EXHIBITIONS and PROJECTS (from the post of the curator)

Dec. 2021 Kypriaka Spirta Afroditis (KSA), panel discussion/artistic event (co-curation with Christos Kyriakides and Leontios Toumpouris, CEL) in collaboration with DR Gabriel Koureas.

Oct. 2019 Sickle and Code, international group art exhibition (co-curation) at the Museum of History and Cultural Heritage, Lakatamia, under the umbrella of Phygital, a programme being implemented in Greece, Albania and Cyprus

Jan.- Feb. 2017 Plánetes, international group art exhibition, part of the inaugural programme of Pafos2017, European Capital of Culture, Old Powerhouse –Shelly Residence, Pafos. Co-funded by Pafos2017 and Institute für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA)

Sept. 2016 The Ground Beneath Our Feet: Four Artists From Cyprus Discuss Archaeology and Contemporary Art, co-curation, British Museum, London

Jan.- Feb. 2015 Exercises in Orientation,Peltz Gallery, Birkbeck, School of Arts, University of London

Nov. 2013 Exercises in Orientation a curatorial project part of Other Indications exhibition at Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Nicosia

Mar. 2012 Utopia: New Acquisitions from the Pattichis’s Collection, co-curation, Lanitis Foundation, Limassol

Feb. 2012 Πως να φτιάξεις έναν κήπο (How to make a garden), Phytorio, Visual Artists Cyprus, Nicosia

Oct. 2010 Notes to Self, Omikron Gallery, Nicosia

Jul. 2004 Breakthrough, Stichting Grote Kerk, The Hague

WRITING COMMISSIONS | CATALOGUE CONTRIBUTIONS |INTERVIEWS (selection)

Parpa, E. (2021) The Landscape that Speaks. In: Hollweg, B. (ed.) Days In Between. Berlin: Hatje Cantz.

Parpa, E. (2021) Of Familiarity: Polys Peslikas in conversation with Elena Parpa Mousse Magazine. Available from: https://www.moussemagazine.it/magazine/elena-parpa-polys-peslikas-2021/

Parpa, E. (2019) Of Stones and Things of Menacing Perfection. In: Rabottini, A. (ed.) Michael Anastassiades: Things That Go Together. London: Apartamento.

Parpa, E. (2019) Shared Spaces: The Teachers Training College in Morphou. Ayhan Mentesh. Nicosia: EMAA.

Parpa, E. (2017) Georgia Sagri. In: Latimer, Q. & Szymczyk, A. (eds.) documenta 14: Daybook. Munich: Prestel Verlag, n.p.     

Parpa, E. (ed.) (2017) Plánetes. Pafos: European Capital of Culture.

Parpa, E. & Kamma, E. (eds.) (2017). Παροικέω 2. Pafos: European Capital of Culture.

Parpa, E. (2015) Drive. In: Koureas, G. (ed.) Klitsa Antoniou: The Silence has a Sound… It is the Sound of a Horizon. Nicosia: Collection Gallery, pp. 32-45.

Parpa, E. (2013) Elusive Landscapes. Other Indications. Nicosia: Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, n.p.

Parpa, E. (2012) How to Make a Garden. Nicosia: Visual Artists Association.

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

Parpa, E. (forthcoming) Identity in the Garden: The case of the Nicosia Municipal Garden. In: Solomou, E., Karyos, A., & Hadjiathanasiou, M. (eds.) Colonial Cyprus: A Cultural History, 1878-1960. London: Bloomsbury.

Parpa, E. (2021) Tracing the Local: Senses of Place and Identity in the Cypriot Landscape. In: Koureas, G., Stylianou, E. & Tselika, E. (eds.) Contemporary Art from Cyprus: Politics, Identity and Culture Across Borders. London: Bloomsbury.

Koureas, G., Parpa, E. and Lambrou, Ch. (2021) The Ground Beneath Our Feet: Artists from Cyprus Discuss Art and Archaeology. In: Koureas, G., Stylianou, E. & Tselika, E. (eds.) Contemporary Art in Cyprus: Politics, Identity and Culture Across Borders. London: Bloomsbury.

Parpa, E. (2018) Censorship in Disguise: Elusive Forms of Exclusion and the Examples of Cypriot Artists Socratis Socratous and Erhan Öze. In: Coulter, R. & Kennedy, R. (eds.) Censoring Art: Silencing the Artwork. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 13-29.   

BOOKS IN SERIES

Parpa, E. (2021) Gender in the Landscape: Painting the peasant-woman in 1950s Cyprus. In: Plumer-Bardak, E. (ed.) Art for All. Nicosia: EMAA.

Parpa, E. (2018) Athens, 2017. In: Preston, L. (ed.) Next Spring: An Occasional Series of Reviews. Berlin: Atlas Projectos, pp. 17-102. 

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS

Parpa, E. (forthcoming). Queering the Soil: Reclaiming landscape, place and identity in queer artistic practices in Cyprus. Image & Text.

CONFERENCES | SYMPOSIA  

In/Visible Landscapes: Photography and the Politics of Land and Data-Use (moderator). Panel discussion in collaboration with the International Association of Photography and Theory. Virtual event, September 2021.

Tracing the Local: Senses of Place and Identity in the Cypriot Landscape. Walking: The Cyprus Experience, an International Hub in the context of International Walking Encounters/Conference/Walking as a Question. Prespa and virtual event, July 2021.

Queering the Soil: Reclaiming landscape, place and identity in queer artistic practices in Cyprus. Association for Art History, 2021 Annual Conference. Virtual event, April 2021.

Gardens of (Dis)obedience: A cultural history of public gardens during the colonial period in Cyprus. Colonial Cyprus: International Conference in the Memory of Aristides Coudounaris. University of Nicosia, February 2020.

Next Spring. A Book Affair #11. Radio Athènes, November 2018.

Tracing the Local: Senses of Place and Identity in the Cypriot Landscape. Ayios Sozomenos – place of barley: Timeless Encounters. CCFT – Creative Centre for Fluid Territories in collaboration with the NGO Urban Gorillas and the ARC Department of Architecture, University of Nicosia, March 2018.

Narratives of Triumph: The Case of Adamantios Diamantis (1900-1994). Troubled Contemporary Art Practices in the Middle East:  Post-colonial conflicts, pedagogies of art history, and precarious artistic mobilization. University of Nicosia, Birkbeck, University of London, Nicosia, June 2016.

The Burden of Politics, the Temptation of Beauty: Mustafa Hulusi’s Photographs of Contested Landscapes. 3^rd International Conference of Photography and Theory, Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Nicosia, December 2014.

Censorship in Disguise? The Case of Rumours by Socratis Socratous. 40th Anniversary Annual Conference Association of Art Historians, Royal College of Art, London, April 2014.

This is Not History-Writing. Co-Presentation at the Symposium Curatorial Practices Reframed, European University Cyprus, Nicosia, November 2013.

Three attempts towards an interpretation: Planters by A. Diamantis. Text and presentation in the context of displays, Point Centre for Contemporary Art, May 2013.

Constructing Cultural Platforms: The example of Ysterografo. Co-presentation. Symposium Atlante Mediterraneo: New City-Territories, Amaze Cultural lab, Venice, in collaboration with the Venice Biennale, June 2007.

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Next Spring: Athens, June 18

ATLAS Projectos is pleased to invite you to our double book launch and reading at Anagram Books Berlin, including our most recent releases: Next Spring: An Occasional Series of Reviews – Athens, June 18, an essay by Elena Parpa, edited by Laura Preston, and Planned Obsolescence—A Retrospective, a novel by Henning Lundkvist. Both authors will be present and drinks will be available. See you next Wednesday from 8pm!

Anagram Books
Lausitzerstraße 35
10999 Berlin
http://www.anagrambooks.com

Next Spring: An Occasional Series of Reviews – Athens, June 18
Essay by Elena Parpa
Edited by Laura Preston for Atlas Projectos
Next Spring is an occasional series of art reviews published in book form. Each new issue in the series is informed by a place where a member of the editorial collective is living, with invited authors given a year to write an in-depth piece of criticism focused on an expanded form of moving image. Published in English and the language of place.
Following on from the pilot issue related to Paris, the second book in the Next Spring series focuses on one film work, April  (2008/15) by Marianna Christofides. Authored by Cypriot art writer Elena Parpa, the text is a companion piece to the film that develops as another visual experience. Travelling to various locations in Southern Europe, Parpa traces the film’s spaces and revisions its critique of landscape and colonization, memory and reconnection.
Published by ATLAS Projectos in partnership with Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi
With the support of the Society of Friends of the House of Cyprus
2018 / Greek, English / Offset / 19 × 12.3 cm / 112 pages / Print-run 400 copies / ISBN 978-989-97141-9-9
Price: 12,00€
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Planned Obsolescence—A Retrospective
Henning Lundkvist
“It is true that I had accumulated a lot of cultural capital, but like so many others I had never found a way to convert it into cash”
With this first sentence of Planned Obsolescence—A Retrospective, the anonymous narrator—suspiciously similar to the book’s author—begins a rhythmical rant, a 100-plus-page long exercise in repetition, variation, and a severe lack of punctuation. In this monologue spoken by a voice who could equally be the narrator or the hordes of others in the same position, he makes up bad excuses for why his career as an artist and writer hasn’t taken off as planned; he explains why he prefers to work in a bar rather than produce new artworks; and he moans over the conversion of Europe’s picturesque cities into expensive theme parks for tourists due to low-cost flights and Airbnb. Finally, he dreams up a way to halt the extreme inflation of cultural capital and make the world a better place. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work.
Published by ATLAS Projectos
2018 / English / Offset / 11 x 18 cm / 112 pages / Print-run 500 copies / ISBN 978-989-97141-8-2
Price: 10,00€

 

planetes|installation shots

 

 

 

 

Socratis Socratous, Katalogos (Tower), 2016, dimensions variable; Andreas Angelidakis, Flowerpot, 2015, zCorp 450, 3D colour print, 37.5 x 26 x 21 cm; Andreas Angelidakis, Broken Doll, 2015, zCorp 450, 3D colour print, 18.5 x 24 x 18.5 cm; Banu Cennetoğlu, Scary Asian Men, detail, 2006, 12 lamda prints on aluminium, 50 x 75 cm each, 12 glass panels, star Gobo light projection; Lito Kattou, Feline 3, 2016, digital embroidery on Lycra textile, aluminium, dimensions variable. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Andreas Angelidakis, Flowerpot, 2015, zCorp 450, 3D colour print, 37.5 x 26 x 21 cm ; Andreas Angelidakis, Broken Doll, 2015, zCorp 450, 3D colour print, 18.5 x 24 x 18.5 cm ; Banu Cennetoğlu, Scary Asian Men, detail, 2006, 12 lamda prints on aluminium, 50 x 75 cm each, 12 glass panels, star Gobo light projection. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Rosa Barba, The Color Out of Space, 2015; 5 coloured glass filters, steel base; HD video, colour, sound, 36′; Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Rosa Barba, The Color Out of Space, 2015; 5 coloured glass filters, steel base; HD video, colour, sound, 36′; Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Marina Xenofontos, “XXXXXXXXX” or “WHO BLEW UP M-22? ARE WE NEXT?”, 2017, mural, acrylic, enamel, tipex. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Lefteris Tapas, Interstellar Thing, 2011, acrylic, tar on cut paper, 195 x 185 cm. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Ben Evans and Alkis Hadjiandreou, The ignorant tour guides (Pafos 2017), 2011-, a walking tour around the city of Pafos with the use of an audiovisual guide. Πλάνητες [Planetes], Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Marianna Christofides, April, 2008/2015, essay film, mini-dv/16mm, colour and black&white, sound, 23′ 29”, 4:3, concept, cinematography editing: Marianna Christofides, music: George G. Vasileiades, text: B. Bräunlich, M. Christofides, voice: Steve Hudson.  Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Marianna Christofides, Paphos Blue, 2015, white powder-coated base with linoleum surface (80x45x45cm); rotating plate, paper sculpture, microphone stand, torch, dimensions variable. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Marina Xenofontos, We Are Not Alone, We Are a Fly in the Milk of Infinity, 2016, diagrams drawn on paper by Christophoros Kyriakides; Nurtane Karagil, The Dawn and the Sunset Issue, 2017, Colour pencil on paper. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Old Powerhouse, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Haris Epaminonda, installation VOL. XXI, 2017, Untitled #01 a/q, 2017 three large stoneware jars buried underground, stones, broken tiles, water container, bamboo spoon. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Yorgos Petrou, Landmarks, I, II, III, 2016, digital prints on paper, copper plates, concrete, approximate dimensions: 132.5 x 12.5 x 10 cm. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Socratis Socratous, Katalogos, 2016, solidified modelling sand, dimensions variable. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Natalie Yiaxi, Metropolitan Cypriots, 2014, digital model of sound recording/recitation of all labels of anthropomorphic statues of the Cesnola Collection on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York milled in Thassos Marble (7 Axis Robotic Fabrication). Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Eleni Kamma, ΠΑΡΟΙΚΕΩ issue N02, 2017; a journal, a discussion, a walk. Research team: Eleana Alexandrou, Eleni Kamma, Elena Parpa, Evi Tselika. Journal with the participation of Dr Bonnie Honig, 12 pages, off-set printing, 42 x 29.7 cm, edition of 250. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Inal Bilsel, Tape Den, 2016, multimedia installation with four TV monitors, manipulated sound design for ambiance, manipulated photography and text. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

          

Savvas Christodoulides, Agapite mou Koumpare…, 2016, book.Table: 10 letters and two postcards sent by painter Christophoros Savva to painter Costas Economou.Window display: Archival material from Costas Economou’s archive. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Lefteris Olympios, 5 Portraits, 2010, oil on canvas, 80 x 60 cm each. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Re Aphrodite, Shrines / Habits in the kitchen, 2017, evolving installation. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Marianna Constanti, Olfactory souvenir, 2016-2017, olfactory installation. Essential oils, flowers, plants, spices. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos. Photo: Orestis Lambrou.

Efi Savvides, Garden, 2013, pots and plants, dimensions variable. Πλάνητες [Planetes], installation shot, Shelley Residence, Pafos.

planetes|parallel events programme

European Capital of Culture Pafos2017

Πλάνητες [Plánetes]

28 January- 28 February 2017

Old Powerhouse | 8 Vladimiros Heracleous Street, Pafos

Residence on Shelley Street | Ex residence Pafos Chief of Police

Participating artists: Andreas Angelidakis, Rosa Barba, Inal Bilsel, Andrea Bruno, Banu Cennetoğlu, Savvas Christodoulides, Marianna Christofides, Marianna Constanti, Elizabeth Hoak-Doering, Haris Epaminonda, Ben Evans and Alkis Hadjiandreou, Eleni Kamma, Nurtane Karagil, Lito Kattou, Lefteris Olympios, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Yorgos Petrou, Re Aphrodite, Efi Savvides, Socratis Socratous, Lefteris Tapas, Marina Xenofontos, Natalie Yiaxi

Curator: Elena Parpa

Supported by: IFA |Audi| Endress + Hausser| Department of Public Works |ο φιλελεύθερος

____________

PARALLEL EVENTS PROGRAMME

Saturday, 4 February | 12.oo  Shelley Residence | Shelley Street, Pafos

You are warmly invited to a discussion and a walk in the city of Pafos as part of ΠΑΡΟΙΚΕΩ issue No2.

ΠΑΡΟΙΚΕΩ issue N01 was written and edited by Eleni Kamma, Michiel Reynaert, Bibi Straatman, Pieter Van Bogaert. It was published on the occasion of the exhibition Oh, for some Amusement! at Netwerk, Aalst, Belgium, in 2015. It consisted of archival material on the political role of Karagoz’s shadow theatre in the former Ottoman Empire, photos and testimonies from the Gezi Park events in 2013 and an email correspondence between the authors, based in Belgium and the Netherlands.

ΠΑΡΟΙΚΕΩ issue N01 attempted to bridge the conceptual and temporal gap between the historical Karagoz and people speaking out today through the notion of Parrhesia, meaning the courage to speak one’s mind.

ΠΑΡΟΙΚΕΩ issue N02 concentrates on the city of Pafos and takes the form of an open call for a discussion and a walk in the city having as ‘guide’ the essay The Politics of Public Things: Neoliberalism and the Routine of Privatization by political theorist Dr. Bonnie Honig. Sharing the belief that walking maintains the viability of public space, the discussion as walk is imagined as invitation to re-think the networks, spaces and things -what Honig describes as ‘the holding environment’- of the city’s fabric.

ΠΑΡΟΙΚΕΩ issue N02 is produced in the context of Πλάνητες [Plánetes], a group art exhibition held at the Old Powerhouse and Shelley Street Residence, Pafos, between 28 January 2017- 28 February 2017, as part of the Inaugural Events Programme of Pafos2017, Cultural Capital of Europe.

Photo: Orestis Lambrou

____________

Saturday, 18 February 2017 |15:00 and 17:00 Shelley Residence | Shelley Street, Pafos

We invite you to Re Aphrodite’s kitchen at the Shelley Residence. Our guests are: Triona Martin, 15:00 and Stephanos Stephanides, around 17:00, to talk about his film Hail mother Kali! (1988). We’ll be watching and talking about the film at the same time.

We have been talking about ideas of the feminine, the shamanic, and its Cypriot otherness with Triona, a healer and a shaman, who lives in Paphos. These conversations are helping us to understand how patterns of ritual are reinterpreted in the way groups of people on the move enact cultural, spiritual and organizational-community belonging. Stephanos’ film allows us a glimpse into the worship of Goddess Kali, by indentured Indian workers in Guyana, South America. The reincarnation of the worship of the goddess by this same group of people has since then moved once again to New York, something Stephanos can talk to us more about.

http://reaphrodite.org/

Photo: Orestis Lambrou

____________

Saturday, 25 February 2017 | 11:00 am Costa and Elli Economou’s Residence | 1, Nikola Economou, 8574 Kissonerga

Book Presentation | Agapite mou koumpare… Twelve letters by Christophoros Savva to Costas Economou by Savvas Christodoulides

This publication negotiates the incomplete correspondence between Cypriot painters, Christophoros Savva and Costas Economou from the late 1950s, early 1960s. The book is by artist Savvas Christodoulides and constitutes a continuation of his research on the relationship between artists and text.

Book introduction by the Dean of the University of Frederick, Dr George Demosthenous.

For more information: +357 99 339733

Photo: Orestis Lambrou

planetes

Πλάνητες [Plánetes]

 Venues: Old Powerhouse | Shelley Street Residence

 Duration: 28 January 2017- 28 February 2017

Cultural Capital of Europe Pafos2017 | Inaugural Events Programme

Saturday, 28 January 2017 and Sunday, 29 January 2017, 10:00-13:00 | 16:00-19:00

Under the thematic strand Travellers of the World and in the context of the inaugural events programme organized for the opening of Open Air Factory, the Cultural Capital of Europe Pafos2017 presents the group art exhibition Πλάνητες [Plánetes] curated by Elena Parpa. The exhibition is hosted in two venues, at the Old Powerhouse and at the Shelley Street Residence, proposing an alternative route in navigating through the space of the city.

With etymological origins in the word πλάνης (plánis), πλάνητες (pronounced plánetes) in Greek means “wanderers”, itinerants in constant move who never give up their right to come and go at will. In its literal sense, therefore, the word may refer to the old figure of the drifter and the vagabond, the gypsy and the nomad. As observed, however, by French anthropologist Michel Agier, the present moment of refugee crisis and forced migration draws attention to a different aspect of the experience of wandering. For Agier, the wanderers of today are the stateless, the refugees and the displaced living under precarious conditions in liminal zones. Having experienced war and violence, they flee home for a safer future, only to experience rejection and wandering as a permanent condition trapped between borders and makeshift encampments.

Responding to such observations, the exhibition negotiates the notion of the contemporary pláneta without compromising the word’s cosmic connotations or divergence to other interpretations. Πλανήτες (pronounced planétes) in its most widespread use in the Greek language denotes celestial bodies in orbit in a constantly expanding network of parallel universes, where Earth and its assumed fate as the only living planet in the cosmos, instigates questions relating to the mystery of existence. Is it possible to continue the discussion on the fate of humankind with an eye on our position as inhabitants of a wandering planet in cosmic abyss?

The exhibition seeks to retain this double vantage point – of the world from the Earth and of the world from outer space – in the hope of a more creative, wider and critical perspective of the present. It does so in connection with the history of Pafos and in close rapport with the group of twenty-three participating artists and groups. Working in a range of media including photography, film and video, painting, installation and text, these artists negotiate the notion through different perspectives giving rise to the various manifestations of the contemporary πλάνητα – as migrant, refugee, traveller, gypsy, outsider or even as a mutative architectural structure and object that comes to us from distant times.

The exhibition is accompanied by a parallel events programme and a catalogue with the participation of Esra Plumer Bardak, Michelangelo Corsaro, Peter Eramian, Alkis Hadjiandreou, Henriette Huldisch, Gabriel Koureas, Chrystalleni Loizidou, Alexandra Manglis, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Maria Petrides, Kiriakos Spirou, Elena Stylianou, Evanthia Tselika and Evagoras Vanezis.

Participating Artists

Andreas Angelidakis, Rosa Barba, Inal Bilsel, Andrea Bruno, Banu Cennetoğlu, Savvas Christodoulides, Marianna Christofides, Marianna Constanti, Elizabeth Hoak-Doering, Haris Epaminonda, Ben Evans and Alkis Hadjiandreou, Eleni Kamma, Lito Kattou, Nurtane Karagil, Lefteris Olympios, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Yorgos Petrou, Re Aphrodite, Efi Savvides, Socratis Socratous, Lefteris Tapas, Marina Xenofontos, Natalie Yiaxi

Exhibition Design Support: http://www.projektbased.com

For more information : planetes2017.wordpresss.com | www.pafos2017.eu

Images upon request: planetes2017@gmail.com

Venues: Old Powerhouse, 8 Vladimiros Heracleous Street, Pafos | Residence on Shelley Street, ex residence of the Pafos Chief of Police

 Opening hours: 10:00-13:00 and 16:00-19:00, during the inaugural events programme on 28 & 29 January 2017

16:00-19:00 daily and by appointment: info@pafos2017.eu | T: +357 26932017

With the support of: ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen | Audi | Endress and Hauser| Department of Public Works

Media Sponsor: Phileleftheros

The Ground Beneath Our Feet

 

In Salman Rushdie’s novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), the narrator’s father is the ‘Digger of Bombay’. An architect and a local historian, he devotes himself to digging ‘in time as well as earth, down through meaning’, in search of the city’s ‘subterranean veracity’. He turns places, words, names, objects into excavation sites in trying to burrow away into the ‘layered uncertainty of the past’.

Rushdie’s poetic evocation of excavation as process that could potentially turn anything into ground for reflecting the discontinuities of the past and revisit anew that which has fallen through the cracks of history can serve as introduction to the way artists currently employ archaeology and its practices. Within the current interest in the way history is written, artists consider the archaeological act of digging either by turning archives into ground for excavation or by interrogating the lineage between historical truth and object.

In Cyprus, where archaeology has been central in cultural life since the early 20th century, the act of excavation has been linked with despoilment and the shaping of identity, establishment of hegemonic narratives and the search for roots. How do artists from Cyprus relate with archaeology and its practices? In what ways do they seek to engage with the politics and poetics of the archaeological find? Is their ‘turn’ to archaeology concerned with injecting institutional narratives with micro-histories, probing considerations on the speculative nature of historical accounts of the past?

These are several concerns examined within the context of The Ground Beneath Our Feet, a project developed by Christina Lambrou and Elena Parpa, which is based on a series of artists’ talks at the British Museum by Alev Adil, Haris Epaminonda, Maria Loizidou and Christodoulos Panayiotou.

The talks are followed by a discussion chaired by Dr. Gabriel Koureas, Senior Lecturer, Department of History of Art, School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London.

The event is organized by the Cyprus High Commission-Cultural Section and the British Museum under the auspices of the High Commissioner for the Republic of Cyprus.

Friday, 30 September 2016

The British Museum (BP Theatre),

at 6:30 pm.

πλάνητες / planetes

πλάνητες

27 January 2017 – 28 February 2017 

Πλάνητες (planites) is the title of the opening exhibition of Cultural Capital of Europe Pafos2017. With etymological origins in the word πλάνης (planis), πλάνητες in Greek literally mean the rootless and the itinerant in constant move. In the exhibition, the notion is extended and used as a cause for reflection on the present moment of relocation and displacement, migration and mobility using as reference point the city of Pafos, a place where historical narratives and people traverse in space and time. Harnessing both utopian and dystopian modes of existence, πλάνητες in Pafos can be explorers and travelers, tourists and Goddess Aphrodite, migrants looking for a better future and refugees fleeing war. In its most widespread use, however, the word πλάνητες means celestial bodies in orbit in a constantly expanding network of parallel universes, where Earth and its assumed fate as the only living planet in the cosmos, instigates questions relating to the mystery of existence.

Seeking to encourage a reflection on contemporary issues, the exhibition and the parallel events programme that accompanies it includes participants from the arts and theory practice whose work addresses key facets of the notion of πλάνητες either directly or indirectly in a range of formats that include film and photography, drawing and painting, installation and text. The exhibition is curated by Elena Parpa.

Venues and participating artists to be announced soon. 

For more information: elena.parpa@gmail.com

We are not alone – We are a fly in the milk of infinity

Christophoros Kyriakides was an architecture draughtsman and a self-proclaimed inventor. He lived in Nicosia (Cyprus) in the 1980s and drew fictitious vessels to orbit the Earth, conceived of board games that are unworkable, and wrote (incessantly) texts that are unreadable, mostly letters of complaint addressed to the government, usually of the USA. He had this world made up on paper and it was a world of utopian space-travel, ambitious mathematical and geometrical schemes, but also of  failures and dead-ends, which Marina Xenophontos happened to discover by chance years after his death. She compiled and organized and, basically, rescued his imaginary cosmos from oblivion into what is now usually referred to as the ‘Kyriakides archive’.  She is also establishing a relationship with his ‘alternative forms of knowledge’ through sculpture, which we saw in Neoterismoi Toumazou (www.neoterismoi.com) first, and, then, most recently at AyeBaDome (at Thkio Ppalies). Xenophontos has also put the material together in a book (We are not alone – We are a fly in the milk of infinity), an interesting feat which sort of brings back the old argument that private archives are defined by the desire to reconnect with a misplaced past and to make up for the failed visions in art and life.

 

Andrea Bruno

Andrea Bruno was invited to design a museum to house the archaeological findings at Maa-Palaiokastro (see previous post) in the late 1980s. He envisioned instead an empty space, “a place for reflection and memory, a pause before reaching the sea”.  He explained his vision thus: “the strong naturalistic character of the site and its uncontaminated simplicity convinced me that the construction of a building in that context would be inappropriate […] The Mediterranean shrub, the rocks, the colours of the sky and the sea: these are the values to be saved”. The idea of approaching nature as an archaeological find was one of the interesting aspects of his talk at Point Centre for Contemporary Art in the context of Haris Epaminonda’s Chapters (2013).

 

people of the sea

 

Looking for πλάνητες (planites) and beginning from the Museum of Nothing of Andrea Bruno at Maa-Palaiokastro  (Pafos).

The site is where landless ‘wanderers’ of Mycenaean descent, belonging to the ‘People of the Sea’, reached the shores of the island circa 1200 B.C. searching for a home. They built a settlement, which they fortified  with  walls, known as Cyclopean. The Greek colonization of the island ensued.