Artists from across the island met in one exhibition, moving a further step towards a unique Cypriot identity and challenging existing nationalist narratives.
Eleven young people covered a trail together, mixing their different stories, their own genesis, their family narratives. Creating space to connect each other, participants had the opportunity to reflect on critical challenges within their communities and express alternative perspectives that embrace positive social change.
Over a period of months, these eleven artists have sought to confront the collective, universal yet opposing, conflict narratives that are unconsciously imposed on daily life. The residency exhibition is part of the “Falling Walls: Looking through conflict narratives” project of Visual Voices.
The eleven artists are: Christina Christofi, Dize Kükrer, Fetine Sel Tuzel, Hayal Gezer, Ioanna Neophytou, Irene Kattou, Lenia Georgiou, Nurtane Karagil, Panayotis Achniotis, Stephanie Lemesianou, Zoe Polycarpou
You can browse the digital catalogue of Crossing 24/31: I always confuse south to north, north to south.
The Visual Voices website has a page about Crossing 24/31: I always confuse south to north, north to south.
Visual Voices
Goethe-Institut Zypern, Nicosia
Exhibition
Have a good journey, exploring the journey of another that we hope becomes your own.
Opening
Works
The Silent Dream
Christina Christofi
The colours and textures can be aesthetically appealing, but at the same time horrifically disturbing.
Proposition #3
Dize Kükrer
Living in Cyprus, you see roads suddenly blocked by a wall, neighbourhoods ending abruptly and boundaries appearing in the middle of a building.
Which is Which?
Fetine Sel Tuzel
Do you understand a person’s identity? If they are from the North or the South of Cyprus?
45o
Hayal Gezer
Cities are made of experience lived, of an intricate network of human connection weaved, and of shared memories.
dentity Exhaustion (or there is no place left for white and yellow)
Ioanna Neophytou
The public space of the island on both sides is saturated from multiple flags which exhale a disordered nationalist identity, most often related to another country than Cyprus.
(M)othered
Irene Kattou
Cyprus, as a new postcolonial nation, is a historically a male constructed space, narrated into modern self-consciousness by male leaders, activists and writers, in which women are often cast as the bearers of tradition through motherhood.
Fief*
Lenia Georgiou
For thirty years and to this days, the Roccas Bastion was/is the only place where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots could/can meet, see each other, talk to each other.
[View the full article about Fief*]
Questionnaire – for all human beings on the earth
Nurtane Karagil
This is my home where my father has trees, and my friends buried their dreams. It is such a place that the habitat itself is physically displaced by a giant flag.
BARBED WIRE
Panayotis Achniotis
A friend of mine once said when visiting Cyprus and witnessing how often barbed wire is present in places other that the Green Line (gardens, hen houses, balconies): «your really do love barbed wire here, eh».
Coastline, Unbroken
Zoe Polycarpou
A collection of photos taken over the span of 630km, circumventing the political border of Cyprus to instead explore its natural border: the coastline.
