"The Olive Grove" / MaryLynne Wrye
The Isle of Lesvos, Greece 2018- current
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The Olive Grove is MaryLynne Wrye’s photographic and narrative record of daily life in and around the Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesvos, Greece. Taken between 2018 and 2020, the images show how thousands of people lived in an overflow area known as the Olive Grove, where families built makeshift shelters out of tents, tarps, blankets, cardboard and branches.
Moria was a Greek military installation designed to hold 2,500 people, but in 2018 nearly 9,000 were confined there. Families and individuals from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, the Congo, Somalia, and other regions were stranded in unsafe and overcrowded conditions while awaiting asylum decisions while facing the risk of deportation. Basic necessities like food, sanitation, and medical care were often scarce, and many lived for years in this limbo.
Wrye’s work focuses on the people she met in the Olive Grove. The photographs capture both the strain of living under harsh and precarious conditions and the resilience found in small acts of care and community. Parents shared what little food they had, children swam in the bay alongside locals, and individuals pursued creative work and personal dreams despite the uncertainty.
The Olive Grove presents these realities directly, insisting that behind every policy, statistic, or headline are individuals—families raising children, neighbors supporting one another, people trying to create a future under difficult and often hostile circumstances.
About Marylynne Wrye
Marylynne Wrye is an artist working across time-based media, writing, and sound. Her experience on the borderland of Lesvos, Greece—both as an artist and as part of the humanitarian community—shapes her current practice-led research.
She holds a Master of Research from the Royal College of Art and a Master of Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Wrye’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Beaconsfield Gallery in London, the Center for Book Arts in New York, the Southwark Gallery in London, and the 1918 ArtSPACE in Hangzhou, China. She has also presented solo shows in Paris, London, and New York.
Her publications appear in outlets such as Queer Materiality Research Group, Kris Graves Projects, and the Society for Commercial Archeology Journal. Her artist books and projects are held in major collections including the Guggenheim Museum Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ingalls Library at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Stanford University.
To Experience “The Olive Grove” DOWNLOAD TOTIM APP