SAHA supports DEO Project within the Arda Asena’s new project between 11 July – 30 August 2026. Curated by Akis Kokkinos, Letter To An Ailing Father is held at Volissos School in northwestern Chios. 14 artists from 11 countries present new commissions alongside existing works across a range of media, including painting, photography, sculpture, textiles, sound, video, installation and digital media.

The exhibition explores the paternal figure as a site of authority, absence and emotional deprivation. The “father,” whether understood as an individual subject or a social construct, is approached through a condition of diminishment: an inadequate framework assembled from inert and disarticulated materials, one that relinquishes the responsibilities of care to such an extent that the relationship between caregiver and dependent is often reversed. At the same time, the exhibition foregrounds practices of craft and the collection of folkloric material, as forms of situated knowledge and collective endurance. Through these gestures emerge modes of solidarity, cultivating conditions of mutual support and resilience in times of precarity.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a public programme curated by Evita Kyriazi, unfolding throughout its duration.

Arda Asena’s (1992, Istanbul) practice is based in photography, sculpture, painting and texti le, and invested in establ ishing cross-discipl inary connections. Through the translation of simi lar ideas across mediums, he is interested in the nuances that emerge through the material ity of each artistic form. His work explores the abstraction that occurs in these moments of translation as generative opportunities to compl icate notions of identity, social-cultural experiences and ways of being more broadly. Abstraction al lows for a meditative orientation to the interior landscapes of emotions, desires, vulnerabi l ities and contradictions we each possess.

About DEO Projects

DEO Projects was established in 2021 and is a registered non-profit cultural organization located on the island of Chios, Greece. It stands as the sole contemporary art entity on the island, boasting a diverse range of programs that encompass solo and group exhibitions, artist residencies, public commissions, educational activities, and collaborations with both public and private entities such as historical monuments, local museums, associations, and non-institutional spaces.