosting a continuation of their 'Magic Mirror' show. The two curators, who promote emerging artists, are becoming established on the island as the scrappy, bohemian counterpart to Deste. As musicians strummed and crowds chatted around the stone cistern, Ioanna Stroumpouli, Hydrogoios's co-owner, and Tassos Lagadianos, its caretaker, proudly showed off the building's antique features. One room had a wooden boat hull for a ceiling, and stone arches were embedded in the entrance. The exterior walls were a fortress-like thickness; they'd been built to protect the inhabitants from pirates. But they were most excited to show me the herb garden. 'These are our smelling herbs,' Stroumpouli said, grinding up tiny fresh leaves and putting them to my nose. 'Oregano. Rosemary. And this one is very salty—I don't even know its name in Greek!' From left: Swimmers off Hydronetta Beach, on the Greek island of Hydra; a Jeff Koons sculpture at Deste's Projectspace Slaughterhouse gallery. Thomas Gravanis There were happy accidents. While visiting the waterfront Historical Archives Museum of Hydra, I stumbled into the Hydra Book Club. This bookstore and community center, run by American expat Josh Hickey, is devoted to the island's rich literary and artistic tradition and has a strikingly designed namesake magazine. Other spaces I heard about through word of mouth. For 25 years, the artist Dimitrios Antonitsis has curated shows in spaces around the island as part of the Hydra School Projects, I was informed, including 'the old schoolhouse.' He doesn't promote himself on a website or social media, but I managed to find him in the Lyceum, or 'new schoolhouse,' a string of empty classrooms where he was presiding over a fascinating group show that included an astonishing collection of surreal gold jewelry made by cult British artist Leonora Carrington in 2008. (A more permanent jewelry exhibit is artist Elena Votsi's boutique in the port town; she creates necklaces that play with the traditional evil-eye charm, abstract versions of the sun and mountains, and bronze images of island donkeys.) From left: A guest room at Mandraki Beach Resort; the resort's cove. Thomas Gravanis Everyone at the art spaces was so amiable and open that most nights I would somehow find myself invited to sunset cocktails at Hydronetta or the Windmill Bar, where tables and chairs were set around a medieval stone turret. (The landmark is also known as the 'Sophia Loren windmill,' as it was featured in her 1957 film Boy on a Dolphin.) A group dinner would be held at the eatery referred to as 'the chicken lady,' or beneath the gnarled olive tree at Xeri Elia Douskos café, the setting for a famous photograph of Cohen strumming a guitar next to Clift. The festivities would continue at the tiny square fronting 1821 Hydra, a cocktail bar that sits at the center of a concentration of nightspots jokingly referred to as the Bermuda Triangle: 'You enter and somehow get lost,' German-born art curator Katharina Bosch, who spends her summers on Hydra, warned me. 'You look at your watch and realize it's 3 a.m.' And every night, I would either stroll around the coast along a footpath lit by the moon and stars, or take a boat across glassy waters, back to Mandraki. Islands can feel like self-contained worlds. I knew that small ferries regularly left from the main port to other corners of Hydra, but in the summer heat they seemed like impossibly far-flung provinces. Then, on my last day, I was persuaded to take an expedition with one of the artists I had met at Wilhelmina's, Lindsey Calla, who was raised in New Jersey and visited Hydra regularly before moving there full-time in 2023. I had admired two of her images at the gallery, which looked like abstract paintings but were actually photographs of Hydra's wild coast. Calla offered to show me where they were taken. An exhibition of work by Ugo Li at Hydrogoios Art & Culture. Thomas Gravanis We boarded a vessel hardly bigger than a fishing boat that took us 15 minutes west to the village of Vlichos, then followed a coastal trail and scrambled down a cliffside to a pebbly cove. I suddenly recognized the colors of earth and sea and the foam of the waves from her artworks. 'This is the essence of Hydra,' Calla told me. 'The ancient, blood-red cliffs; the wine-dark sea of Homer; the foam of the crashing surf.' Afterward, we clambered back up the cliff to Tassia's Tavern, at the Four Seasons Hydra—which, in charming Greek fashion, is a small beachfront inn entirely unrelated to the international luxury chain—and had a lunch of grilled sardines, feta salad, and ice-cold retsina, white wine with a hint of pine flavor. I like to think that the island hedonists of the past, Henry Miller and Charmian Clift—not to mention the venerated bard of Hydra, Leonard Cohen—would have approved. A version of this story first appeared in the June 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Muse of the Mediterranean."
