Ineffable Islands
eight films from Cyprus
July 3, 2021 from 20:00 – 22:00
At space52, Athens
Participating Artists: Haris Epaminonda, Rahme Veziroğlu, Marios Lizides, Marina Xenofontos, Argyro Nicolaou, Alexandros Pissourios, Dimitris Chimonas, Maria Anastassiou
Curated by Argyro Nicolaou
_________
“The meaning of most words, not only island, seem to dissipate a bit around the edges.”
Marc Shell, Islandology (2014)
Islands are hard to separate from their edges. So hard that they become an edge, a boundary; a porous skin of definition constantly deferred and dissipated.
Few places have suffered the force of (re)definition as violently as the island of Cyprus. In just over a century, Cyprus went from being a British colony to an independent state; from an occupied and ethnically divided country to a Member State of the EU and the Eurozone.
The artists featured in this program capture the ineffable realities of an inevitably varied, multiple, and often contradictory, Cypriot experience. They expand that experience beyond the boundaries of the island itself, to include a search for alternative definitions and forms; a keen sense of the overdetermined nature of identity and history; a queering of narratives and appearances; and a diasporic impulse.
Whether dealing directly with Cypriot subjects or tackling issues (from) elsewhere; using found images, 16mm, Super8 or video; the films featured in this program capture the breadth of moving image practices by Cypriot artists working locally and internationally today, pointing to the expansive possibilities of a small and ‘troubled’ place with an outsize power of challenging the certainty of meaning.
The screening night is the second public program developed in the framework of “Never Cross the Same River Twice,” curated by Kisito Assangni and Ariana Kalliga, on view at space52 from June 12 – September 25, 2021. The exhibition is supported by the NEON Organization and the Polyeco Contemporary Art Initiative (PCAI).
